i-run.com

Exhausted and triumphant from what was surely a 10-mile run through the neighborhood, you get into your car to retrace your route and clock the distance.

You check the car’s odometer. Eight miles, it reads. Only eight miles? How can that be?

It’s the sort of disappointment that is well-known to most runners, walkers and cyclists, who for years could make only rough estimates about how far or fast they went.

That’s changing, however, thanks to a host of Web sites like MapMyRun (http://www.mapmyrun.com), WalkJogRun (http://www.walkjogrun.net), MotionBased (http://www.motionbased.com) and USA Track and Field’s America’s Running Routes (www.usatf.org/routes).

The idea behind the sites is to allow everyone, from casual athletes to professionals, to put their courses on a map.

Chris Pilla, a veteran of 40 marathons, is on MapMyRun two or three times a week.

“Once I saw it, I loved it,” he said. “It’s easy to navigate, it’s easy to see, it works well with my computer.”

Read the rest at Yahoo! News

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A while back Falke sent me an email about a site where you can “upload GPS data files (GPX, Forerunner, etc) and plot those tracks onto Google maps.” I filed this away and didn’t do anything with it and found it again just now. The site is pretty simple to use and looks like it has some good features including the ability to copy some of the HTML code that is produced and put your map on to your site.

This website allows you to upload GPS tracks, routes and waypoints and overlay that data onto aerial, street and topographic maps.

The resulting map can be shared with friends & family through a link, or you can include the map on your own website. The maps remain completely interactive so you can zoom in to see more detail. Here is an example.

An example is shown to the right; a hiking track on South Table Mountain in Golden, CO

A number of GPS track formats are supported including a simple latitude/longitude comma separated file, GPX files, Garmin Mapsource text files, Forerunner logs and Delorme Map’n'Go & Street Atlas (GPL).

Check out the site when you have a chance.

Technorati Tags: i-run.com, maps, running

Called “Greatest Web Site of All Time”

At least one blogger has called it “the greatest Web site of all time,” while runners from high school athletes to businesspeople are making use of the technology.

Hyperbole or not, there is no doubt that “America’s Running Routes” is fast becoming a hot, and useful, commodity for America’s runners and travelers.

Revolutionary Service

Using cutting edge technology provided by Google Maps, USA Track & Field, the national governing body for track and field, long distance running and race walking, developed America’s Running Routes (ARR) as a revolutionary service that first allows runners to map and measure their favorite running routes. ARR then provides the means for them to save them to the largest searchable database of running routes in the country.

After debuting in early December 2005 and employing a motto of “Run it. Map it. Share It,” USATF’s library of America’s Running Routes surpassed 10,000 saved routes within its first 10 weeks and now is approaching 20,000 routes. The service enables runners to search all routes in a particular city or to narrow their search to find ones on a specific type of terrain, from hotels, in parks, from trailheads or from running stores. Business travelers can find routes to run from the hotel where they are staying or from local parks.

Read the rest of this at USATF - News

Technorati Tags: i-run.com, maps, running

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The guys at runstoppable.com have been busy since they came out of beta in mid-February and they have some very good updates in their 1.1 update.

Here is the list of updates:

* Route overview page (click on the view button for a route)
* Elevation data on the route overview page
* Email a Route from the route overview page
* Experimental support for Canada and UK
* More administrative features and a facelift for the groups system
* A There & Back feature in the Route Editor
* Download your log to a spreadsheet from the running tab.

My favorite is the “There & Back” feature. This one lets you plot a running route out and then hit the There & Back button and it will retrace your steps so you don’t have to try and click your way back to the starting point, great when you plot and out and back run.

runstoppable.com was probably the best log when it came out of beta and this release builds on that.

Technorati Tags: i-run.com, run, runner, running

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I have been using Runstoppable.com for a couple weeks now and really like their running log. They just left their beta test and opened up for business and I think it is the best running log out there right now.

The log takes advantage of google maps to make it very easy to plot out your route and then use that as the basis for recording your daily (you are running daily aren’t you?) runs.

The interface is very easy to use, no muss, no fuss and flows intuitively. Here are the tabs you will use to navigate around the log.

Welcome - New Runstoppable features, tips, etc.

Running - Log a new run, View recent runs

Routes - Look at the places you’ve run

Statistics - View graphs and tables

Groups - Join and participate in running groups

Forums - Communicate with other users on Runstoppable Forums

Settings - Change the way Runstoppable works

The google map portion of Runstoppable.com is really a key feature of the site. You can log miles like a normal running log but you build the run around a map where you plot out your run, give a title etc. and then save it for use in recording future runs. If you are doing a track work out or running on a dreadmill you choose “no route” and then record your mileage. This is OK unless you want to track the number of miles on the track etc., I think that this is something that they are planning on fixing in the future.

The groups are another really nice feature you can set up a public or private group to talk about whatever you want. The groups come in three flavors:

- Open means that anyone can join.

- Petition means that users must request to join and be approved by a group administrator.

- Invite-only means that group administrators (such as yourself) need to send an invite to users for them to join this group.

This feature will let your club/team/group set up an area to tell lies about miles run and how fast you did them in. The group feature would be a great place for a coach to give advice and tips to her team or track their mileage and time.

Another feature that is really nice are the statistics are a work in progress and currently have the following canned reports:

Miles per Day (30 days)

Minutes per Day (30 days)

Miles per Week (20 weeks)

Minutes per Week (20 weeks)

Miles per Month (12 months)

Minutes per Month (12 months)

Some things that I would like to see is the ability to track mileage on shoes, add the ability to add a treadmill workout without having to use the default “no route”, add some additional statistic features, maybe be able to tag specific runs and sort by them or something, compare race times, put in planned running events that will give you a calendar to know what is coming up in your running life etc.

I will repeat myself in saying that it it a well laid out easy to use log and probably the best going right now.

Here is a quote from the developers - they want to have a great tool and are planning additional features that they will roll out over time.

“We’ve crafted features that are useful to a variety of users, fixed plenty of bugs, and gathered lots of ideas for the future. We don’t think of this as a finish line: we’re just getting to the starting line now and there’s a long race ahead. There’s still a lot to be done and we look forward to getting continued feedback from you as the site evolves.”

Technorati Tags: i-run.com, jog, jogger, jogging, running log, run, running

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