I wrote an article recently for examiner.com about why runners should track mileage. I have a friend who runs with little regard to her weekly mileage and is oblivious to her stats. I don’t know why, but it irritates me. It goes against every fiber of my runner’s being….what runner does not keep up with their stats??? It bothers me to no end!!!! I digress. I was contacted by Lori at abvio.com about trying out their app “Runmeter”. At the time I didn’t have an iPhone, but luckily, my BlackBerry Storm died and I hopped on the Verizon iPhone train 3 seconds later.
Runmeter 5.0 was just released a few weeks ago and is available at iTunes for $4.99. I have used other phone based tracking software such as Bones in Motion in the past, pre Garmin days. Run Meter automatically syncs to multiple places like Daily Mile, Facebook, and Twitter without having to connect a device and download to your computer. Like other software, Runmeter tracks distance, time, pace, elevation, GPS map, calories, etc.
Example of Runmeter screen:
I have taken it out on 3 test runs. I will be honest and say that it will never replace my Garmin. For one, I paid too much for that thing to ditch it, and two Runmeter does not track heart rate or sync to my cadence sensor on my bike. Also, I do not run with music and carrying a phone is cumbersome to me….all 4.8 ounces of it! I will however use this for races. Like I said earlier, it syncs automatically to DailyMile and Facebook. If you have the settings to post when you start your run, it will magically put up a little post on Facebook and DailyMile alerting your friends that you have started your run. They can then track your real time progress during your run by refreshing the page every so often. I have an out of town 10K coming up, so now my family and friends can track my progress live and know my results probably before I do. Imagine your family cheering you on live during a race without even being there. Speaking of cheering you on, there is an additional app you can buy (for .99) that gives spoken replies left on your workout post. (I did not buy this app, what can I say I’m just that cheap!) How cool is that!!?? You can actually hear what people are saying about your run while you are running. Now, depending on how your run is going, you may or may not want this feature. I can only imagine hearing….gee, you're running pretty slow today, or you SUCK during a difficult run.
I have not used all of the features as of yet, I really have only hit start and stop and let it run. But I think it can do some other cool little things as well, more experimentation is needed. One of the problems I have had with the app is GPS accuracy and I can not blame that on the app itself, I blame it on phone and user error. You have to carry your iPhone in just the right way to get the GPS to record accurately. First run, I carried it in a SpiBelt and it was roughly a quarter mile off. Next run, I carried it in my jacket pocket and it was nearly a HALF mile off. The last run, I carried it in an armband and it was pretty much dead on, less and .05 off. So, that being said, the app itself if accurate, but you may have issues if you carry the phone incorrectly. I guess the jostling around in my pocket made the GPS go haywire. This is what my run looked like that day on the map…..I really don’t run that erratically….unless a few cold ones are involved.
My only other complaint is how your workout is posted on Daily Mile and Facebook. When you start your run, it says “Laura ran for 1 sec” why can’t it just say, Laura started running. It makes you look like a total idiot….I ran for one second….who does that??? If your friends don’t know to refresh they might think you’re a little weird.
View of how your workout is actually posted on Facebook:
All in all, this is a pretty handy little app and an economical alternative to a Garmin. If I did not have a Garmin, I would definitely use this for every run. Thanks to Abvio.com for the app! I will definitely be using this on race days!
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