Using the technology

I try to keep my training a little low-tech.  I've almost never worn a heart rate monitor.  I trained with a power meter on the bike for just over a year (until the CPU was stolen!).  The most techy my swims and runs have ever been are a pace clock and a chrono watch.  But since my life went app crazy on the iPhone, I decided to try out the mapmyride app that incidentally links to Facebook and the online training application Mapmyride.

And, I have to say, it worked pretty good.  Even when I was out in the flats where cell phone service was nil... the map that I uploaded to the website was still remarkably accurate.  Three problems that came up:  1) I couldn't actually start the mapping until I had cell phone service... so I lost the first and last 4 miles of my ride (I'm house-sitting in the forest this week).  2) it doesn't record an end time... requiring you to put in your own ride time.  3) The idea that I would ride out of town, do a loop, and then use the same roads to return to town after the loop seem to be lost on the makers of the mapping function.  Let's hope the next version can fix this tiny problem so that it doesn't look like I picked up my bike and flew the direction-the-crow-flies to get home after the loop ends.

The reason I am posting this a week after the actual ride: have to have wifi to connect to the website, so you have to wait till you get to home/work/loving friend's houses where they let you reconfigure their router to accept WPA security (silly PC users.. today is the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh!  Embrace the awesomeness).  I've also been sooo busy.

Here is a link to the map if you want to check it out.