I recently wrote about an API for @racently. The next logical step was to build a package which wraps the API so that the data can easily be pulled into R.

The package is available here. It is still very much a work in progress: the API only exposes two endpoints, but both of them are wrapped in the package.

Installation

Install using {devtools}.

devtools::install_github("datawookie/racently")
library(racently)

Searching for Athletes

The search_athlete() function makes it possible to search for an athlete by name using regular expressions for pattern matching.

Suppose I wanted to find athletes with the surname “Mann”.

search_athlete("Mann$")
##                                      id        slug         name gender nationality        twitter parkrun strava
## 1  016d0a83-1fc4-4613-81cb-ad3f09abac5e           Garry Mann      M                         NA     NA
## 2  311aeaa2-155f-4566-a9fd-cf30afd67b16            Alec Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA
## 3  3207bed9-3dd4-42e7-aee5-c0a0347295c8         Michael Mann      M                         NA     NA
## 4  3c22a177-d03e-41c7-be31-a2bc77b2c61c           Kevin Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA
## 5  52d681ea-8229-47ce-99ab-a4425b4dbcf0          Thomas Mann      M                         NA     NA
## 6  7ebe5ce2-6067-48d5-9c68-5f8167d6ab6e           Julie Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 7  8437fcc7-3a38-4ecb-8708-82d148ea3368           Angie Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 8  94d8f1e6-4850-4708-8f70-3210b45d3bde           Helen Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 9  bdd0716a-cbda-4c2e-8ef1-d5baab63ecfd         Patrick Mann      M                         NA     NA
## 10 bebc042f-ad26-40f3-99d2-61a65e0296a2           Zeldi Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 11 d4cf93a6-69b4-40c4-949e-8444da403e17           Peter Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA
## 12 d676cb99-f272-4e9a-be04-fb6ec0aa7245           Steve Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA
## 13 d9897020-6e62-47c4-8481-ecbd19ddad12          Nicola Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 14 d9cc374d-521a-48bb-86dd-3ec6f05ef59f stuart-mann  Stuart Mann      M         runningmann100      NA     NA
## 15 df571960-0451-4cba-8483-17ccb4704680             Kim Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 16 e3c1dcc1-c783-4629-891b-f2e5a21daa87          Joanne Mann      F                         NA     NA
## 17 e4417318-66ef-42e3-b9f7-6a241b550e74            Jack Mann      M                         NA     NA
## 18 f2e9074c-ca75-4a99-b89d-07d377836c21             Roy Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA
## 19 f753bf50-4637-4cfb-89f6-efde8563ceff            Luke Mann      M          ZA                 NA     NA

We see that the somewhat legendary @runningmann100, Stuart Mann, is among the list of results.

Athlete Details

The athlete() function allows you to find the results for a specific athlete, specified by id (from the results above).

athlete("d9cc374d-521a-48bb-86dd-3ec6f05ef59f")
## $name
## [1] "Stuart Mann"
## 
## $gender
## [1] "M"
## 
## $results
##    date       race                      distance time     club                  license
##  1 2019-06-09 Comrades                  86.8 km  09:53:23 Fourways Road Runners      NA
##  2 2019-02-09 Klerksdorp                42.2 km  03:54:09 NA                         NA
##  3 2018-11-24 Josiah Gumede             42.2 km  04:20:21 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  4 2018-10-28 Sapphire Coast            42.2 km  04:27:23 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  5 2018-09-02 Vaal River City           42.2 km  04:21:54 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  6 2018-06-10 Comrades                  90.2 km  10:15:52 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  7 2018-05-20 RAC                       10.0 km  01:14:21 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  8 2018-03-25 Umgeni Marathon           42.2 km  04:20:04 Fourways Road Runners    3388
##  9 2018-03-10 Kosmos 3-in-1             42.2 km  04:18:51 NA                         NA
## 10 2018-02-25 Maritzburg                42.2 km  04:31:38 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 11 2017-12-03 Heroes Marathon           42.2 km  04:28:06 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 12 2017-11-05 Soweto Marathon           42.2 km  04:41:24 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 13 2017-09-17 Cape Town Marathon        42.2 km  04:25:06 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 14 2017-06-04 Comrades                  86.7 km  10:40:59 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 15 2017-04-01 Arthur Cresswell Memorial 52.0 km  05:27:19 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 16 2017-03-26 Gaterite Challenge        42.2 km  04:14:54 Fourways Road Runners    3388
## 17 2016-05-29 Comrades                  89.2 km  10:19:06 Fourways Road Runners    9120
## 18 2016-05-01 Deloitte Challenge        42.2 km  04:15:53 Team Vitality              NA
## 19 2016-04-24 Chatsworth Freedom        52.0 km  05:36:06 Fourways Road Runners    9120
## 20 2015-08-30 Mandela Day               42.2 km  04:48:16 Fourways Road Runners      NA
## 21 2015-01-25 Johnson Crane Hire        42.2 km  04:28:35 Fourways Road Runners      NA
## 22 2009-08-09 Mtunzini Bush             16.0 km  01:31:07 Fourways Road Runners    9120
## 23 2009-05-24 Comrades                  89.2 km  08:45:43 Fourways Road Runners    9120
## 24 2008-11-28 Sani Stagger              42.2 km  05:25:19 Fourways Road Runners      NA

The results include name, gender and the details of all of the relevant results in the system. As Stuart has pointed out, there are many results missing from his profile (he ticks off a marathon pretty much every weekend), but hey, like I said, this is a work in progress.

Future

We’ll be working hard to add more race results over the coming months (and cleaning up some of the existing data). There are also plans to expose more functionality on the API, which in turn will filter through to the R package.