GOTOES Strava Tools Forum

Have you ever lost part of your race and weren't unable to restart your GPS (or switch to another recording device)? If your GPS died on you mid-race, you can now repair it using the GOTOES Race Repair Tool.

Which Tool Should You Use?

• If you have all of your files but they’re split up (e.g., from multiple devices or interrupted recordings), use the GOTOES Merge Tool to combine them. This is going to be the closest approximation to "real life".
• If you are missing parts of your data, use the GOTOES Race Repair Tool to recreate the missing sections accurately. Instructions below. I also have a video tutorial if you prefer that type of media.

What You Need for the Race Repair Tool
To reconstruct your activity properly, you’ll need to provide six key pieces of information:

1. The original data from your GPS. Please provide everything you have. It can be supplied in GPX, TCX, CSV, FIT formats. The more "real" data you have, the better. You MAY find that you need to delete spurious points from your source files because when a GPS craps out, it sometimes records a few (or many) errant points. You will want to "pre-clean" your file before you submit it to the race repair tool. Here is a video where I demonstrate cleaning the GPS file for repair.
2. Time Zone. GOTOES uses the time zone so you can enter the start/stop times in the time zone in which you did the activity. WARNING: In May of 2025, I was helping a user process a track in New Zealand that took place in November of 2024. The fabricated data was offset by one hour from the real data. I finally realized that the problem was that New Zealand was on Standard time in November, and currently, it was observing Daylight Savings. I shifted one time zone, and that got the tracks to align.
3. The Start Time Of your Race. This is used in case you started your GPS late. GOTOES will "back-fill" data points in case you have any gaps at the beginning of your race.
4. The End Time Of your Race. This is the time of dat that you finished. GOTOES will "forward-fill" your map all the way to the finish. GOTOES will adjust your pacing in a realistic manner that makes it so your track finishes at your exact finish time. After you have entered both the Start and Finish times, GOTOES will calculate your Race Elapsed time. This will assure you that the race time will be correct in the final product.
5. Speed Algorithm . When GOTOES fabricates the missing data, it will first take into account YOUR pacing from the real data that you provide. Then, GOTOES will look at the gaps of missing data and calculate the time in-between so it can "fit" the missing data points into the required amount of time. GOTOES has three algorithms:
   • NONE - produces a "flat line" average speed. Basically, your speed for the section will be exactly the average speed necessary to fill in the gap with no empty time points.
   • RUN - produces running "realistic" pacing for ~trail race pace. Attempts to eliminate "impossible" speeds for running, such as running 20+mph.
   • BIKE - produces biking "realistic" pacing for ~road cycling. Attempts to eliminate "impossible" speeds for cycling, such as going uphill at 20+mph.
6. Course File. This is a reference course/route file that can be in GPX, TCX, CSV, or FIT format. It provides the data points for your map. You can usually get this file from the race organizer; it may even be the course you followed when doing your ultramarathon race.

After you upload your files, you just want to look over the settings.

First, be sure to check to see if the modified course file overlaps your "real" data in an expected way. Also, be sure to check the start/stop times. In the image below, we can see an example of overlapping timelines.


GOTOES will automatically de-select your position and elevation from the original files. GOTOES will instead select the position/elevation from your modified course file. You will want to double check that this is how the checkboxes are set up (see screenshot below for an example).

You will also probably want to make sure that GOTOES is set to "Calculate Distance and Speed". Again, GOTOES will try to pre-select this for you. Recalculating the distance and speed should help ensure that you have a smooth speed graph that doesn't have huge speed spikes. See Screenshot below.


If everything looks good, click the big blue button at the bottom that says, "Click Here to Process the File Using Above Parameters"

Remember that if you can't figure it out, GOTOES also still offers Custom GPS Track Repair Services.