Dolomites Runcation · Jul 2026

Terrain & effort

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Where the time went

Time in each elevation × slope zone

Every second of moving time, binned by how high you were and how steep the ground was. Each row is a slope category (warm = climbing, cool = descending); the brighter the cell, the more time you spent there. Climbs sit up top, descents below; low elevation on the left, high on the right. Hover any cell.

each row’s hue = its slope · brightness = share of that day’s run:less
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Getting stronger

Pace by slope, day over day

Your pace in each slope category, one line per day — lower is faster. Terrain is held constant across the x-axis, so a line dropping over the days means real fitness, not an easier route. Watch the climb side.

How hard it felt

Heart rate by slope, day over day

Average heart rate in each slope category — higher is harder. Read it alongside the pace chart: a day that’s faster and lower here is free fitness; faster but higher means you paid for it in effort.

The proof

Heart rate vs. speed, on runnable terrain

The tell for the Day-4 mystery. On flat & gently-descending ground (slope held constant), this is your HR at each running speed. Days 1–3 rise with speed, as they should. Day 4 sits ~15 bpm above them at every speed — same ground, same pace, same cadence, more heartbeats. That’s a whole-body offset (fatigue + heat), not something you did with your legs.

Cardiac cost

Heartbeats per 100 m, by slope

Heart rate and pace combined into one number — how many heartbeats it took to cover 100 m of each slope (avg HR × pace). Lower is more efficient. On a given slope, a day sitting lower spent fewer beats for the same ground — the cleanest fitness signal, since it cancels out both terrain and how hard you pushed.

Turnover

Cadence by slope

Steps per minute in each slope category. Your turnover is a metronome — near-identical across days for a given slope. The one exception is Day 4’s climbs, where cadence jumps: you were jogging gradients the earlier days power-hiked.

Stride

Stride length by slope

The other half of speed (speed = cadence × stride). Since cadence barely moved, the faster you went the longer your stride opened up — clearest on Day 4’s descents, where you reached over the ground rather than just turning your feet over quicker.

Form

Running dynamics, day by day

Two form-quality metrics Garmin records while running: ground-contact time (how long each foot stays down) and vertical oscillation (how much you bounce). Lower is generally springier, more economical running — and both trended down across the trip.

Terrain mix

How each day’s effort was spent

Share of moving time in each slope category. Cool = descending, warm = climbing. Day 2 was the big climbing day; Day 4 leaned downhill.

Gait mix

Running vs. hiking

Your moving time split by ground speed: slow hiking (slower than ~14 min/km), fast/power hiking (9–14), running (5:45–9), and fast running (quicker than 5:45 min/km). Standing-around time is excluded. Day 4 was mostly running; Day 2 was a hiking wall.