I’ve seen a lot of great programs mentioned here over time and thought I would try starting a common thread to talk about them hopping it would generate more interest and make it easier to find them again later. I’ll kick it off with a couple of apps for my phone that I am really loving.
First is My Tracks an Android app from Google:
http://mytracks.appspot.com/It uses GPS to log hikes, runs, biking . . . well pretty much any outdoor activity. That in an of itself is not big deal, however the cool part is that you can upload the maps and data to Google Maps and Google Docs respectively. You can also view it on the phone itself.
The statistics is logs are location, distance, speed and elevation and combines these to give some additional info.
They claim +/-6m accuracy but for the two runs I’ve tracked I’m seen +/-3m as the worst usually closer to +/-1m. For example while running along a canal not only did it accurately show which side of the canal I was on but which side of the path I was running down on that side of the canal.
The distance seemed near perfect.
I didn’t time the speed with a watch but after running for so many years I know what my pace is and felt it was also very accurate.
Elevation doesn’t fair so well. On a 9 mile run here in Avondale it logged a 70’ elevation change. Maybe I’m reading the elevation changes wrong and am trying to research that since min/max grade it recorded seem realistic but I doubt if my actual elevation changed more than 5m and that was when I ran through a couple culverts.
The route is displayed on a map in real time while the data is summarized in a log showing several aggregations and a graph displays your changes in elevation over the course. You get:
Total Distance - very accurate
Max Speed - seemed accurate
Total Time - very accurate
Average Speed - very accurate
Moving Time - very accurate
Average Moving Speed - very accurate and nice feature since it drops out time waiting to cross a road due to traffic or a pit stop due to “over-hydration.”
Elevation - seemed accurate
Elevation Gain - seemed high but it might be logging the total elevation changes over the course rather than just the difference between the low and high points.
Min Elevation - probably 50’ off. They say elevation can be a couple of hundred feet off.
Max Elevation - same
Min Grade - seemed accurate
Max Grade - seemed accurate
The elevation graph shows the relative changes in elevation and corresponding speeds over the course.
The map shows markers for whatever distance you set to measure your splits. And you can access all the above data for each of the splits (awesome feature).
I’ve been running insane amounts for the past 35 years and have never used any sort of heard monitor and even gave up on such things as watches 30 years ago since your body will tell you what you are doing if you know how to listen. Also, in my entire life I’ve never kept logs. However, I am already hooked on this thing. It literally does everything for you so there is no data entry or calculations. About the only feature I imagine some people might want would be a way to integrate a heart rate and/or VO2 monitor into the log.
If you are into any type of outdoor activity and want to track what you are doing this is the coolest easiest to use logging system I have ever seen. Well I took to much time here to the geocashing app c:geo will have to wait.
