Let’s get one thing straight – I’m an absolute iPhone Geek! I love it and think that it’s simply the most innovative technological device of our generation. That might sound like a very strong statement overloaded with hype.
But let me tell you about just one of the ways in which the iPhone is changing the lives of many people beyond just being another technology fad.
It’s all down to one massive innovation by Apple called the App Store. The App Store has allowed software developers all over the world to start developing their own applications to run on your iPhone and leverage it’s many wonderful features.
One such application which I’ve recently started using on a daily basis is called RunKeeper. Very simply, RunKeeper is an iPhone application which is designed to provide mountains of wonderful information and NASA like telemetry about your jogging and running habits.
I’ve recently got into running in a big way. Over the past 6 months I’ve ran a good few 5k and 10k runs and find it to be an exhilarating experience. I’ve often wondered while running past the 1k or 2k or, more likely, the 8k mark, how accurate the course markings are. Well with Run Keeper, I’ll never wonder again.
The best way of describing RunKeeper is to compare it to those GPS systems that might have in your car or will have seen in someone elses car. RunKeeper enables you to accurately track your runs using the GPS capabilities of the iPhone.
When you’re about to head off on your run, you simply fire up RunKeeper and hit the “Start” button. From that point on, assuming you’ve got a decent enough GPS signal, RunKeeper will track your run with military precision. In fact, it’s so accurate you’ll be amazed how accurate the map that get’s generated is when you’ve completed your run.
What’s more, this little gem of an app offers up:
- the precise distance you’ve covered on your run
- the pace of your run with a trend graph showing you when and where you were running faster and when you were running slowly
What is RunKeeper?
The real beauty of this app and how it really really helps when it comes to running to lose weight, is that it provides you with real help when it comes to motivating yourself to increase the intensity of your runs.
How does it help me lose weight by running?
I’ve started setting goals every time I run to at least beat my previous running time by 5 seconds. Knowing that I can accurately track my run time and distance allows me to measure my success with ease. Before I would have to guess a little and so the motivation to track and beat my previous times would not be as strong or as obvious.
Any problems with this wonderful little app?
Surprisingly there are a lot of little apps like this starting to pop up in the App Store. All of them however are inferior to RunKeeper but in terms of the features they contain and in their accuracy.
RunKeeper is not without it’s flaws either though. The big big complaint at the moment is that it absolutely sucks the life out of the iPhone’s battery. You won’t be running any marathons using this app any time soon unless you are a world record marathon runner! But for shorter distance running and jogging, RunKeeper is perfect. I’m sure with future versions of the app, they will solve some of battery drain issues.
I find RunKeeper an excellent way of comparing my running statistics to my overall weight loss. There is no better motivation of getting to the end of a week and looking at my weight loss for that week versus miles covered by running. I can now easily see that in weeks where I really raise my pace and intensity I will lose more weight – pure and simple. Before I started using RunKeeper I knew that was probably the case but I had no way of tracking for sure if this was the case. Now I can do that with ease.
I’ve kept the best bit for last – this app is completely free! There is an ad supported free version and there is a pro version which you can pay for if you like the app as much as me which doesn’t have any ads. Well, if you have an iPhone already you should fire up the App Store on your device and get this straight away. If you don’t – then go get one today!
Talk soon,
Ed
- Post Time: 01-18-16 - By: http://www.rfidang.com