Thursday, February 24, 2011

Like Twitter for Runners

Social media now wants to help couch poatoes who aspire to be athletes. For about a year now I've been part of the Nikeplus online running community, which is pretty cool but restricted to those who use a Nike running gadget to log their training online.

Today I was reading The Globe and Mail online and Amberly McAteer, editor and newbie runner, mentioned a more broadbased site, a kind of Twitter for people who want to log their workouts and share them. The site is dailymile.com, with tie-ins to Facebook and Twitter.

If you're not afraid to put it all out there and you want the encouragement (or pity, or scorn) of a bunch of strangers, it may be the site for you.

I've signed up to see how it works, and I've added a Daily Mile run counter to this blog. If I've set it up correctly, you can find me here. Useful motivation to keep myself running, or is it a case of "vanity saith the preacher"?

1 comment:

J Goreham-Penney said...

I loved Nike+, but my dongle that goes into my iPod Nano (1st gen) doesn't seem to work anymore :( I'd like one of the sportbands so I can keep Nike+ing, I really drag my heels on fitness logging. Another gadget that has a social media component I'd like to try is fitbit (http://www.fitbit.com/), some dance friends of mine use it and it also looks like a good toy.

I think tools like Log Your Run and Daily Mile are great because it makes you accountable to somebody (even if that somebody is an anonymous bunch of people online on a website). I loved participating in running club activities, but when I moved, it was hard for me to get to the trail they run on (I don't have a car, I'm not good enough of a runner to get myself there on foot AND do the long run on the trail AND then get back- the bus doesn't go the whole way out to the start of the trail). While I was still running, Log Your Run was my new running club (I've since become injured and had to go on running hiatus- I think when it gets warm again I'm going to have another crack at it, at shorter distances). Maybe vanity is a bit to do with it for some people, but if you do something like go for long runs on a regular basis, why shouldn't you be proud of your times/distances and share it with the world? I think it's great to have pride in our activities and accomplishments.

Mad Padre

Mad Padre
Opinions expressed within are in no way the responsibility of anyone's employers or facilitating agencies and should by rights be taken as nothing more than one person's notional musings, attempted witticisms, and prayerful posturings.

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