running with christina

since christina is running the thanksgiving half-marathon here in atlanta i've been training with her. she's gotten remarkable better over the past couple of months and i've no doubt she will not only finish the race but finish strong and feeling great.
since i broke my original iPhone (don't get me started) and had to get the new 3G version with GPS i have been toying around a little bit with the running tracker programs. there are three free ones that i have downloaded:
iMapMyRun
Runkeeper
Trailguru
there is a 4th called "Runner" (i think) that costs $5 that provides audio feedback while you're running. i'm not too interested in that one right now. first i'll finish testing the free ones. i think the main features that i would like each program to perform are:
1- quickly lock in the GPS signal
2- accurately track where i have been
3- easy online analysis

i have used RunKeeper about 3 times now. i like how the program has a locking feature so that you don't accidentally stop recording while running. (this happened with iMMR) also, the UI on the website is very cool. the only problem is that i can't put them on the blog like with iMMR. it seems to be pretty accurate when running the streets of buckhead. i've yet to try it at kennesaw mountain.

iMapMyRun (iMMR) is the other one i've used a couple of times. the first time i used it something happened and the data was messed up. it stopped and started recorded randomly - i guess the screen was touched or something. i've since learned that as long as you have the iPod feature going on your iPhone you can go ahead and hit the top button and lock the phone. the tracking feature will still work so long as the ipod is going. if you don't have the ipod going and you lock the phone with the top button, then the GPS shuts off. it's a quirk, but since i know how it works now it's not a problem.

iMMR will also let you embed your runs to your blog or another website. i'll try to do that below for a run earlier this week.



well, what do you know, it actually worked! cool. so you can see where we ran on thursday morning.