Time & distance

[notoldyet]

What do people use to track their distance against time? I'm currently using the podcasts on a treadmill, but after graduating when I can just run I want to get outside with my own playlist. How do I know how far I've covered, is there an app I should use?

[Dunder2004 Graduate]

As long as you have a GPS enabled smartphone there are a number of apps. Runkeeper and Strava are both very popular. GPS use does drain your battery quite quickly though.

The 'next step' if you are so inclined is a sports watch (also GPS enabled). Garmin is the leading brand.

[Coddfish Graduate]

If you have a smart phone, there are various free and paid apps that use GPS to both track your distance and time, give you information such as your pace and speed over each 0.5k, and comparisons between runs. They also show a nice little map after the run showing where you went and your time at each k. I use the free version of Runkeeper on a fairly old iphone (4S) and it works pretty well. You can buy apps with more functionality.

I definitely recommend running outside, although if you are suffering the gales we have here, it's not an option at the moment! Had to revert to a treadmill today for the first time in the UK for a long while. I think the weather was better in January than it is now!

[Ullyrunner Graduate]

I too find that the free version of runkeeper does all that I need.

[RainbowC Graduate]

Me too - although I think Mrs RunKeeper was in a strop tonight as for some reason she didn't talk to me for my normal 5 minute updates...!