Private events

Analyse a run no event covers, from a photo of the map you ran on.

A training on your own, a map from an old race, a run nobody published an event for: a private event gives it the same analysis as a race. Take a photo of the map you ran on. Routster places the photo on the ground from your run, finds the control circles, the start and the finish, and you check them before analysing. Only you can see a private event.

In short

Step 1. Connect your watch

Under Profile, connect your watch once, and your runs come in by themselves.

Step 2. Go to My Analyses

Your runs that no event picked up are listed under Runs without an event.

Step 3. Create a private event

Press Create private event on the run, photograph the map, check the placement and the controls, and press Save and analyse.

Connect your watch

The run is what Routster places the photo from, so start with a run that is already in Routster. Connect your watch under Profile:

Your device	How to connect
Polar	Connect Polar Flow under Profile
Suunto	Connect Suunto under Profile
Garmin, Coros and others	Connect the watch to Intervals.icu, then Intervals.icu to Routster

Uploading your GPX has every route in, step by step. Keep automatic import on in your profile, or new runs will not appear in My Analyses.

Create the event

Step 1. Find the run in My Analyses

Open My Analyses. Under Runs without an event, find the run and press Create private event. The run is loaded first, and the event is named after its date; you can rename it.

Step 2. Add a photo of the map

Drop a JPG or PNG of the map. Routster reads it for 10 to 20 seconds, then shows its proposed placement. An OCAD file or a PDF of the map works too.

Step 3. Check the placement

Roads, paths, buildings and water from OpenStreetMap are drawn over the photo, with your track. If they line up, press Use this alignment. If part of the map is off, for instance around a fold, use Adjust nearby and drag a road or building onto the photo; Adjust whole map moves, turns and scales all of it. Georeference manually lets you match landmarks yourself instead.

Step 4. Check the course

The detected controls, start and finish are already in the course. Their order follows your track, so check it: move a control that sits wrong, insert one that was missed, remove one that is not a control, and place the start or finish if they are missing. Then tick the box to confirm you have checked it. You can also skip the course.

Step 5. Save and analyse

The run is already attached. Press Save and analyse.

How the photo is placed

Routster georeferences the photo the way you would by hand, with landmarks spread over the whole sheet. It takes every road, path and building from OpenStreetMap near your run and looks for the position, scale and rotation where they fall on the map's printed lines. The size of the control circles tells it the map's scale. It then corrects small local distortions, such as a sheet that does not lie flat.

A placement is only proposed when the match is clearly better than any other and most of your run lies on the photo. Otherwise you are told that automatic alignment is unavailable for this photo, and you match landmarks yourself. The detected controls are kept either way.

What the control detection finds

What	Found	Note
Control circles	Yes, also in shadow	Up to 100; the printed numbers are not read
Start triangle	When the photo was placed	Searched along the start of your track
Finish double circle	When the photo was placed	Searched along the end of your track
Control order	Suggested	From the order your track passed them

The suggested order is often wrong on a course with loops, a control you visited twice, or one you missed. That is why the course has to be confirmed before you continue.

A photo that works

The whole area you ran in, inside the frame.
The map as flat as you can get it, photographed from straight above.
Even light, without your own shadow or a reflection across it.
Nothing on top of the map: no compass, fingers or plastic folder edges.

Hard folds, a map with few roads and paths, or an area OpenStreetMap has not mapped can still need Adjust nearby or a manual fit.

Starting without a run

New private event on My Analyses starts without a run, and you upload the GPX at the end. The photo is then not placed for you, because there is no track to place it from yet: you georeference it by hand, and the controls are still detected.

What you get

With a course you get the full analysis: legs, split times from your track, route choice and mistakes. Without one you get the track on the map, Replay, and the pace, heart rate and elevation charts.

A private event never shows up among the events, and it never claims your next run. Open Details on the analysis to rename or delete it. To change the placement later, use Adjust map alignment.

Limits

You can have a photo read five times an hour and twenty times a day; a photo that could not be placed counts too. Reading photos costs no AI credits. When the allowance is used up, you can still georeference by hand.