I wrote about the importance of planning new and different routes to break the monotony of outdoor exercise. Especially when following a running program that assigns runs of certain distances, it's useful to know the length of each possible route. There are a number of ways to do that.
First is past experience. If you travel this path once, with the aid of a pedometer, gps watch, fitbit, or smartphone you can tell or estimate its length. When I first started walking, I only had my Omron pedometer. It was nice because it counted my steps all the time, not only when I worked out. To estimate distance, I measured how many steps it took for me to walk or run a known distance. After repeating on several occasions, I'd have an idea of how many steps it took me to cover a mile, and use that to measure future walks / runs. It's not so accurate, but it works and is relatively inexpensive.
After losing my pedometer, my girlfriend got me a Fitbit. The Fitbit has the feature to measure distance, but it has to be connected to the phone in real time, which drains its battery quickly. I end up thus using it as a fancy pedometer, to track my steps, heart rate, and sleep. It is great for those purposes and I highly recommend it. However, for maps and accurate distances, I rely on my (free) RunKeeper app on my smartphone. RunKeeper makes things simple, as long as you remember to turn it on and off at the start and finish, and remember to pause / unpause when hiking. It also has a map editor online that I have used to create routes. For longer running routes, I turn RunKeeper on and do a survey with the bike or even the car. Biking an unfamiliar trail first is a good way to know the details of the terrain one will encounter on a run.
Those tools, however good, don't solve the problem of estimating the length of a new route ahead of time, for instance for travel. For this, I use Google Maps. I illustrate below. (It is easier to do this from a computer rather than a mobile device.)
First, survey the neighborhood visually and find a trail you want to use. Click on the map to insert a marker at the start of your route. Now click that marker and choose directions, selecting directions for walking (or biking, as the case may be).
Click under search destination, then click on the map near a point at the far end of where you want to go, and search. You will receive options for trails with a rough estimate of distance.
Finally, zoom out and adjust your trail by dragging point on its perimeter to where you want them. For more complex routes with overlapping pieces, I find it more efficient to measure each segment individually and add up the pieces separately.
First is past experience. If you travel this path once, with the aid of a pedometer, gps watch, fitbit, or smartphone you can tell or estimate its length. When I first started walking, I only had my Omron pedometer. It was nice because it counted my steps all the time, not only when I worked out. To estimate distance, I measured how many steps it took for me to walk or run a known distance. After repeating on several occasions, I'd have an idea of how many steps it took me to cover a mile, and use that to measure future walks / runs. It's not so accurate, but it works and is relatively inexpensive.
After losing my pedometer, my girlfriend got me a Fitbit. The Fitbit has the feature to measure distance, but it has to be connected to the phone in real time, which drains its battery quickly. I end up thus using it as a fancy pedometer, to track my steps, heart rate, and sleep. It is great for those purposes and I highly recommend it. However, for maps and accurate distances, I rely on my (free) RunKeeper app on my smartphone. RunKeeper makes things simple, as long as you remember to turn it on and off at the start and finish, and remember to pause / unpause when hiking. It also has a map editor online that I have used to create routes. For longer running routes, I turn RunKeeper on and do a survey with the bike or even the car. Biking an unfamiliar trail first is a good way to know the details of the terrain one will encounter on a run.
Those tools, however good, don't solve the problem of estimating the length of a new route ahead of time, for instance for travel. For this, I use Google Maps. I illustrate below. (It is easier to do this from a computer rather than a mobile device.)
First, survey the neighborhood visually and find a trail you want to use. Click on the map to insert a marker at the start of your route. Now click that marker and choose directions, selecting directions for walking (or biking, as the case may be).
Finally, zoom out and adjust your trail by dragging point on its perimeter to where you want them. For more complex routes with overlapping pieces, I find it more efficient to measure each segment individually and add up the pieces separately.
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