How the game works, question by question, grouped by screen: today, out, region, shop, account. Nothing here is a spoiler, because the game keeps one secret about its own rules and says which: what a mountain route asks of you.
Two to five minutes a day. One day in the game is one real day, and the world carries on while the app is shut.
Two to five minutes. Open it, read what happened, start a session, get on with your life. The rest is there when you want it.
In real time: one day in the world is one day here. And yes, it all carries on while the app is shut. Sessions run their real length, routes finish, races settle, and the locals go after the ground you hold.
A session takes from 30 minutes to 4 hours.
One to start with, and two from level 5. Some jobs only leave room for one on weekdays, and the job board shows which.
No, but missed days cost a little. A session you don't start lapses at the day rollover, and that costs 1 Confidence.
Stop training and your fitness starts to drop. The first day off is free. The sharp qualities go fastest, and the fitter you are, the faster you lose it. Three months of nothing takes you back to the runner you started as, and no further. The You screen shows the day the next point comes off, before it goes.
None of this applies in your first 7 days. Lapses cost no Confidence, your fitness doesn't drop, and your runner doesn't spend the purse while you're away.
Your week, Monday first. A lit square is a day your runner went out: a session, a piece of ground, a route or a race, including one the standing orders started.
Light 4 and the week is kept. The number beside the squares is how many weeks in a row you've kept. A week with a holiday in it doesn't break the run.
The squares pay nothing. Days in a row do: every 3 in a row is a point of Confidence.
It shows what changed while you were away. It turns up on today when you've been gone 8 hours or more, and it stays for 30 minutes.
It lists the qualities, the level, ground you took or lost, any race that settled, and the purse. Under that is what's in reach: the nearest ground you could take, the next level and what it opens, and the division above when you're close to it.
Yes. Set standing orders on the You screen, with a focus and a risk setting, and today's session starts itself if you don't start it. It's free, and anything you do yourself comes first.
A session it runs builds less than one you start yourself, but more than nothing. It checks your load before it sets out. Cautious stops well short of the red zone, Balanced stops at it, and Aggressive goes past it.
It isn't a way to leave, though. After 4 days without you opening the game, it stops setting out, and your runner starts spending the purse on things that aren't training.
No, one at a time. Retiring your runner frees the slot and keeps their history.
Sessions build seven qualities. Your level comes from their total, and it goes down as well as up.
One or more of the seven qualities: Climbing, Descending, Endurance, Race IQ, Stomach, Heat and Confidence. The card says which.
Harder sessions open as you level up. You start on run-walks and easy thirties, get the tempo and the long run at level 4, and the hardest work at 9 and 14. The easier sessions stay in the mix.
Set says what the runner goes out and does. Trains says which qualities it builds, and how much on an ordinary day. Your form that day scales that up or down, and the feed line afterwards says what you actually gained. Load says how much it adds to your load. An easy session adds only a point or two.
Each race, route and piece of ground weights its own mix of qualities, and your time comes from that mix. So a point counts most where the course needs it.
Each quality has its own answer below: Climbing, Descending, Endurance, Heat, Stomach, Race IQ and Confidence.
The numbers: each course weights the qualities it asks for and adds them into one score. At 72 you post par. Each point under is about 1.3% slower and each point over about 0.9% faster. Nobody runs quicker than 62% of par or slower than 195%.
A point in a quality the course weights at a half moves the score by half a point.
Reputation is the eighth number. It never changes a time.
It's how you go uphill. The more a course climbs, the more of your time it decides.
In a race, some calls only open with enough of it.
Built by Steps, Hill introduction, Hill repeats, Tempo, Threshold and Double threshold, and by ground that asks for it.
It's how you come down: footing, quads, and how much you let go. The more a course drops, the more of your time it decides.
In a race, some calls only open with enough of it.
Built by Strides & drills, Long run, Descent practice and Night navigation, and by ground that asks for it.
It's the long day, and what's left in your legs late. Most courses ask for it.
In a race it sets the energy you start with, and some calls only open with enough of it. On ground, Even split leans on it.
Built by Run-walk, Easy thirty, Steps, Easy hour, Tempo, Long run, Threshold, Back-to-back, Long day and Double threshold, and by ground that asks for it.
It's what hot, exposed ground costs you. It only counts where a course asks for it.
Built by Heat drill, and by ground that asks for it. The heat drill turns up most in summer and least in winter.
It's whether the food stays down, and it matters more the longer you're out.
In a race it sets how your gut starts. Turning up short of food starts it lower.
Built by Coffee run, Easy hour, Heat drill and Long day, and by ground that asks for it.
It's pacing, and the calls you make in a race. With too little of it, some calls stay shut.
On ground, Negative split leans on it.
Built by Strides & drills, Back-to-back, Double threshold and Night navigation, and by ground that asks for it.
It doesn't make you faster. It makes you fade less once your body is spent. You start a race at your own Confidence, moved by your form that day.
A race moves it by up to 2 either way. 3 trained days in a row add a point. Skipping a session takes one off. On ground, Gun it leans on it.
Built by Easy thirty, Hill introduction, Coffee run, Hill repeats, Tempo, Descent practice and Night navigation, and by ground that asks for it.
Because your form was different. Form changes every day, and it scales how much a session builds.
Half of it comes from you: your load, your stress, your condition, a run of days in a row, rust after time off, and how much you've already done today. The other half is the day itself, good or bad.
The card shows the plan, and the feed line afterwards shows what you got. The session's main quality always goes up at least a point, so turning up is never wasted.
Reputation is what the region thinks of you. It goes down when you stop getting results.
Races pay it. So do taking a piece of ground or a mark, and finishing a route. Training doesn't.
It fades if you stop putting your name on things. Nothing comes off for 14 days after your last result. After that it comes off slowly, and faster the more you have. It never drops below what you started with.
It doesn't count toward your level or your class abilities, and it never changes a time. It does count toward your division.
It's a name in quotes between your first name and your last, like Ines "Lights Out" Quilter. You can have one from 25 Reputation. Races, ground and marks all pay Reputation.
Once you're there, you choose it yourself, up to 18 characters. You can change it once every 14 days. It's checked before anyone sees it, so it appears a minute or two after you set it. It's free, and always will be.
Drop back under 25 and it comes off. It isn't deleted. It goes back on as soon as you're over 25 again. Your account screen shows how close you are before it happens.
The locals follow the same rule. Every one of them has a nickname waiting, and the ones wearing theirs are the ones who have been racing.
Your level measures the fitness you've gained since you registered. Add up every quality except Reputation, take away what you started with (your class and the dice together), and what's left is counted in levels. So everyone starts at level 1, whatever they rolled. Your level isn't your standing.
Each level costs more than the one before. Level 2 is 4 points, about two good sessions. Level 10 is 79 in total, and level 20 is 281, close to the most a career can gain.
Some levels open something: a rung of your class ladder at 5, 10 and 15, a new tier of sessions, and the second daily session. The rest just count up.
Levels go down too, faster the higher you are. Drop below the level a rung opened at and you lose that ability until you climb back.
Your level is worked out from your qualities every time they change. Most often it's your fitness dropping after days off.
It also changes if we change how levels are counted. When that happens, every runner is re-levelled at once and nobody's qualities change. Only the lines between levels move.
Injuries never come out of nowhere. Over 45 load, a hard effort can injure you. Condition is whether you're already hurt. You're always warned first.
Yes. Load is the training your body hasn't recovered from yet. Sessions, ground and races add it, and it comes off a little at a time whenever you're not out running.
Over 35, your form drops. You run slower and sessions build less.
Over 45, the red zone on the bar, a hard effort can injure you.
Condition is whether you're already hurt: fresh, niggle, strained or injured.
The numbers, for planning a week. A session's load is on its card. It runs from +26 for the hardest down to +1 for the easiest.
A piece of ground costs 13 run smart, 16 even, 18 negative and 22 gunning it.
Load halves every 36 hours you spend at home. A whole day off takes about 37% of it away, so 40 comes down to about 25 in a day and 16 in two. The more you're carrying, the more comes off. Nothing comes off while you're out on a session, a route or a race. Stress slows it down.
So a rest day is the quickest way down. An easy session costs a point or two and keeps you training.
Not out of nowhere. You can only get hurt when an effort takes your load over 45, when you gun it, when you cross exposed ground in bad weather, or when you're already niggled or strained.
Condition goes fresh, niggle, strained, injured. Taking the risk is always your choice. Only how bad the injury is comes down to chance. Bad gear and bad weather add load, but neither causes an injury on its own.
The chance is rolled every time you put load on. If you're fresh, the effort isn't risky, and it leaves you under 45, the chance is nothing. An easy session, one that adds 3 or less, is never rolled at all.
Otherwise it's 1.4% for every point of load over 45. Add 18% if you're already niggled, or 34% if you're strained. Add 12% for a risky effort: gunning it, or exposed ground in bad weather. It never goes over 85%.
The warning comes at 70 load. An injury takes 2 days to heal, and you come back niggled.
Each night you sleep at home with your load under 45 moves you one rung back towards fresh.
Yes. The load a race adds depends on how you ran it, not on where you finished.
Giving it everything costs the most, and you'll feel it the week after. Blowing up and hanging on costs nearly as much as a strong run. Just getting round costs the least.
Easy sessions. Ground and routes are shut until you've healed.
The shop can't help with a strain or a real injury, at any price, and it won't take load off while you have one. Once time brings it down to a niggle, a physio session clears it.
Book a holiday and your fitness drops at half pace while you're away. It doesn't protect your division.
Book a holiday on the You screen, and your fitness drops at half pace while you're gone. It's free, and you can call it off until the morning it starts.
You get 4 weeks in any 12 months. A holiday is at least 7 days and at most 3 weeks. Anything shorter is just rest days. The earliest a holiday can start is tomorrow.
On the morning it starts, your load and stress drop to zero. While you're away, your fitness drops at half pace, standing orders stand down, and a missed session costs no Confidence.
Real runners take an off-season and come back rested and a little slower, and so will yours.
No. The divisions are decided when the season turns, whether you're there or not. Your fitness still drops while you're away, so a season change during your holiday can drop you a division. The booking screen tells you this before you book.
No. Your runner starts spending the purse once you haven't opened the game for 4 days, holiday or not. Look in now and then and nothing is spent.
Real Wellington trails. Whoever has the fastest time on one since it last stood open holds it. Going for one counts as that day's training.
A stretch of real Wellington trail, sent in by somebody who runs it. A run up one takes minutes. Whoever has the fastest time on it since it last stood open holds it.
Open ground goes to the first runner up it, at any time. After that it only changes hands to a faster time.
Most of the other runners in the region are simulated locals on the same clock as you. They train, peak, get hurt and take ground, including yours, while you sleep. A local holding more than their share lets one go, and it stands open again.
Yes, and so does an FKT route. Ground trains what it asks of you: a steep climb trains Climbing, and a long exposed one trains Endurance, Stomach and Heat.
The card says what it trains. How much depends on the size of the effort and your form that day.
A race is the exception. It pays Reputation and a result instead of training.
Yes, if you have two training slots that day. Going out on ground uses a slot, the same as a session. With one slot you choose, and the session on the board stands down for free if you go out instead.
Nothing stops you going out again after that, but each extra outing hurts more. Past about 14 points of load in a day, your form drops sharply.
You can only be out on one thing at a time.
You pick an approach before you set off. That's the only decision, and nothing asks you anything on the way.
Run it smart is hard but controlled, and the safest. An even split holds one pace the whole way and suits Endurance. A negative split holds back early and finishes hard, and suits Race IQ. Gun it goes flat out from the start: the fastest way to take ground off somebody, and the likeliest to get you hurt.
Your name on it until somebody faster comes along. It's worth +8 on your standing for as long as you hold it.
It also pays +2 Reputation, at most once every 14 days on the same piece of ground.
Every piece of ground, route and race has its own page, opened from its row on the board. It shows the quickest times and every change of hands.
The runner who has been up a piece of ground most often in the last 90 days, however fast. You need at least 3 outings on it to be the Regular. It pays nothing.
Yes, if it's in Wellington. Export the route from your watch, drag the two handles to the part you mean, name it, say what it's like, and send it in.
Only the part between the handles is sent. The rest of the file is read in your browser and never reaches us, so the way from your front door stays private.
A person reads it and says yes or no. You can't edit it once it's sent. If it goes up, it carries your runner's name and nothing else, and it counts the same as anyone else's ground.
The weather is the real Wellington forecast. The board shows what it will cost you before you set off.
Yes. Each morning before dawn the game fetches the real Wellington forecast, with the real sunrise and sunset for the date. So a June evening needs a head torch and a January one doesn't.
The forecast for later in the week can still change. Today's never does.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).
It didn't. Rain and darkness cost real time on technical or exposed ground, and every piece of ground and every route shows that cost before you set off. There's no hidden penalty.
Gusts over 110 km/h, or very heavy rain. That's severe-weather-warning territory.
Gusts of ninety or a hundred are just wind in this city. A storm is the only weather bad enough on its own to turn you back on the tops.
Three routes in the Tararuas. They're free, they take hours, and you play them through like a race. Only people are on the boards.
Ground takes minutes, and anyone can hold a piece of it. A race has a date, a start list and an entry fee. A route takes hours, it's free, and you go whenever you like. What a route costs instead is the day.
Broke but fit is a perfectly good reason to go and set a mark.
No. You run it the way you run a race, and the calls you make out there decide your time.
Each call opens when your runner reaches it, so at 32 km of 74 the next one can be hours away. Nothing runs out while you wait for it.
The estimate is a range, because nobody can call a fourteen-hour day to the minute.
Reputation for finishing, whether or not you took the mark. How much depends on the route and how the day went. The Tararua S–K pays up to +8 and never less than +4. The shorter routes pay less.
Turning back off the two alpine routes pays a point.
Taking the mark pays +3 more and puts your name on the route. The mark itself adds no standing points.
And a route is the biggest day of training in the game.
A route only pays once in a while: at most once every 3 days on Jumbo–Holdsworth, every 7 on the Southern Crossing, and every 14 on the S–K.
Going back still counts for the mark, the split badges, the endings you haven't found, and the route knowledge you build.
Backcountry is your experience of finding your way across the tops, and the only way to get it is to go. And yes: every route asks for some, and if you set off with less, the day can end with LandSAR lifting you off the hill.
Getting round a route banks the most the first time and less each trip after, never below 1, and turning back banks 1. Each route's drawer on the board says what it earns, and the top of the board says what you've got.
A lift means no time, no finish and nothing banked, plus −3 Confidence and −2 Reputation. It costs no money and no injury. The further short you are, the likelier it is, and however much you've banked the chance never quite reaches zero.
A month supporting LandSAR in the shop makes it −1 Reputation instead. You still lose the Confidence.
How much each route asks for is the one thing the board won't tell you, on purpose, so setting off stays your judgement. The warning names no route, and nothing stops you going. It's the one exception to the rules at the foot of this page.
Only people. The boards start empty, and the first person to finish a route takes the mark. The simulated locals never run routes.
You book it a day ahead. Declare it today and it starts at your wake hour tomorrow.
Tomorrow's forecast is recorded when you declare, and the attempt is judged by it. Standing down before the alarm is free and leaves no trace. The game won't stop you setting off into a bad forecast, but it makes sure you've seen it.
A turn-back is heading home before the end. It costs a point of Confidence and the load for the part you covered, and posts no time. It never counts as a risky effort.
On a route you're playing, you make that call. On one you've left running, conditions past the line make it for you, and the board shows where you'd turn back before you set off.
For the other calls, you pick a policy before you set off: Play it safe, Push on or Wait for me. Your policy only answers a call after you've left it for a good while. It can never end your day. Each call it takes costs a little time, and is marked as one you weren't there for. You get one notification for each call, day or night.
Your badges. It's on the You screen and in the career log. Badges are the one thing you keep for good: ground gets taken off you and fitness drops, but a badge stays.
Badges never affect a time, and none of them is for sale.
The cabinet only shows badges you've won. It tells you how many more there are, but not what they are. Each route lists what it has on offer on its board and on its record page. The ones under "found" are endings, so they stay hidden until you find them.
Real races on their real dates, run live. Your place comes from your time, on the same clock as everybody else's.
You enter on the calendar, and the race is booked like an appointment. A start list of named runners builds up as others enter.
WUU2K is one morning with three distances, 21 km, 45 km and 65 km, all finishing at the velodrome. XTRAIL West Wind is 17 km on the wind farm at Mākara. Te Ahumairangi is every Wednesday evening, 9.5 km and free.
Enter as many as are open. The calendar only refuses two start lines on the same day.
Most do. The fee depends on the distance and comes out of the purse when you enter. It doesn't come back if you miss the start line.
It buys a number and a place on the line, and nothing else. Nobody has ever bought a faster split.
Nearly. Every race is live, and all but one run in real time.
A race goes at a fixed gun whether you're watching or not. Calls reach you as you reach them on the course. Places are final when the last runner is home.
Because races run in real time, the card says how long one will take before you enter: about 2h13 for the WUU2K half at par, about seven hours for the 65.
The Wednesday club night is the exception. It's free, and it runs four times faster than life, 9.5 km in about thirteen minutes, so it fits in an evening. It's still scored on the clock, so the fastest runner wins it, the same as the 65.
For the club night, yes. Tick every week on its card and you're entered each time entries open, unless you're injured, on holiday or already on a start line that day. You enter the paid races yourself.
If a race you could still enter is coming up and you're not on it, you get one push. It comes at 12:00 on the day for an afternoon or evening gun, and at 18:00 the evening before for a morning one. If a mate is already entered, the push says so.
Your race runs anyway. At the gun you get a notification, your gels come off the belt, and your plan runs the race for you.
If you miss the gun entirely, the field goes without you. That's a missed race, and the fee doesn't come back.
Either way, there's no training on race day, and ground and routes are shut for the day too.
Your race plan answers it for you. Each call is yours for 5 minutes from when it appears, and you get a push the moment it opens. Then your plan takes it.
A call is a choice the course puts to you on the way round, and the race card says how many a race has. The 5 minutes are real time on every race, even the club night, which runs four times faster than life.
You choose your plan on the race card and can change it up until the gun. Play it safe takes the careful line every time. Push on takes whichever line gets you to the next call quickest, and on a long day that can empty the tank before the finish. Every call your plan takes is marked in the transcript as one you weren't there for.
Each call your plan takes adds about 0.5% to your time. Thinking inside the window costs nothing. Your plan can never step you off the course, and it never spends your level-10 one-shot.
Because the rest of the field won't wait for you. A race offers two plans. An FKT route has a third, Wait for me, because nobody else is out there.
From your time, against everyone who started. Your stats set what you're capable of on that course, and how you ran decides how much of it you used. The field is timed by the same model, so two players in the same race can't both win it.
A little of it is random. Your stats decide which options open to you, every time. Chance only changes how big an outcome is, never what kind of thing happens, and never anything catastrophic.
Only runners with a name on file get a line. The rest of the field is an anonymous pack. They run the race and count in the result, but they aren't listed. A field of 150 is still 150 runners, and the same goes for a start list before the gun.
When some of the pack beat every named runner, the leaders among them get a line with a place and a time and no name. So a result always says who won it, and in what time.
Yes, and you don't need an account. Every race has its own page. Before the gun it shows the start list, and for the last 5 minutes the start line itself: the field stood about and an announcer saying who is in. Once the race is on, it shows a live board: place, kilometres covered, and how many places each runner has gained or lost lately.
The ▲▼ arrows count places over the last tenth of the race's length, and the board says how many minutes that is.
The board says provisional until the whole field is in, because a runner still out on the course is only a projection. Once the last time is in, the page becomes the result sheet.
Yes, from the race card on today, the pool room in the History drawer on the You screen, or the race's own page. It types the whole day out again at reading pace. It's the only way to see what your plan did on a morning you slept through.
Seasons follow the real New Zealand ones. When a season turns, the divisions are decided and every piece of ground stands open.
On the real dates: 1 December, 1 March, 1 June and 1 September, at midnight Wellington time. Every screen that shows a division says how many days are left.
Two things. Everybody moves into their new division, decided by the ranking you've watched all season. And every piece of ground in the region stands open, so nobody holds anything, you included.
The first week of a season is the best time to turn up.
No. What ends is who holds each piece of ground. Your times stay on each piece of ground's all-time board for good, and every FKT mark, badge and Reputation point stays. Routes don't reset at all.
So there's a race worth planning a training block around. Out of season, the calendar says when entries open next.
One region so far, Wellington. The region screen lists the people first, and watch puts what they do in your feed. Two people who watch each other are mates.
Everybody in the region runs the same hills. Most are simulated locals, and they'll go after whatever you hold. A few are real people. The region screen lists them first, and marks a person wherever a runner is listed.
To follow somebody, press watch on their row or their dossier. What they do then turns up in your feed, and the region screen shows everybody you watch and the last thing each of them did.
Watching is one way and quiet. There's nothing to accept, they aren't told, and none of it reaches your phone. You can watch a simulated runner the same way.
Somebody you watch who watches you back. There's nothing to accept. As soon as it goes both ways you're mates, and you each get a line in the feed saying so. That's the only time anyone is told they're being watched. Only real people can be mates.
Mates go at the top of the region screen, drawn doing whatever they're really doing right now: at work, asleep, out on a hill, on holiday. When you're both free, the two of you stand there together. Under each one is their week beside yours, and a fold showing the ground you've both run and your races against each other. When a mate has entered the same race as you, your race card says so.
Out on the course, anyone within 90 seconds of you runs beside you in your race picture, in front or behind, where the board has them. Mates are always drawn first. When somebody passes you on the board, or you pass them, you see it happen.
You can flex at a mate once a day. They see it the next time they open the region screen, with one line in their feed.
Yes. Ask them up a piece of ground from the ground screen. Pick your mates, a day up to 7 days ahead, a time at least 20 minutes away, and how you'll run it.
Each mate says yes, with their own approach, or says they can't make it. You can't ask anybody on a day they're racing, on holiday, injured or already out.
It starts at its time whether anybody is looking, like a race gun. You jog out together and each run it at your own pace. The first one up waits at the top, and you jog home together once the last is off it. It counts as your outing for the day, and a fast time still takes the ground. Standing orders leave your session alone that day. Anybody who can't go when it starts is left behind, and the rest go.
One number for what you've been doing lately. Every row on the region screen shows it, and the You screen shows yours with its rank and what it's made of.
It adds three things together: 8 for each piece of ground you hold, your Reputation, and points for each race in the last 60 days. Those are 10 for a win, 6 for a podium, 3 for the top ten, 1 for finishing anywhere else and 0 for a DNF. Ties go to Reputation.
It isn't your level and it isn't your division. It pays nothing and opens nothing.
Your name, class, level and division, the ground you hold, your race record, and how you are today: load, condition and form. Somebody scouting you can tell you're wrecked, the same as at a start line.
They can't see your stats. A dossier describes your strengths and weaknesses in words, without numbers.
Tops, Ridge, Bush and Valley. Everybody is ranked on fitness plus Reputation and cut into four groups of fixed size. It pays nothing.
The four divisions. Everybody in the region, people and locals alike, is ranked on all their qualities added up, Reputation included, then cut into four groups of fixed size. Tops is the sharp end. Valley is where most careers live, and plenty of good ones stay there.
You can't pick your division. It's worked out from your runner, like a level. Your fitness and your Reputation count. Ground you hold and recent race points don't.
Because the groups are a fixed size, there's always somebody just above you to get past and somebody just below trying to get past you. The You screen says how far each is. The remainder goes to Valley, so Tops stays the same size as the region grows.
Once, when the season turns, and never in between. You can watch where you'd land for weeks beforehand. If you're in the bottom 2 of your group 14 days out, you get one warning, which leaves time to train your way out.
Nothing. It isn't a currency, it unlocks nothing, and you can't buy one. It shows how you compare, and who is just above and below you.
Five classes, each with three abilities that open at levels 5, 10 and 15. The level 10 one is a one-shot you use mid-race or mid-route.
It sets where your qualities start, and each class starts with more of one quality than any other class. The classes are Tussock climber, Scree hound, Road convert, Hut bagger and Rogainer.
None is better than another overall, and a test in the code holds it to that.
Each class has three abilities, opened at levels 5, 10 and 15.
Level 5 gives you a readout: something the game already works out for everybody, shown to you. Level 10 gives you a one-shot ability. You can use it once in any race and once on any route, at a call you've reached. Level 15 gives you a perk out in the world.
None of it is for sale, and the level 10 ability never changes your stats.
¤ is the game's money, not dollars. The purse buys gear, entries, treatment and a look. It never buys fitness.
The game's money. Your runner's job pays into the purse, and the shop and race entries take out of it.
Nothing in this game has ever cost real money, and nothing ever will. There's no card field, no top-up and no premium anything. It's written ¤ so that a 380 entry fee can't be mistaken for dollars.
Your job pays a daily wage, sets your alarm, adds stress, and decides whether you get a second session on weekdays. No job is good at all four.
A student trains as much as they like on very little money. A nurse earns properly and has to fit the training around the shifts.
The job board is on the You screen. Once every 30 days you can change jobs for free. The wait is the only cost.
Because living costs come out of your wage first. Rent, power and the supermarket come off every morning, and the purse only gets what's left. The job board shows all three figures for every job.
Barely working and studying cost nothing to live, because both mean living at home.
If the wage doesn't cover the living costs, there's no bankruptcy, no penalty and no debt. The purse stops at 115, enough to restock the three things that can stop you going out at all.
Stress slows how fast load comes off. It can't stop it, so a stressful job makes recovery slower but never takes it away.
It has no rungs and sends no warnings. It isn't another injury ladder.
How much stress comes off overnight depends on how hard you trained that day. Train hard every day in a demanding job and it climbs. Work a rest day in and it settles.
The gauge runs to 100. Your job adds its own amount every day, and the job board shows it.
Each night takes 3 off. After a day with no load it takes 13 off. The more load in the day, the less of that extra you get, and at 30 load there's none.
Over 40, each point of stress slows your recovery by 1%, up to 60%. Over 30, it lowers your form too.
Gear, gels, race entries, a look, and treatment. The shop shows one shelf at a time, and opens on whatever you're short of.
On the physio shelf, a massage takes 20 off your stress, a physio session clears a niggle, and a recovery session takes up to 8 off your load. One treatment a day.
It never buys what only training buys: fitness, a result, a start line somebody else earned, a name on the region board, or a fix for an injury you ran into with your eyes open. Nothing you buy adds to your fitness, and the code enforces that.
No. It only takes off load that a rest day would have taken off anyway.
It never takes you under 45. At 45 load or less, the shelf won't sell you one.
A niggle, yes. A strain or a real injury, no, at any price. Those heal on time, and while you have one the shop won't take load off either.
You can clear stress whenever you can afford a massage, which makes a well-paid, stressful job workable. Less stress means load comes off a little faster, but only by a few points, and only one treatment a day.
Kit never makes you faster, but the wrong kit costs time. Some routes and races won't let you start without their kit list. Some kit is only a look.
No. The right kit stops you losing time, and the wrong kit, or none, costs you. Nothing about kit ever adds speed, and the colour you buy it in makes no difference at all.
Shoes wear out with the kilometres and lose their grip. Poles wear toward snapping. The head torch has a battery, and spare cells in the pack keep the light on when it goes. A shell wears out in the weather you needed it for. Gels get eaten.
Nothing fails without warning. You get a warning at 80% of an item's life, and a pole can't snap until it has warned you.
Because you're missing compulsory kit. The mountain routes and the longer races each have a compulsory kit list, like real races do. The board names what you're short of before the button, with the price and a way to the shop.
You start with trail shoes and a couple of gels. A route won't let you set off without its list. A race checks at the start line, the same place a real race does.
Your own training is different. A daily session or a piece of town ground is never refused. Going without a light after dark, or a shell in a storm, costs time on ground and nothing on a session.
Yes. The usual way is to enter a week out and buy the kit before race day. You just can't start without it.
The card shows the list before it takes your fee, and you get a warning while there's still time. If you're turned away at the check, buy what's missing and come back before the start line closes. If it closes on you, that's a missed race and the fee is gone.
Only through kit. Your runner's look is set when you register. After that, only kit you earn and kit you buy change it.
The shop sells kit that is only a look: singlet, sunglasses, visor, buff, arm sleeves, calf socks and watch. None of it saves or costs a second, and nothing will ever require it.
Shoes and look kit come in colourways, picked at the counter. A dearer colourway costs more and does nothing else.
No to both. Two badges each unlock a hat, in a colour that exists nowhere else in the game. It goes in the wardrobe on the You screen.
The shop sells a visor, but an earned hat isn't for sale at any price, and you can't repaint it. That way it always shows you earned it.
By push, with email as a backup. You can mute any kind, or get one daily digest instead. The boards never notify you.
By push, with email as a backup. Add the game to your home screen and turn push on from the account screen.
If you haven't opened the app within 30 minutes of a push, the email follows. Without push, you just get the email.
No email comes until you've verified your address. Push works either way.
No. The boards never notify you, and nothing about the people you watch does either. A mate's flex and becoming mates wait in the feed.
A push goes when the thing happens, night or day, because a race doesn't stop for the dark. Silence your phone if you want a quiet night.
The one social exception is a group run: you get the invite, a push 15 minutes before it goes, and how it went.
You can mute any kind, or swap the lot for one daily digest.
The things worth interrupting you for, like losing ground, race day or an injury. Everything else waits in the feed.
The Monday email is about the region, not your runner: ground somebody sent in, ground that changed hands, and the week's races. It's email only, never a push, and it doesn't go out in a week with nothing in it. You can switch each kind on or off on the account screen.
The morning wake email stops once you haven't opened the game for 3 days. It still waits in the feed, and after that only the nudge and the Monday email come looking for you.
iOS only allows push for an installed app. Tap Share → Add to Home Screen, then open it from there and the toggle will work. The game asks you once and doesn't ask again.
Remove it from your home screen and add it again. The icon is a picture of your runner, and a phone keeps the icon it was added with. You can preview it on the account screen first.
Visits to the public pages, counted on our own server. Nothing is counted after the login.
Only on the public pages. The counter runs on our own server, sets no cookie and doesn't know who you are. It records the page, where you came from, your browser, and your country. The privacy page has the whole list.
An email address, a name, a hashed password and what your runner did. You can delete all of it yourself, at once and for good.
An email address, the name you gave at sign-up, a hashed password, and everything your runner has done. Only we see the name. The privacy page has the rest: what other players see, who else handles any of it, and how long we keep it.
Both are on your account screen. Retire keeps your runner's record and lets you register somebody new. Delete erases the career.
Deleting the account takes everything with it, straight away. There's no grace period, and we can't put any of it back. Here's exactly what goes.
We can, but closing isn't the same thing as deleting it. A closed account can't log in, and you're told why. Nothing is removed, and it can be undone. Deleting is the one that erases everything, and only you can do that.
For a copy of what we hold, or to correct it, ask us. A person does it by hand. Every teaser email has a one-click way off at the bottom.
Write about the trail. Anything aimed at a person comes down, and doing it on purpose closes your account.
For whatever the next person would want to know before they set off: the state of the track, the wind on the tops, whether the stream was up. You can write one per outing, the same rule as a real hut book.
Yes, two checks. First a word filter. Then a machine reads the note and decides whether it's about the trail or about a person. If it can't tell, the note is held back, so a note that doesn't appear straight away hasn't been lost.
After a note goes up, a person reads it and can take it down.
Write about the trail. Be as rude as you like about the weather, the climb, the mud or your own miserable performance.
A note aimed at somebody comes down. So does anything sexual, threatening or hateful, and any advert. We take the whole note down. We never edit it or reword it into something you didn't write.
Aiming something at a real person, or doing any of this on purpose, closes the account, and the login screen shows you the reason. If we've got it wrong, say so.
Not yourself, no, but ask us and we'll take it off. A handle is only a label on that one run, which is how you can play the teaser without signing up, so there's no account to log into.
There's a short list of words a handle can't use. It's only a list, so it misses things. Ground you send in is read by a person first, and its name and note are held to the same line.
The purse never buys a stat, a result or luck. No injury comes unwarned, and automation is free. One dice roll matters, on the tops, and you're warned.
It won't sell you a stat, a result or luck. A recovery session only takes off load a rest day would have taken off anyway. It won't hurt your runner without warning you first. It won't charge you for automation.
It won't decide anything important with a dice roll, bar one. Set off on a mountain route with less backcountry than it asks for, and a roll can end the day in a LandSAR lift. The route board warns you before you go, but doesn't say which route, on purpose.
And it won't take a piece of ground, a mark or a placing off you, except to somebody who was actually faster, or when a season ends on a date you could see coming.
No. There's one region, real races on a real calendar, mountain routes in the Tararuas, a board of ground anybody can add to, and two of us building it in the evenings. Things will change under you and something will break, and that'll be our fault, not yours. Tell us and we'll go and have a look.