From: Nicole Landry
Review: This is the first app of it’s kind that I’ve seen, where I can keep all of my races in one place! I have an iPhone, so I can only speak to the functionality of the app on apple devices. Previously, I have kept multiple versions of my race schedule throughout the year: excel spreadsheets, day planner, google calendar on my phone, iCalendar, a white board…and invariably, I double book at least one thing every month. It’s a pain, and too time consuming to keep cross-referencing every place I keep my schedule.
With OCR Buddy, I can log in, hit “My Events,” and it gives me the list of every race I am planning to do. It also stores the races you have done in the past. When you search the calendar for events, you can click on an event, see if any of your “buddies” (they have to be using the app, as well) are attending, and you can either click “attending” if you have registered, or know you are going to register; or, you can click “interested” so it adds it to your event list.
Each event that you add to your list has a section for notes, so you can add whether or not you have paid the reg fee (or any other info you want to add).
When an event is finished, there is also a place for you to add your finishing time. This makes it easier to go back and compare finishing times, if that’s your thing.
The app itself is really easy to use. You can update your profile with a pic, your regional information, the teams you are on, and your social media “names.” The profile page shows you how many buddies you have and how many races you are attending.
If you’re looking for an event, there are events listed throughout 2017 already (as of this review, there are 911 upcoming races). If there is an event you are going to that isn’t listed, you have the ability to add it, and the moderator will review and add it to the calendar. I’ve actually expanded my race calendar from just looking through the published events and finding races that I wouldn’t have originally planned on running. And the events are nationwide, and international..on vacation and need a race fix? Look at the calendar and find one in the area you’re vacationing in. 🙂
The app also has filters, so you can narrow down your search by only your events, events your buddies are attending; race brand, country (currently US, UK, Canada, and Australia), region, state, length of race, whether or not you’ll get dirty, and whether or not you’ll get swag.
Under the settings tab, you can find a FAQ on the app. It tells you everything you need to know to use the app. It has a clickable menu, or you can scroll through the whole FAQ (which I recommend, there are a few tidbits in there that I didn’t know!). It’s not overly verbose, and it doesn’t miss any of the points you may be looking for.
The only thing the app is currently missing is the ability to export to your daily calendar on your phone. I hear they’re working on it, though. I’ll be very excited when that happens. One less cross-reference to worry about!
The best thing about the app, is I can literally just tell someone to hold on a second when they ask if I’m free to do something, and I can look at my events and give them an answer right away. Before I had to say…Oh let me go home and check my race schedule. Pretty cool.
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