Request: zoneDistributionPace / Hr / Power encoding format

RichardTheKing

Hello Runalyze Team,

I am currently working on an external data analysis project for myself (I am a spredasheet runner ahahah) using the exported file runalyze-activities.csv combined with Power Query / Excel.

In this file, I noticed several fields such as:

zoneDistributionPace

zoneDistributionHr

zoneDistributionPower

These fields contain long integers that clearly encode the time spent in each zone (e.g., pace Z1–Z9, heart rate zones, power zones).
However, the encoding format is not documented, and therefore it is not possible to decode these values reliably outside Runalyze.

Examples from the export:

zoneDistributionPace = 25735500000

zoneDistributionPace = 540441010000

zoneDistributionPace = 32680000000

zoneDistributionPower = 135123120

etc.

I understand that these fields represent a compressed, concatenated encoding of the zone durations, but without knowing:

the block size per zone

the compression factor or scale

the exact concatenation rules

and how zero or missing zones are encoded

…it is impossible to reconstruct the zone durations accurately for external analysis.

👉 Would it be possible to provide the official specification of the encoding format used for zoneDistributionPace, zoneDistributionHr, and zoneDistributionPower?

Alternatively, a future export option that outputs zone durations as separate fields (e.g., Z1…Z9) would be extremely helpful for users performing deeper data analysis.

Thank you very much for your help, and for the excellent work you are doing with Runalyze.

Best regards,
Richard

mipapo

Hi Richard,
Please put this into https://ideas.runalyze.com/ (you can simply copy it).
As we only store it with two integers: each zone two digits. I wouldn't add more columns atm. The Zones might be better handled for reading in the API (json format) for reading. Although the API for reading activities is not final yet.

RichardTheKing

Hi mipapo,

Thanks a lot for the quick clarification.
Knowing that each zone is stored as two digits already helps me structure the decoding on my side.

I’ll repost the feature request on ideas.runalyze.com as you advised.

Thanks again for your support and for the great work on Runalyze — it’s a fantastic tool for data-driven runners.

Best regards,
Richard

Laufhannes

I just answered at the ideas platform and will do so here too: Can you please check the raw csv file for what those values look like? They should be a comma-separated string like "12,33,55,0,0,0,0,0" which each value representing the percentage of that zone (index), so here 12% for Z1, 33% for Z2 and 55% for Z3.