Using Google Earth to Track Miles Ran

June 14th, 2006 Summit

So, I’m a Google Earth fan. I think that it is great tool that I could waist countless hours of my life on. Aside from that, though, I have found a very useful application for Google Earth–tracking the miles that I run.

On Sunday I talked to my father-in-law who has organized a group to run the Wasatch Back Relay. It turns out that they have had a few people drop out of the originally full team and he offered one of the open spots to me. I haven’t ran seriously for years, so, I was reluctant to accept the challenge of running three five-mile legs in the relay. I have also been known for having said about organized runs “why would I want to pay to suffer?”

Well, I had a change of heart. I agreed on Sunday that I would wake up on Monday, run five miles, and then run another five miles in the evening. i figure that if I could do this with out too much of a problem then I should be good to go for the race.

Now this is where Google earth comes in. I wanted to make route for the two five-mile legs that I was going to do on Monday. I pulled up Google Earth and used the measuring tool to find the appropriate distance. You can do the same thing by downloading Google Earth here. Once you have it you can go to “Tools” in the menu bar and then scroll down to “Measures.” That will pull up a screen that lets you select one tab that allows you to place line segments on your map and see the distance covered in the metric of your choice. Or, you can choose the other tab to make a chain of line segments and to view the total distance that the entire chain covers.

With this tool I was able to select my two five-mile legs without difficulty and today I plotted out a seven-mile route. Works like a charm, really.

Oh, and just so you know, I will be running the Wasatch Back Relay in a week and a half. True, that means that I will have trained for a total of two weeks for this thing, but, I figure that, had I committed earlier, I would have procrastinated and been in the same situation. I’ll do fine though…I hope. 

Entry Filed under: Whatever!, Tips and How-To's