Run Monster

By now there are quite a few exercise logging apps with attendant websites out there. The Nike+ pedometer is a fair system with seamless data capture to web page display. Apple/Nike holds your information however, and there is not a way to download or backup your data independently. Runometer, a web source, has taken a crack at it but only to squirrel away your data as well. Nike+ can not record bicycle rides or produce route maps on the fly. Enter RunMonster a quality little application that is easy to use. It will automatically name your runs according to streets, and it’ll even group your runs and figure out whether you walked, biked, or ran, according to your speed. RunMonster creates a gpx file of your tracking event. Gpx is a format understood by most GPS devices using an import/export function. A gpx file can be displayed using HTML and Java Script on the web or with desktop software like Google Earth. I like to upload my gpx file archive to the cloud (e.g. Dropbox ). This practice, in addition to providing a backup resource, provides for a linkable file. Copy pasting this link into the search maps field on maps.google.com will also display your route trace, provide a shareable link, and provide an webpage embeddable link too. RunMonster data outputs to plain text (think spreadsheet). I like RunMonster. My data belongs to me.

One thought on “Run Monster

  1. Good suggestions! Once I recover from this weekend I’ll have to try these sites out

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