How to visualize running routes using Python

Motivation

When I quit smoking 2.5 years ago I decided to start running.

To track the progress I chose among several apps, and after using Runkeeper for a while I switched to Strava.
When enough data accumulated I became interested in how the routes from multiple applications will be displayed on the map.
Given that after a 1 year break without running I began to use Nike Run Club, the issue of a unified approach became even more relevant.

Research

I found that all 3 applications have the ability to export data to GPX format, which you can get using their own or third-party services.

Also I was inspired by this awesome article:
“How tracking apps analyse your GPS data: a hands-on tutorial in Python”

Ultimately I decided to find a simple interactive visualization solution which could also be easily used by other people.

Solution

I’ve prepared repository with the script, which can be used from console.
Installation instructions and usage example are in README.md file in the repository.

Although I used only latitude and longitude for visualization, also elevation in meters and date/time in UTC format are available and parsed by script for possible further analysis steps.

Example

I will provide the visualization example of my 229 runs with a total distance of 1057 km which was created by this script:

• Data from all 3 applications (Runkeeper, Strava, Nike Run Club) is used
• Each color - one route
• You can zoom in/out and drag the map
• Some routes have weird geometry, perhaps there was a problem with GPS tracking in those days, but I decided to keep it “as is”