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