One of my personal exercises of choice is running. I sometimes like to go out for a nice long run and sort out all the thoughts in my head, not worrying about speed, distance or even direction. However sometimes this stuff is very important.

I have often come back from a run wondering, just how far did I run?

If you look around for software to help plan your exercise route, you will see it can be very expensive. But there is no need to purchase it.

You can easily find out and plan routes for running, cycling, walking or anything that you want to find out distance for, by using Google Earth. And it is completely free.

I created a quick video to show you roughly how it works.

As you can see it is very easy and highly detailed. You can choose your distance measurement and also in some areas, see 3D buildings and terrain elevation.

I planned my run today and was going to run 4 miles. When I was out running, I decided to go on a little longer so I checked out the route when I got home. I ran just over 5 miles and I was grateful that I could find out so easily.

With this distance data you can work out a lot more things for your running training schedule.

For example: How long does it take to run a mile?

When you run just take a stop watch and time yourself. This data and the distance you got from Google Earth can be easily converted to let you know.

e.g. 2.12 miles in 26:30 minutes (26.5/2.12) means that you ran a mile in 12.5 minutes a mile.

How many Calories did I burn?

Foe every 100lbs you burn aprox 80 calories a mile, whilst running.

So I am 192lbs, that equals approx 153 calories per mile.
Simply multiply your calories by your mileage.

The applications of this simple tool are endless. It will work for any exercise that you will be doing outside and as far as I am aware is very accurate.

Let me know what you would use it for?

DOWNLOAD GOOGLE EARTH HERE

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