How adaptive targets and the ghost work

Your adaptive targets

A rally has one fixed overall goal: the full distance of the route. Your daily target is not a fixed number. It is worked out fresh each day so the goal stays in reach however your week goes. There are really two targets, and it is worth knowing both.

The rally target: smooth and forgiving

The first target simply spreads the whole rally across the time you have left:

Rally target = distance remaining ÷ days remaining in the rally

Because it divides by every day left, it moves gently. Have a quiet day and tomorrow's number ticks up a little; get ahead and it eases off. This is what lets you recover from a missed day without the finish line ever moving.

Worked example. A 100 km rally over 10 days starts at 10 km a day. Miss day one and 100 km is left over 9 days, so the target becomes about 11.1 km. Do a big 25 km on day two and 75 km is left over 8 days, so it drops to about 9.4 km. The finish line never moved.

The weekly target: tighter, and swings harder

Route Rally also sets a goal for the current week: the share of the rally this week should cover, divided by the days left in the week. Because a week is short, this number moves far more sharply. Miss a day early in the week and the few days left have to absorb it, so the weekly target can jump; a new week then resets it. The weekly target keeps you honest day to day, while the rally target keeps the whole thing achievable.

Two ways to see them

The same two targets appear in two places: a pair of gauges that show where you stand today and this week, and a timeline that plots them across the whole rally. They are the same numbers, shown differently.

Today and this week: the gauges. The widget shows two gauges, one for each target: a Daily gauge for the smooth rally target and a Weekly gauge for the tighter weekly one. Each is a ring you read the same way:

• The coloured arc is how far you have come. Its colour shifts from red through amber to green as you close in, so it is rarely a fixed colour.
• The grey arc is the distance still left to that target.
• The small green arc on the Weekly gauge marks today's slice of the weekly target, where you are aiming to reach.

The number in the middle is the percentage complete. Below each ring, a calendar arrow shows how that target shifted for next time.

One thing that catches people out. The colour on that target-change figure follows your effort, not the number. If the target went up it shows red, because a higher target means you slipped a little. If it went down it shows green, because you got ahead. So red is not "your target is high", it is "you have some catching up to do".

Over time: the timeline. The timeline shows everything at once. The bars are the distance you logged each day, the solid line is your current weekly target, and the dashed line is the smoother rally target. Each logged day is tagged Rally and Week depending on which targets it met.

Are you ahead or behind? Meet the ghost

The ghost is a steady pacer. It shows where you would be right now if you had covered the same distance every single day from the start, with no quiet days and no big pushes. It is the straight, even line through the rally.

Comparing your real distance with the ghost is how Route Rally decides whether you are ahead or behind. The gap is simply your distance minus the ghost's distance.

• Ahead: you are in front of the ghost.
• On track: level with the ghost, within a small margin.
• Behind: the ghost is in front of you.

"On track" is a small tolerance band, not an exact tie, so being a few hundred metres either side of the ghost still counts as level.

Reading the progress chart

The progress chart plots two lines over the rally. Your line is your cumulative distance, with a point on each day you logged an activity. The ghost line is that steady pacer, running straight from start to finish.

• The shaded area between the lines is green when you are ahead of the ghost and red when you are behind.
• A marker shows today, so you can see your position at a glance.
• Distances use your preferred units; everything is stored in metres and converted for display.

Common questions

Why did my daily target go up?

Because you fell a little behind the pace. A target is distance left divided by days left, so when you cover less than the target on a day the rest carries over and the next number rises to keep the goal in reach.

Why does my weekly target swing more than the rally one?

Because it divides by the days left in the current week, not the whole rally. A week is short, so a single missed day is spread over only a few remaining days and the weekly target can jump sharply. The rally target divides by every day left, so it moves much more gently. A new week resets the weekly figure.

What does the ghost actually represent?

A perfectly even pace: the same distance every day from start to finish. It is the reference Route Rally compares you against to tell you whether you are ahead or behind, not another competitor.

What does "on track" mean?

You are level with the ghost, within a small margin of a few hundred metres. You do not have to be exactly on the line to count as on track.

Do rest days hurt my rally?

No. A quiet day just nudges the following targets up a touch. The overall goal never changes, and the adaptive target is designed so you can recover by spreading the distance across the days you have left.

Why is a higher target shown in red?

The colour reflects your progress, not the size of the number. A target that rose means you slipped behind, so it shows red. A target that fell means you got ahead, so it shows green.