Map My Ride

I recently started using the Map My Ride app on my phone. Basically you turn it on when you start a ride, and it tracks your GPS until you turn it off. At the end, it breaks your ride down and gives you lots of stats such as distance, time, speed, and calories, plus it shows you a map of your ride and elevation changes by distance. They've got a bunch of other fitness planning stuff (like diets and things) that I don't use. It's a pretty cool little app, and has helped me better track my rides and pace. I think my favorite piece is the elevation map, since thats something I wouldn't be able to easily see with google maps and a clock. What's also cool is that it then saves all your workouts and keeps a log, so you can go back and see how you did before. While I'm less concerned about my previous pace, I like that I can map out the trails I take regularly and see how all over Northern Virginia I really get.

For the joggers there's an equivalent Map My Jog app or you can get either and just change it back and forth from running to biking. You can then also have friends and see each other's stats and workouts (if you let it, of course there are privacy settings). If anyone else is on there and wants to friend me, I am username Kevinywev in Vienna, VA.

Also, I mentioned this in the comments on my rides this week post, but I'm going to start doing some posts about the trails I ride a lot.  If you friend me you can see some of the trails that way, or I may try to make a google map and link it.

The other project I might undertake soon is to plot how fast I go as a function of the variables the app gives me - Horizontal distance, Vertical gain (all the up, without subtracting any down), and Vertical change (starting elevation - ending elevation). I still need some more data points before I can get some effective numbers, but I'm interested to see what I get.  It'll also be fun to see how trail types impact things (paved vs not, lots of road crossings vs continuous).  This might not be as obvious from the app but once enough data is there its only a matter of analyzing it. . .

My current hypothesis is that S = (12mph-0.005mph/ft*E-0.001mph/ft*G)
S=speed
E=elevation difference (initial-final, in feet)
G=gain (total up not counting any down, in feet)

In other news, I have apparently not done enough math/science of late, because coming up with that equation took me wayyyy longer than it should have.