San Fermin's running of the bulls on your iPhone

Pamplona City Hall, and city of international renown for its San Fermin festivals, and Kukuxumusu, a Pamplona firm specialized in clothing and product design, have created "Bullrunning Trainer", an application for iPhone by means of which anyone can measure their fitness and speed against the bulls, just as if they were really running the bulls through the streets of Pamplona.

The app, which is free and can now be downloaded through App Store, is available in three different languages - Spanish, Basque and English. It includes advice, statistical information and a personal risk test but the most novel aspect of the application is the element of simulating the running of the bulls. No matter where you are located in the world, you can measure your capacity to run in front of the horns of the bulls, and in doing so, check to see if you are in the right physical condition to take part in the event.

The user should try to find a flat, open location and select from the menu in the application the kind of race he wants to take part in. once the run starts up, the system, by means of a GPS signal, simulates the distance between the runner and the bulls and this can be tracked at all times on the screen and from the acoustics and vibrations from the cell phone that holds the application.

The application allows you to select from five kinds of runs - from different stretches of the Pamplona running of the bulls (Santo Domingo, Mercaderes-Ayuntamiento, Estafeta 1, Estafeta 2 and Telefónica-Callejón), each of these stretches has a pre-determined distance. Furthermore, three levels of difficulty may be selected depending on the distance advantage that you had over the bulls when you started your run; 60, 40 or 20 meters.

The simulator measures the speed of the user against that of the bulls, depending on factors such as the breed or the weather, and the application compares in real time the distance covered by the user and the bulls to evaluate how the run is going and the distance between bulls and runner. In all cases, the system has programmed the speed on the basis of average real speeds covered by the bulls over these different stretches of the course, from the five posible choices that are available to the user.

The run can come to an end in three different ways. If the bulls catch up on the runner, or if the runner has pressed the "safety" button to make a safe exit, or if the whole length of the stretch has been successfully covered by the runner. Depending on the result, the system awards some points to the user and these can then be shared by the user with his friends and fans on the social networks such as Twitter or Facebook.

Once the run is over, as well as receiving points for his handling of the running, the user can check on his level of physical preparation for a real running of the bulls by watching the repetition of the simulated running of the bulls which he has just taken part in.