Friday, August 17, 2007

Online Training Log for Runners

Just recently (ok, 3 days ago) I wrote a post about my "new online running tool". Well, I've flip-flopped to another tool since then. Yes, 3 days ago... :)

As I outlined in that post, there is a lot of competition out there and this is my final stop; I finally found the one that fits me. I'm a subscriber to RunnersWorld magazine and I read articles from my blog reader (none other than Google Reader of course). They've recently announced a new online training portal to their site for tracking your data. Needless-to-say, they offer the built-in Google maps tool to create, find, and share running routes as well.

The RunnersWorld.com mapping utility appeared a bit flawed at first, but it was much better than the mapping utility that CoolRunning.com had (which was nothing). MapMyRun.com offered a full-fledge community feel to their site and had some pretty compelling features for us "tech nuts" including an add-on for finding runs directly from Google maps, various blogging links, and other cool things that had me convinced they were "the ones". What ended up selling me on RunnersWorld.com was the fact that they had charts, in depth mileage tracking, very large online community, amazing articles, and they're improving their map sharing.

My only complaint with these training sites is that nobody has an "import" utility to import old data files. They all offer an "export" utility, which makes it easy to leave... but no "import". This seems like a "must have" if you ask me. Especially for RunnersWorld.com, because they are the "new kids" in town with their training log. I've only been running for 8 months... I couldn't imagine the heaps of data that other runners must have.

I posted the discussion on both sites requesting this feature, so I guess you can say that I did my part in getting the ball rolling..? We'll see...

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