Route mapping tools part 3

For the past week or so I have been testing the route mapper on Realbuzz.com for planning runs. The tool used on this site is called Map Your Passion, which is a term I haven't quite got my head around yet. Although I love running this does not sound like a run planner, so I googled the term and discovered it is also the name of an advertising campaign for Campari where people can plot their favourite things, their lovers or their experiences on a world map. Now I cannot get this image out of my head whenever I visit the running map your passion and it doesn't seem quite right.

Anyway, the actual mapping tool is good- quite basic in comparison to mapmyrun.com, but functional and easy to use. You have to register with Realbuzz in order to use it, which may put some people off and means it takes a little longer to get on with the task because you have to log in each time.

The route can be planned on a choice of maps (satellite, street map etc) which includes terrain and therefore allows you to work out where the hills are and the climb involved. Realbuzz also boasts that you can add markers to maps to 'highlight your favourites, whether it's a restaurant you'll never forget or the best hotel or hostel you've ever stayed in', and it would be great for these purposes, but as you cannot add markers at the time you actually create a route so it is not ideal for creating certain points on a run or brick (e.g. cycle then run) training route.

All together Map Your Passion was a decent route planner, but I have been slightly spoiled by using mapmyrun, and found this tool not quite so comprehensive for runners or easy to use. For one thing this site became increasingly slow to load each new point as the route got longer, and as the longest run I used it for was 10 miles, this could become really annoying as your distance increases.

Marks out of 5: 3.5

The competition's really hotting up!

on my run today I found myself dodging through a fairground. One of the routes I commonly take out of town was in the process of being blocked off with rides and stuffed-animal stalls, so I'll have to avoid that path for a few days. It looked like it would become a surprisingly big fair for this small town and I suppose the music and lights could add a bit of excitement to a run, but going through the grounds today it already smelt like petrol and burgers, and that was just from the workers caravans so I doubt it will be very pleasant when the fair is actually open.

This week the internet route planner I am testing is mapmyrun.com. I am going to trial it for a few days before writing my review, but so far I am really impressed and think this could be a contender for the crown. You don't need to register or sign in to use the route plotter so if you just wanted to quickly check a route, say, at work, there is minimal time-wasting. Also, and here is a big, gold-star worthy bonus, there appear to be altitude lines and terrain type as display options. This sounds very promising!

But my news of the day is really this: Following my (admittedly harsh) criticism of Sanoodi last week, a nice chap from the Sanoodi team (a sanoodidude if you will) has got in touch with me to let me know they are working on some of the issues I mentioned. It sounds like they are planning to fix the problems with the site and I am really looking forward to re-visiting it in a few weeks to see if I can re-instate it as my mapping site of choice.

It was very nice to hear that my comments were valuable- perhaps this blog will do some good after all!

Route planning internet tools

Whilst I still think an Ordnance Survey map or A-Z is the best tool a running explorer can have, there are times when you don't have access to a map (or don't want to invest in a map because you will only be in the area a short while), and want to plan a route. I occassionally used to use Sanoodi after reading about them in Runner's World, and found this was particulary good for stealing ideas from other peoples routes they had saved on the site. This week however, I have found that Sanoodi has changed and I can't seem to create new routes anymore. I can create a series of dots, but they don't link up and thus it doesn't tell me the distance. The site also seems really slow now and won't allow you to view other people's routes near you at the same time as creating your own. This has annoyed me greatly. Grrr!

I am a lazy and impatient computer user and am likely to give up if a website is too tricky to use or starts behaving in an irritating manner. So I might well hear from someone smarter than me that the revamped look is actually much easier, fancier, blah blah blah and I'm being a doofus, but that is not really the point. They have turned me off now by confusing me and I just don't think there is any excuse these days for a poorly designed website, since there is such an abundance of free and easy-to-use sites. Especially when the original site, although admittedly a little austere looking, seemed to possess all the right functions before the change. Double Grrr!

So I have decided to test out alternative route planning sites, a different one each week, and rate them according to how useful they are for running explorers. First up: Fetch Everyone (FE).