Some adventures in road and trail running.
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Saturday, February 2, 2008

How far did I run?

The first question I always ask after finishing a run is: How far did I run?

This is easy to determine on the trails in Forest Park with all the cool maps available but a bit of a pain when you are doing road runs.

In the old days I would run my route and then hop in the car (usually after a shower) and drive the course to determine the mileage.

This had numerous problems:
  • any parts of the route that were through parks or on trails you had to guess
  • more time away from the family
  • it did not help in explaining to friends the route you just ran
  • it was boring
Now I use the online course mapping applications.
I know of two: USA Track and Field and one associated with the Eugene Marathon (which I ran last year).

Both are powered by Google so you get great street and satellite views.

The Eugene one (really RealBuzz.com) requires you to create a user and log in which is mildly annoying. It has the additional feature of showing a Terrain view and handling GPS upload and export (I did not try the GPS stuff). I could find no way to show elevation.

The USATF requires no login and no terrain view but does have elevation profiles (although today I could not get any elevation profiles :-( ).

These are great as they provide you with mileage, possibly elevation and you can save the mapping and send it to a friend to brag about your great workout.

A little way to make the training easier :-)

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