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Web Designed Routes for Running

Or how to use Google Maps the healthy way

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

31st of October 2007, 15:36 GMT

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Ever wondered if you could combine the internet with some healthy practice? Not as in "I should lose some weight, let me just check some diets online. Cabbage? Carrots? Apples?

What do they think I am, a rabbit? Err�NO! Bring forth the cheese cake!", but rather in "I really want to be doing something".

If you did (and also if you didn't, Google doesn't really care �it just provides), there are sites especially created to help you calculate and map your running/ walking/ riding paths. All of them using Google Maps, of course.

The options provided include saving your routes for later reference, as well as sharing them or keeping them private or browsing through routes that have been published by others. One of those sites, WalkJogRun.net, provides a live calorie count, updated with each new route segment added, while another, MapMyRun.com lets you edit a course as you draw it. You can correct a misplaced click or revise your route to account for unplanned detours by dragging the waypoint icons that mark each turn. Pointer icons for water fountains, bathrooms and other important stops in a jogger's run can also be placed.

Unfortunately, these sites lack the flexibility of the route-drawing tools that Google has recently introduced for its "My Maps" site, tools which display the length of each segment in real time, as you draw it and allow you to insert new waypoints if anything unexpected occurs, be it more twists in the road or a fallen tree that blocks your path. Users say these Google Maps-sites could provide more overlays showing running and bike trails, because most of them aren't listed in Google's map view and are hidden under trees in its satellite views.

So if you're the do-it-yourself type of guy, you might enjoy the new sites and new tools provided. You're not? Well, then at least you know of them and might decide to use them in the future.

TAGS:

google | maps | health

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