Runtastic now invites you to beat your previous times, and shows your runs on Street View too

Perennially popular GPS fitness-tracking app Runtastic has introduced a handful of interesting new features to its mobile apps.

Perhaps one of the more interesting nuggets is the ‘Challenge a Run’ feature, available in the Pro versions on both Android and iOS. It basically allows you to compete against yourself by selecting past results and inviting you to beat your time.

The feature is actually quite well hidden, within the Android app at least. But if you go to the ‘Workout’ area which is accessible by clicking the little running-man icon in the top-right of the main activity feed, then ‘Basic Workout’ and ‘Challenge an Activity’, you’ll be able to choose any of your past runs.

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This feature isn’t route-specific though. So if you choose a previous 10km route that involved more hills, for example, the hills aren’t taken into account. This is all about beating your previous time over a given distance, with audio cues such as “You have been overtaken by your opponent” designed to spur you on. It’s perhaps a little like Zombies, Run except your past self is the ‘zombie’ in this case.

However, Runtastic for Android has been given an extra-special feature.

Street View

While the Android app already let you replay your run in 3D video thanks to Google Earth integration, Google Street View has now been reeled in too. When you’ve completed a run or a cycle, you can click on the photos tab to view scrolling panoramas of places you’ve passed, which are presented as a slideshow.

You can enter full-screen mode to peruse the scenes in more detail, and it’s worth noting that this new feature works retrospectively for previous runs too.

This launch comes shortly after a new version of the Google Maps Android API that was introduced, which includes Street View integrations for third-party developers. Runtastic is one of the first companies to take advantage of this new opening.

Related read: Runtastic overhauls its GPS fitness-tracking app, and now tells you how much water to drink

➤ Runtastic: Google Play | App Store