Things I Love – RunKeeper
I get a lot of questions about my favorite apps. I have a wide variety. Music, shopping, blogging, you name it. How I weigh the love of an app is it’s relativity to the front screen on my phone. One app that has always been on my front screen is RunKeeper.
RunKeeper is a GPS based application to track your fitness. Obviously, you can use it for running but you can also use it for walking, cycling, mountain biking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, skating, rowing and really anything you need to measure distance. You can use it with the music on the phone or I just have Spotify playing in the background usually. Either way, the lovely lady just comes over the music and alerts you of things like time, distance and pace.
Nerdy Goodness
With the GPS + time, you are now in the hands of math. MUHAHAHAHAHA. It is constantly calculating so when you are done, you can analyze it all. Do you slow down going up hills? Do you always speed up running across roads? Where do seem to take walk breaks? What is your overall pace? It can do it all. Here is some sample data (note this was the Krispy Kreme Challenge….so slow because we stopped to eat donuts :)).
You can also get real time feedback from the voice in your ear (I named mine Nadine…we are tight). She can tell me if I am behind target pace, when a mile is up, how much further, etc. At any given time, I can tap the screen and she will tell me what I am doing right then. You can also take photos as you go if you want.
Manual Input
You can also manually input activities. Say you run on the treadmill or recumbent bike, you can just enter your distance and time and have it right along side the other activities. You can enter fitness classes but I have never done that. Not sure what all is involved. Great one stop shop.
Why not Nike+?
Some people ask why I don’t use Nike+. Well it comes down to one main reason: I can edit activities. If you are type A like me, I want my miles to be right. Both apps have glitches. Comes with the technology. It can’t get a signal in the national forest and cuts corners. When I get home, I want to fix it. With RunKeeper, I can. No go with Nike +. So if you don’t care to be 100% accurate all the time, pick your poison. Also Nike+ manual entries are done with a pedometer. These things NEVER work right for me. If I am on a treadmill, I know how far I went. I want to just type it in!
What Else Can I Do?
Well because RunKeeper is such a well established tool, you can build on this experience:
- You can make street teams and monitor friend’s activities
- Share with Twitter and Facebook
- Join supplemental programs to get rewards like EarnedIt
- Get RunKeeper Elite for extra bells and whistles including functionality to let people follow you in races and such. ( Side note: I recommend setting up find my iphone with your iphone for your loved ones to keep track of you. During my marathon training, Kevin could know where I was and make sure I was ok on long runs.)
- Create, share and challenge with your own routes. You can also load in a route on a run and it constantly compares your progress.
Now go get your workout on! I’ll be waiting.
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Does your site have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to send you an
e-mail. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it grow over time.
I have fun with, lead to I discovered just what I was having a look for.
You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man.
Have a great day. Bye
I just stumbled across this app and it seemed like something I could get some use out of. Thanks for all of your usage details and tips.
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