Picking a ghost at the start meant scrolling a list of outings, one line per outing, sorted by distance. A loop run fourteen times from the same car park took up the first fourteen lines, and the list grew with every outing. There was also no place to see the outings on one trace together, how they progressed, and two of them side by side.

What a trail is

A trail is your timed outings on the same trace: the same distance, within 5%, started less than 2 km from the same point. It is the rule of the Ghost block in the recap.

At the start: you pick your ghost by trail

At the Ghost step of the start:

The suggestion never replaces a choice: a ghost you picked, or "No ghost", stays picked.

In the history: the Trails tab

The history now has two tabs, Outings and Trails. The second groups your timed outings by trail: nearest first, or most run, or most recent. Each trail has its own page:

With two outings, the head to head puts the more recent against the older one, as against a ghost. It gives the gap at the finish, its curve kilometre by kilometre (above zero, you are behind; below, ahead) and the five sections. When the two outings are not the same length, it also gives the gap at equal distance, over the shorter one: the gap at the finish counts the extra metres. It also shows, for each outing, the temperature, the dogs, the activity and the stops on that day.

Three or four outings

Tick up to four. Each outing is then read against a reference: by default the fastest of the ticked outings — your record, if it is one of them. Tap another outing in the legend (on the website, "Make it the reference") to use it instead, with two outings as well. The legend gives each outing's gap at the finish; the gap curve draws one line per outing, each with its own colour and stroke (solid, dashed, dotted); sections, conditions and team have one column per outing.

Each day's team

Under the conditions, the Team block first says what sets the outings apart, dog by dog: "Togo: wheel on Sep 6, lead on Sep 2" (a start position compared with the reference's), "Loup: only on Sep 2", or, for a dog who missed one outing in three, "Nika: not on Sep 23". Then it draws each day's team as it stood at the start, with what changed on the way — a dog moved to lead at km 3.4, a dog dropped. When both starts were the same, it says so: "Same team at the start".

On the gap curve, a line marks each km where the team changed, in the colour of the outing concerned. A sentence underneath says it plainly: these lines do not say what made the gap.

Positions come from the team snapshot taken at the start, when you go through the pre-start steps. An outing started without them, resumed after a forced stop or entered by hand has none: the block says "positions not recorded" and only shows the dogs who ran.

From an outing's recap, the "See the N outings on this trail" link, under the Ghost block, opens the trail's page.

Name a trail, pin an outing

On the trail's page, "Name" gives the trail a name ("Lake loop"): it replaces "6.0 km trail" in the list, on the page, in the head to head and at the start. "Clear the name" removes it.

An outing's flag pins it: at the next start on this trail, the Ghost step suggests it, "your pinned outing", instead of your last outing. A pin only applies to the outing's activity: a record pinned on the quad is suggested on quad days, and on a canicross day the suggestion stays your last outing on foot. Pinning another outing of the same activity replaces the previous one; tapping the flag again removes it.

The kennel's owner and mushers name and pin; other members see the name and the "pinned" badge.

On the website

The traces page has the same two views at the top, Outings and Trails. A trail's page, the head to head, "Name" and the flag are the phone's, and what is set on one side shows on the other. An outing's page shows its ghost and the link to its trail.

What others see

The trails themselves are saved nowhere: the phone and the website work them out from the kennel's outings, with the same rule. Only the name and the pin are saved, and they stay within the kennel: its members find them on their phones and on the website, nobody else sees them. An outing's public link shows neither its trails, nor their name, nor any head to head.

What it does not do

Five choices made against the obvious

One line per trail, not one per outing. A history usually lists outings, and so did the start step. But a list that grows with every outing cannot be read standing up, with gloves on. Grouped by trail, it stays short, and the outing you want is one tap away.

Your last outing suggested, not your record. The record is the ghost you think of first. But a winter record on hard snow, raced in September, is a ghost that pulls away from the first kilometre. Your last outing says where the team is today. The record stays one tap away — and if it is the one you want to race every time, you pin it.

Conditions next to the gap, not in the calculation. A gap "corrected for heat" would be tempting. But no model corrects a time for heat here, and a corrected figure would look right without being right. You see the temperature, the dogs and the stops, and you judge.

With two outings the older one, from three the fastest. A single rule for the reference would have been simpler. But with two outings the question is almost always "am I improving?", and the older one answers it. With three or four you are looking for what separates the runs from the best one, and the fastest answers that. Either way, one tap picks another.

A line on the curve, not an explanation. Seeing the curve drop right after a team change invites the conclusion that the change paid off. But that same kilometre is also a downhill, harder snow, a dog finally finding its rhythm. The head to head shows where the team changed, next to the gap, and leaves the judgement to you — the same rule as for the conditions.