Have I Mentioned How Much I Love my iPhone?

Since I'll be in school full-time, I'll have more time for fitness.  Kendall and I have noticed that the Maple-rator could use a little more exercise to use up some of her extra energy, so running is a natural fit.  Plus, I love running and I've really missed it.

And oh, how I love my iPhone.  It rings when people call, I can check my e-mail and Twitter and Facebook, and I can check the weather and take pictures of my doggies.  And then I can download lots and lots of apps.   So when I decided to get back into running, I figured there must be an app that uses the GPS function on my iPhone to map my run and calculate the distance.  And it needed to be free.

Found one!  RunKeeper has a free app that allows you to enter your activity (running, walking, biking, etc) and then hit start.  It keeps your time and distance.  At the end of your workout, it gives you your distance and time with your miles per hour, and average number of minutes it would take you travel a mile and a handy-dandy little chart of when you were at your energy peak and low.



And with one quick flick, you can also get a map with where you ran!  It's all free and you can get it at RunKeeper or iTunes App store.

A few tips:
Turn on your music before entering the app.  Your tunes will still play and then you can start mapping and timing your run.  But if you start your RunKeeper and then try to access your playlists, it will pause your workout.  Not the end of the world, but if you expect it to keep running and tracking you, you will be at a loss when you finish.

It will also save any of your work-outs so you can have a history.  You can add little notes about pre-work-out eats, weather that day, how much of it was uphill, etc.

So if you are working out off the treadmill or machine, I highly recommend this app.  Hope it works for you!