Map My First Run in Months
19th of January, 2010
When I was about fifteen, I hurt my knee somehow. I truly don’t know what I did to it. All I know for sure is I’ve had to be kind of careful with it starting around then.
About a year and a half ago, I began running in earnest. I started at the CalPoly gym, then started running at the local high school, on the bitchin’ all-weather track. All the while, I’d been kind of favoring my knee, treating it delicate, trying not to really injure myself. I’ve even been to an orthopedist, but the MRI he needs done is prohibitively expensive. Ibuprofen has thus been the name of the game.
One night while running the high school’s track, I hurt my hip. Actually, it didn’t hurt till the next morning. It was the right hip, which happened to be the same side as my trick right knee, so I suspect they’re connected. And that was the last time I ran for months.
Instead of running, I’ve been bicycling and walking the golf course after sunset. The golf course is nearby and lovely and dark and nobody’s ever there. I’ve never known how far I go, though, so started looking for iPhone apps that would use GPS to tell me. I ended up with the free version of the $5 Map My Run (iTunes Link).
Their website is a mess. It looks like nothing so much as one of those fake sites that you accidentally click on that’s it’s chock-full of ads and pop-ups and zero good information. It’s really too bad the site is such a mess, because it actually provides a very cool service with very cool features. They’re just not easy to find, and, once found, they’re on an ugly page.
Here’s what the app does, and why it’s cool. After getting a GPS location, you hit start and put your iPhone into your sock $30 armband, and run. While you’re running, the app fetches your GPS location at whatever intervals fetches it in. You can listen to music while it does this, but you need the paid version if you want to control your iPod while the app is running. Though why you’d want to stop to adjust your music is beyond me; just make better playlists. Once you’re done running and you hit the stop button, it offers to save your route. Once saved, you can view the route overlaid on Google Maps tiles. This here is my run today. I strongly suggest choosing the hybrid map option. It makes much more sense.
My major complaint (other than the overall look and feel of the website) is that when you click on my route, you’ll see a red line, but you’ll have no idea which way I went (once on the golf course, I went generally clockwise). Small arrows indicating the direction of the route would be most excellent. But now I know that I ran about 2¼ miles with a ½-mile cooldown. On a golf course empty of golfers because of the rain. Golfers, by the way, are a persnickety group of people. Heaven forbid they share their golf course with actual athletes. I feel that any sport which involves golf carts can’t be a real sport. The rain kept everybody away today, though, which is how I got to use the course for running during the daytime. The rain was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I had to stop now and again to catch my breath navigate a soaked portion of the path. A curse because my shoes got soggy anyhow.
Also, what the hell was I thinking, wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt on this run? I should know better. In my limited defense, I was already wearing the shirt, and my long-sleeved wicking workout shirts all have turtlenecks, which I felt would have been too warm today. And my goodness, hills make running hard. I’m used to running on the high school’s track. Before that, I used a treadmill. Running in the actual world is really difficult.
I mentioned that it was the rain that kept the golfers off the course. There was a break in the rain, which is why I went out when I did, but I put a plastic ziplock bag in my pocket in case the rain came again. I don’t mind getting soaked myself, but felt I should do whatever it took to keep my iPhone dry.
So I’ve gotten back into running. Using very cool technology, yet making almost every other mistake I could. Good for me!
I’m glad to know you’re running again, but quit being such a friggin’ pansy about it! “My knee hurts… my hip hurts… hills are hard.” You’re not even in your 30′s yet for crying out loud. Rub some dirt in it and get back out there.
Also, let me know when you start running real distances.
Dude, your website automatically converts my emoticon to the appropriate yellow smiley-face. THAT’S SO EFFING COOL!
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