How do you track km and map a route out?

[Trish_66]

W8R2 - Female 52yrs - I have been doing all my running on a treadmill so far. Never in my life have I thought I could run 5K!! Don't think I will manage the distance in the time on the app but am just so pleased with myself that I can keep going for 28 mins. I am trying to build up the confidence to plan a route and try actual running out of my comfort zone. On the treadmill I can see what pace I'm jogging at and how long I've been going also how far I've achieved to run at the end. I would like to still see this when I'm running outside. Do you use fitness apps/watches? I'm not really savvi with all the technology would love your feedback and suggestions of best fitness watch to buy or app to download. Thanks

[slow-farah Graduate]

A lot of people here use strava (me included) it's a free app used to track outdoor runs, you can set it to tell you your pace every half kilometre through headphones, so not quite like a treadmill but probably as close as you're going to get. Good luck with your first run outdoors 😊

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to slow-farah]

Thanks Kirstyb I will have a look at strava. Want everything in place before I venture outside lol. That sounds good if I can set it to tell me what pace I'm going every half kilometre. Need to also plan a route with distance calculated before I run it, will it let me do that also?

[slow-farah Graduate in reply to Trish_66]

Strava unfortunately won't let you plan a route, I just use the maps app on my phone to work out a route or do the out and back method (ie if you want to run 3km you follow the road/path until strava tells you that you've reached 1.5km then come back the way you came).

I've heard of map my run which might be worth a look at but I've never personally used it.

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to slow-farah]

Thank you for your advice

[telford_mike Graduate]

I have this problem too. GPS apps don’t work where I run (a deep valley surrounded by high mountains). What did people do before we had GPS?

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to telford_mike]

Sounds very scenic though!! Maybe they just mapped out a route before hand, I really don't know.

[Goforitmama Graduate]

I'm old school. My tech is probably about 8 years old. Before I had a gps watch I used to drive the route in my car to get the distance.

My antiquated Garmin does not interface with anything. I can't afford to upgrade and I'm not convinced that I really need to. It gives me how long in time I've been running and distance ran and my current pace. I work out my average pace when I get home.

I also have a Fitbit Charge 2. It's a toy and I never intended to use it for running. It's good for measuring how many calories I've burned, time slept etc but it's too much of a toy to use for running.

There are some great gps watches out there. I suggest going to a running store to get some advice. Prices vary.

Or if you are on a budget you can check out eBay for a used watch. Do some research and get one that people rate well.

Good luck!

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to Goforitmama]

Thank you - just loaded map my run app onto my phone and it seems to have some good short runs in my area. Going to try this and see how I go.

[Hidden]

Hi Trish! I use Garmin forerunner 25. I’ve had it for about 3 years. Never let me down yet! When I go on the treadmill (occasionally in the winter) I just switch it to use indoors, which turns the gps off.

Outside once the gps signal has kicked in I just press button to start and off I run whilst my garmin maps my run,pace calories, distance ,laps etc. I love it!

Hope you find one you like 😀😀

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Will have a look at that one if I get on ok running outside. I've just loaded map my run onto my mobile phone so will give that a go first with a route already mapped out.

[icklegui Graduate]

MapMyRun will do what you want - but as per Peggy59's point about the GPS signal kicking in you do have to make sure it knows where you before starting or it loses you completely. You can plan your route in advance on the web version and then you can track yourself with the app on your phone. And you can set it to shout your progress at 0.5Km, or 1Km (I think there's a couple of choices).

Planning before you go can also be done on something like mapometer gb.mapometer.com/ and then you can track yourself with something else. I'm considering a second hand running watch to see if I get on with them

[Trish_66 Graduate in reply to icklegui]

Thank you so much. I have loaded mapmyrun onto my mobile phone and it shows some routes and km worked out. Will give this a go before I purchase anything just to see how I get on running outside.