The community of runners is a great part of being a
runner. After all how much fun is it to
just bang away the miles if I do not have some place to chat about the miles,
some place to track your miles or some place to map the run. This edition on my blog will feature my five
favorite runner support sites/applications.
#1 #runchat on Twitter, even with a very
supportive wife, who’s always takes an interest in my runs/races and
performance, it’s nice to share the trails of running with “other
runners.” Twitter and the hashtag group
#runchat are a great bunch of folks who offer encouragement, friendship, race
reports and tips on getting what you want out of the sport lifestyle of
running. #RunChat Twitter Chat is held
the second and fourth Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. The chat is 60 minutes of
interaction with others about running. You can join and chat live easily at www.therunchat.com
#2 Mapmyrun.com, although some runners
enjoy the carefree approach to running, jumping out on unknown roads or trails
and take on the unexpected. Myself, I
like to know where I’m going before I get there. Mapmyrun.com offers an easy to use
application where you can lay out our run, with the application measuring the
distance, and hill profiles. This FREE
application offers the runner an advance screening before you ever set foot out
on a new road or trail.
#3 Microsoft Excel, I’ve been tracking my
running miles with this software since 2000.
I have built spread sheets/workbooks for each year and a combined
workbook with totals for all years.
Excel makes it easy to use a couple simple formulas to not only keep a
running total, but also view and tracks averages, calories and performance.
#4 Marathon and Beyond, A glossy magazine published 12 times
a year (bimonthly)
tailored specifically for marathoners and ultra-runners. Their web site could be bit more modern, but I
love, love the magazine content.
#5 Marathon Calendar by Marathon Maniacs,
I have spent a lot of time trying to find my next race, I bounced from one web
site to another trying to find the best and closet race to my location. The calendar offered by the Maniacs is the
most complete marathon calendar I could find, listing both the 26.2 mile races
and those longer in distance.
#5a Race Calendar by
Running in the USA, my second stop when looking for a race is runningintheusa.com A nicely organized web site with races, results,
club information, photos, a forum and a lot more.
The Almost Top Five:
- 26.2
Medals, See the
bling from marathons across the US...and
submit pictures of those not yet listed.
- Marathon Pace Calculator by coolrunnings.com,
my mind does not handle numbers very well, so this is a page I use often. Getting headaches from trying to figure out whether you ran a 7:18
or 7:21 pace? Leave the math to cool running’s easy to use pace calculator.
Plan your race pace and splits, figure out how far you ran based on your
estimated pace, or calculate the pace of your last training run.
The time pounding the pavement is only one part of the
running lifestyle, the people, the races, the courses and how you keep up with
your performance are all part of the fun.
What are some of your favorite running tools?
Thanks for the shout-out to #runchat!
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