Running And Cycling Exercise Calculator Field Help

Most Fields Don't Require Any Help.

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Notes On The Input Requested By The Exercise Calculator

There appears to be a lot questions, that's because there are.

I think that most fields are self explanatory.

But there are a few fields that are shown in italics, these are fields where the calculation will be a better match for you personally if you fill them in. However it is very likely that you will not know the value that is being asked for.

These fields can be left blank and the calculator will calculate a value and use that, updating the field with this value after the calculation is complete.

The calculator always starts its run at 00:00 on Day 1 rather than starting at the current time on today's date.

This allows the time and day fields for eating and exercise to be independent of the current date and time. So 07:00 on Day 1 will always be 7 hours into the calculation period.

If you start to take this calculator seriously you can define your own food items and there is the Advanced Food Editor that allows you to use free text as well as copy and paste. This does allow for the possibility of errors but it is so much more user friendly than droplists and buttons.

My Details
Field	Usage
Sex	No help deemed necessary.
Age	No help deemed necessary.
Height	No help deemed necessary.
Weight	No help deemed necessary.
Basal Metabolic Rate	If you know this is it should be entered as kilocalories per minute and is typically around 1-2. As most people don't know this it can be left blank and one will be calculated using a standard formula.
Background Miles Walked (daily)	This is the number of miles that you walk as part of other activities such as walking around the office or getting to the bus stop, rather than as exercise. For most people this will not be that large, 1-3 miles but this could use close on 300 kilocalories per day.

Add Food
Field	Usage
Eat Time Day hh:mm	The simulation's time and day that the food is going to be eaten at, hours should be in 24 hour clock format, 1pm = 13.
Standard Meals, Tins & Pies, Fruit & Veg, Snacks, Alcohol, Drinks/Gels	A convenient way to get started a collection of foods items that allow you to build a day's food intake quickly but they lack the ability to specify various nutritional elements to get a perfect match.
I want to create my own food item	Opens a new form that explains how to create a food item, this allows for a much wider range of food and drink to be added to the diet than the list boxes allow
Advanced Food Editor	A free text area that allows creating the food items to be eaten using copying and pasting and text editing making creating a full list of food for multiple days easier.

Editable Add To The Food To Be Eaten
Field	Usage
Standard Food Definitions	A range of food definitions that can be selected and then copied into the definitions to add text area where they can be edited.
Definitions To Add	The food items that you want to include in the calculation. Once you have become familiar with both the provided food definitions and creating your own items this text area is a fast way of building a realistic diet.

Cycling
Field	Usage
Max Speed For 5 Minutes	The maximum speed that you can sustain for 5 minutes on a flat and smooth road surface with minimal headwind.
Average Speed For A 60 Minute Ride	The average speed that you sustain for a 60 minute ride on a fairly flat and windless ride. The first two questions are used by the calculator to estimate fitness, if you don't know the answers then you can guess but an accurate answer is better.
Bike Type	The rolling resistance of tyres has a noticeable effect on the amount of power needed to ride at any particular speed. Road Bike Racer is intended for bikes with 23-28mm tyres and Tourer for wider tyres. If you are riding a bike type not specified here Hybrid will be a decent match.
Riding Position	Modern road bikes come in between 7kg and 12kg with older non alloy steel bikes a couple of kg more, very cheap bikes can weigh as much as 20kg.
Bike & Luggage Weight (kg)	Modern road bikes come in between 7kg and 12kg with older non alloy steel bikes a couple of kg more, very cheap bikes can weigh as much as 20kg.
Start Ride	The day number and time in the simulation that the ride starts at, hours should be in 24 hour clock format, 1pm = 13.
Riding Time (Minutes)	How long the ride lasted for.
Average Ride Speed (mph)	If you have no idea then somewhere between 12mph which is long distance touring speed and 16mph which is reasonably cycling fit
Watts	If you know what your average power for the ride was then you can enter it here and this value will be used instead of a calculated one. For clarity, riding at 20mph is around 200 watts on a road bike.
Adjust Recovery VO2	In order to calculate the energy cost of the exercise, the calculator tries to estimate the percentage of VO₂Max that this ride represents. This option allows you to specifiy an ajustment to this calculation. The main reason for allowing this adjustment is that the calculation has a large margin of error as it is such a personal calculation.

Running
Field	Usage
Best Time For 1 Mile	The shortest time in which you can run one mile in on a flat and smooth road surface with minimal headwind.
Best Time For A 5 Kilometre Run (3.125 miles)	The shortest time in which you can run five kilometres in on a flat and smooth road surface with minimal headwind. The first two questions are used by the calculator to estimate fitness, if you don't know the answers then you can guess but an accurate answer is better.
Start RunThe day number and time in the simulation that the run starts at, hours should be in 24 hour clock format, 1pm =	The day number and time in the simulation that the run starts at, hours should be in 24 hour clock format, 1pm = 13
Running Time (Minutes)	Duration of the run.
Average Run Speed (mph)	Average speed for the run.
Adjust Recovery VO2	In order to calculate the energy cost of the exercise, the calculator tries to estimate the percentage of VO₂ Max that this ride represents. This option allows you to specifiy an ajustment to this calculation. The main reason for allowing this adjustment is that the calculation has a large margin of error as it is such a personal calculation.

Calculator Options
Field	Usage
Calculation Rate	The period for which the calculator should show results for. 15 Minutes is intended for the most detailed results and 60 minutes is a good compromise between details and a large result set.
Calculation Days	The number of days that you want the calculation to run for. One day is useful for getting the feel and 5 days is useful to see bigger changes in the number and will you bonk/hit the wall on the Friday commute.
Muscular Efficiency	Normally you would select Typical, the other options exist for "playing" as they can alter the results significantly. However almost nobody knows their muscular Efficiency as it can only be calculated under very controlled circumstances and it changes between exercise types.
Brief Output	Reduces the details show on the calculation, this makes the report more concise and is useful when you know what to expect. Very Brief gives one line per time period (15/30/60) minutes and is only useful when you really know what you are looking at.
Hide Night	Anything that happens after 23:00 and before 06:00 is not shown, during this time the report may just be reporting basal metabolic usage and be a waste of screen space.
Disable BMR	Disables the Basal Metabolic Rate Calculation. This is intended to be used in conjuction with exercise to simplify the effects of exercise on weight loss. The BMR increase as a result of exercise recovery is not disabled.

Save Details
Field	Usage
Password	A basic password, anything you like as long as it as least 5 characters long
Confirm Password	Confirmation of the password. When the details of the simulation for later recovery, no user name is collected and after the details are saved you will be given a numeric reference to recover it. As the data saved contains no personal data it is not covered by the GDPR and these details will be purged quite frequently, exactly what frequently means is quite flexible but it could easily mean data that is more than a few weeks old.

Recover Details
Field	Usage
Password	The password that was used when the data was saved.
Saved As Reference Number	The reference number that was given after the data was saved.

Input Field Help For The Exercise Calculator.

Most Fields Don't Require Any Help.

Notes On The Input Requested By The Exercise Calculator