Understand Personal Records and Best Efforts

FitKeep looks through every activity for your fastest continuous stretch at a set of standard distances. Those are your best efforts, and the fastest one at each distance is your personal record.

Which distances count

400m
800m
1km
1500m
1 mile
3km
5km
10km
Half marathon
Marathon

A best effort can start anywhere in an activity, so a 10km run can also give you a new 5km or 1 mile record. An activity only counts toward a distance if it’s at least that long.

Best efforts need GPS data. Indoor activities without a GPS track, such as treadmill runs or indoor rides, don’t get best efforts.

How efforts are timed

Times are elapsed time, so short stops inside an effort, like waiting at a traffic light, count toward it
A pause longer than 5 minutes splits the activity, so an effort can never span a long break
Sudden jumps in the recorded distance, such as a GPS glitch, also split the activity rather than giving you an impossible time

Fast sections

If your watch kept recording while you sat in a car, bus or train, those kilometers would give you impossible best efforts. FitKeep can’t tell a car from a train, a metro or a GPS glitch, so it looks for fast sections: stretches faster than the sport allows (above 36 km/h on foot, above 90 km/h on a bike), together with the slow stretches and stops around them:

When it’s clearly not you, such as at least half a minute at that speed on foot, or a fast section at the very end of an activity because the watch wasn’t stopped, it is left out of best efforts. The Best efforts panel on the activity page lists it, and Include it brings it back
When it might not be you, such as a short burst at that speed, it stays in and the panel asks you (“Too fast for a walk?”). Select Show on map to see where it was, then Leave it out or Keep it. Until you answer, best efforts from that activity have a small mark on the Best Efforts page

Your answer is kept on the activity, also when it’s processed again, and its best efforts are recalculated within moments. Activities processed before this check are checked when you reprocess them.

A fast section that is left out also comes off the activity’s distance in your longest activities and its distance rank. The distance shown on the activity page stays what your watch recorded.

Set an activity aside

If an activity gives you times you don’t trust, turn off Count toward best efforts in the Best efforts panel on the activity page. It stays in your activity list, but its best efforts no longer count in the Best Efforts page, rankings, records, longest activities and goals. Turn it back on to bring them back. See Read Your Activity Details for the panel.

Device distance and GPS

FitKeep calculates every best effort in two ways:

Device: from the distance your watch or bike computer recorded, which may include corrections from a footpod, wheel sensor, or the device’s own smoothing
GPS: from the GPS track itself, measuring the distance between each recorded point

The device calculation is shown when it’s available. When both exist, you can switch to the other one. If the two times differ by 5% or more (and at least 5 seconds), a ⚠️ marks the effort. That usually points to a patch of poor GPS signal or a footpod that needs calibrating, not a change in your fitness. Why your best effort times disagree goes through the causes.

Where to view them

The dashboard shows your recent best efforts from the last 30 days at up to three of your favourite distances, for the sport you do most
The Best Efforts page shows your favourite distances first, then your best times at every other distance you have run, plus your longest activities
Each activity’s detail page lists the best efforts found in that activity and how they rank

Your distances

Select the star next to a distance to make it one of your favourite distances. They show first on the Best Efforts page (“Your distances”), with your time, your pace and when you last improved it (“Improved by 0:05 on 29 Oct”, or “Best since Mar 2025” when it hasn’t improved for half a year), and on the dashboard.

Your favourites are kept for each sport group, so your cycling distances are separate from your running ones. They follow the sport you have selected, and the period you pick never changes them
Until you star something for a sport group, FitKeep suggests distances from your last 90 days of activities. Select Use suggestions again to go back to the suggestions
If a favourite distance has no effort in the sport or period you have selected, it stays in the list marked “No effort in this selection”
Under the list, a line such as “2 activities and 1 fast section are left out of best efforts” opens everything you have set aside, with a link to each activity

Filter by sport and period

On the Best Efforts page you can narrow results by:

Sport group: foot, bike, swim, winter, or other sports, so a fast bike split doesn’t fill your running records. Choose All to mix them
Activity: a single activity type within the sport group, such as trail running
Period: all time, this year, the last 12 months, one of your recent calendar years, or a custom date range

Drill down by distance

Select any distance to open its own page. It starts with your personal best for that distance, followed by your next-best times and how far each one is behind it. Below that, a chart shows how your times at that distance have changed over time. The filters above work here too.