I have worked on Klivet for quite some time. I have been buried deep in the process of getting the right feel when using the app. All of that came to a head this weekend, in my first real race with it. A half marathon in Uppsala.
It was really tough. It was also the test that mattered.
What held
Klivet predicted my lactate threshold heart rate correctly. During the race it showed me, at a glance, where my heart rate was too high, and I eased off. Maybe I will add a coach nudge for that. More on that below.
The projected race time was dead on.
I finished within twenty seconds of the prognosis. That is the number I care about most this month. A prediction is only worth something if it survives a hard day.
It was also amazing to see my family meet me at the finish line. Brilliant week.
What broke
Two things, both honest. Both fixed within the week.
- Finishing a run on the watch took many tapsOn a long run the watch was redrawing the live map and every page each second. Now it draws only what is on screen, and the wrist tells the phone the run is over.
- A fading half was called a negative splitA negative split means a faster second half. Klivet counted the short final partial split and got it wrong. It now compares full kilometres only, and the badges it had wrongly awarded are cleaned up.
What Strava taught us
Presentation. There is a new Progress page with ten tiles. Each one says what the number means and compares it to something. For example: Fitness 32 — your training load over the last six weeks. One tap opens the detail. It never throws you into another part of the app.
Stats went from seven tabs to three: Progress, Readiness and Wins. A wall of tabs made people feel lost. Key information and staying interested beat a complete, fully informed user.
- A pace curve, in the spirit of Intervals.icu: your best so far at every distance, next to the race pace you could hold today.
- Route records for the routes you run often.
- Year to date against last year.
- A personal heatmap under Wins: every route you have run on one map, with privacy zones applied to every line.
The end of a plan became a presentation too. The finished plan, the finished run and the setup screens now share the treatment of the Week tab, laid out on a golden ratio.
Where this leaves it
A new TestFlight build, number 43, went out with all of it.
Next is the coach nudge from the race. When your heart rate runs too high mid-race, the coach should say so, once, and then be quiet. I saw it on the screen and eased off. I would rather it said it.
Klivet reads your training and your recovery signals and gives you a readiness estimate and a race projection. They are estimates, not a diagnosis or a promise. One race is one race.