How hard can it be to calculate how much uphill you've run?

Turns out, a lot harder than running uphill.

I've spent the last few days working on something that sounds incredibly simple: elevation gain.

You go for a run. You climb a few hills. Your watch shows how many meters you've climbed.

Simple, right?

Well… not quite.

Take the exact same running activity and upload it to different platforms. Garmin might give you one number. Strava might give you another. And a third platform might have its own opinion.

Same run. Same hills. Different results.

So who's right?

That's the question I've been trying to figure out while building Race Day Coach.

What I originally thought would be a relatively straightforward feature has turned into days of testing, comparing results, adjusting calculations, and testing everything all over again.

Just when you think you've figured it out, another running route comes along and challenges your logic.

A flat run is one thing. Rolling hills are another. And then you have longer climbs, different terrain, and GPS data that doesn't always tell the whole story.

The goal isn't to make Race Day Coach show the same numbers as every other platform.

It's to build a system that produces results I can actually trust.

And sometimes that means spending several days on something most people will never even think about.

That's probably one of the biggest lessons I'm learning while building this platform.

Something that looks simple on the screen can be incredibly complicated behind the scenes.

Still testing. Still learning. Still improving.

And apparently, even when I'm sitting at my computer, I'm spending a lot of time dealing with uphill battles.