Blog2020 ≫ I can automate my running related posts even further...

When I've done a run it gets posted up here automatically, see here for example. Any type of activity on my fitness tracking watch goes there, it used to do it from Fitbit and now does it from my Garmin. I'm doing this automation in a couple of different ways, my first one is through some code that I wrote1 which polls Fitbit / Garmin and if it finds a new thing then update my content here. There's another way though where I can use https://ifttt.com to connect up my accounts. This has the advantage that I don't need to worry about writing the code to join the things together, I just say "if there's something new on Strava, then post it on Twitter" etc.

There's a slight disadvantage that only a limited set of the data is available, but it's a reasonable pay off. For example it doesn't post the actual time spent running, it posts the time between me hitting the start button and hitting the stop button. It will not take into account me forgetting to hit the stop button after finishing a parkrun for example, and it did not take into account me pausing the timer when I stopped in Waitrose for a wee the other day...

My new change is to use this "event" and have ifttt.com post it to one of my computers. This means I can take this data and mangle it a bit. What I want is to identify if a run was probably a parkrun, and if so automate my "I just done a parkrun and my time was this". So instead of posting it straight off somewhere, I can say "if the distance was approximately 5k, and the day is Saturday, and it's the morning, only then post a message saying SMASHED IT to my friends' Slack channel". OK, this is not a great use of computer skills, but I think it's fun.

I think I can have it spot if I took a picture for that event, then update my profile picture with that photo I took at the event too. Will give this a go. Then I can auto blog post too, so we can move on from "no-one is reading this" to "no-one is reading this AND no-one is writing this", now that is progress.

Am I in danger of trying to automate all of my communication with my friends and family, and programming them out of my life?

5k: Five km, just over three miles in old money.

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Paul Clarke's weblog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone. Wed and dad to 2, I am a full stack web developr, and I do mostly javascript / nodejs, some ruby, python, php ect ect. I like pubs, parkrun, eating, home-automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and time travel.