I think Runkeeper is an amazing tool – I use it when cycling and I think it’s really interesting to plot your route and analyse your stats.

One of the biggest problems I have with it is that an IPhone battery will last maybe 3-4 hours while constantly logging GPS. This is fine when running, but on a  bike you might be out all day.

I’d like to be able to manually drop “breadcrumbs” along my way, which will be logged and show my route in real time to friends online.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve made a tool that’s going to compete with runkeeper, this is purely me playing around with the Google Maps API.

I’m using the Google Gears Geolocation functionality which gets your latitude and longitude either from your browser’s location settings or your GPS if you are on a mobile device. I’m using an HTC Hero which runs the Android operating system, so Google Gears is already bundled. Looks like IPhones don’t (unsurprisingly!).

I’m going to try and get it up and running for the Leeds to Amsterdam ride so that people can track my progress along the way… should they want to.

Check it out: http://sandjam.co.uk/runpeter/

and

http://sandjam.co.uk/runpeter/add/

(You will need to install Google Gears on your machine to use it)