A simple question that should have been easy
As a parent, I thought it would be an easy question to answer. "What's my best time for this distance?"
It wasn't.
His race results were scattered everywhere. Some were on one timing website, others on another. A few were buried in old emails, and some were only written on pieces of paper we'd brought home from races.
Every event seemed to use a different timing company.
Finding one race result wasn't too difficult.
Finding years of them? That was another story.
There had to be a better way.
It was never about winning
Like many young runners, my son loves running.
Not because he wants to beat everyone else.
Because he wants to beat his own best.
Watching him cross a finish line and immediately ask whether he'd run a new PB reminded me what makes running so special.
Progress.
Not comparison.
Not social media.
Not followers or likes.
Just the excitement of seeing your own improvement.
That's something worth celebrating.
We couldn't find the right app
We tried looking for an app that simply recorded official race results. Something that would let us:
- Keep every race in one place
- Track personal bests across different distances
- See progress over time
- Celebrate milestones
- Build a history we could look back on together
Surprisingly, it didn't exist.
Most running apps focused on GPS tracking, smartwatch uploads, training plans or social sharing. They're fantastic at what they do. But they weren't what we were looking for.
We wanted somewhere to record official race performances, whether they came from a local fun run, school cross country, Little Athletics, parkrun or a marathon.
So we decided to build it ourselves.
Built for families
From the very beginning, BeatYourBest was designed differently.
Many children don't own GPS watches.
Many don't need another social media platform.
Many simply want to know: "Did I beat my best?"
BeatYourBest lets parents help record race results while encouraging conversations about effort, improvement and perseverance.
It isn't about chasing likes.
It's about celebrating progress together.