Should I Race?

As a web developer, I like to build things that solve real problems. The idea for “Should I Race?” originated from my years of running into the wind. Everyone trains so hard, sometimes travelling hours for a race, only to find strong headwinds that ruin their performance. This seemed like a waste of time and effort. I thought, “What if athletes could know about the wind before they leave?” This project provided an opportunity to create something genuinely beneficial for a specific group of individuals who are passionate about their sport.

The big problem for athletes is showing up to a competition and facing wind that hurts their race. A strong headwind can really slow you down, making it hard to get your best time. I wanted to make a simple website where an athlete could type in a track’s location and quickly see if there would be a good wind (a tailwind) or a bad wind (a headwind) on upcoming days. This would help them decide if the trip was worth it. To do this, I used the OpenWeather API to get weather data. Then, using JavaScript, I wrote code to look at the wind direction and speed from that data and tell users if it was a headwind or a tailwind. I built the whole site using WordPress.