Elevation Gain

Elevation gain (and loss) is the cumulative vertical distance ascended over a session, in meters or feet. It is the context that makes pace honest: covering 10 km with 400 m of climbing is far harder than 10 km flat, yet pace alone would rank the flat run "faster" and therefore "better."

Uses in the data layer:

• Grade-adjusted pace (GAP) — combines pace with grade to estimate the equivalent flat-ground pace, so uphill and downhill segments can be compared fairly (see cardio-pace).
• Climbing volume — trail runners and cyclists track weekly vertical gain as a training load in its own right.
• Interpreting HR/power spikes — a HR or power surge that lines up with a climb is terrain, not a fitness change (see heart-rate-logging, power-ftp).

Measurement caveats:

• Elevation comes from GPS (least accurate vertically) or a barometric altimeter (more accurate but drifts with weather pressure changes). Vertical error is generally larger than horizontal GPS error (see gps-distance).
• Different platforms apply different smoothing, so total-gain figures for the same route can disagree noticeably.

• Elevation gain = cumulative vertical ascended (m or ft).
• Enables grade-adjusted pace to compare hilly vs flat efforts fairly.
• Weekly vertical gain is itself a climbing-training-load metric.
• Barometric altimeters beat raw GPS for vertical but drift with weather.
• Platform smoothing differences make total-gain numbers vary by route.

• cardio-pace — elevation drives grade-adjusted pace.
• gps-distance — shared (and worse, vertically) error source.
• heart-rate-logging — climbs explain HR spikes.
• power-ftp — power surges on climbs are terrain, not fitness.