Recently a friend of mine decided we would all run with him for his party. He turned 21 - so that meant we were to run 21 kilometers. Thats 13 miles - half a marathon. I’m glad he didn’t say 21 miles. Anyway the invite was a map of the run. I thought he was just being really clever and using Microsoft Paint to draw in lovely colored lines along the route and that he had taken a huge amount of time plotting the course and knowing exactly where the mile marks were.
Well we finished the run (Ok so I walked a fair bit of it!) and got to talking. Somewhere in the evening the term ‘map my run’ came up. Now for YEARS I have wanted to do something like this. If I wanted to know how far I was running, I’d get in my car and waste precious diesel to find out the distance. Not only did it waste diesel, it isn’t really that accurate - because I don’t run in the center of the road!
When I got home, I Googled ‘map my run’ and it comes up with www.mapmyrun.com . I love it! Basically you become a member for free - then you put in your details. You could be really specific - like down to heart rate and all that - I just put in my location and approximate weight… but thats not the fun part. I typed in the starting address of the run and then followed along where we ran. I had to use the pointer as we didn’t stick to the road the whole time. Every now and again it would come up with a little marker point - every km to be precise. Its fantastic. When you’re done, you select the stop key and place it on your finish line - and hey presto - the distance is calculated. Then you have the option of saving it and making if public or keeping it private. You can chuck in a few keywords to help you remember what the run was like.
I love it! I can now see - very easily - how far I run. It takes a simple click of the mouse and I can map my run and save it. Even better, it logs all my running and gives me a grand total anytime I want. Whats more, I can track usage of my gear. I can also create groups and invite others to run my routes. I can document my sleeping patterns, my morale, my weight. The site can calculate so many things that are important to people who like to track their progress - like body mass index, pace and splits, heart rate zones - and so many more are being added to that list regularly.
I think mapmyrun.com is a great site. It is comprehensible and easy to use. I can very quickly load in a new run or find out if I need to replace my shoes. And better yet - it is also able to be used for hikes, cycles, swims - etc etc etc. It is being updated all the time and you won’t be stopped short looking for an address that the map outdates because it uses Google Earth.
Try it today and see - maybe you even want to find a shortcut to work - or if you could ride your bike to work… its a great site - such an awesome tool - I just can’t believe I have only found it now!
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