Trailrunner 1.6: Keeping Your Workout Fresh

It’s the New Year, and I’m sure many of you reading this have gone through the routine of setting those familiar resolutions to improve yourselves in 2008.

One of the most common of these goals is to ‘get fit’ with many people setting a target such as running the London Marathon or completing an Iron Man challenge.

Unfortunately, the hardest part of sticking to these self-promises is the ability to stay motivated. After running the same 10-mile route for three weeks it’ll end up being as mind-numbing as the commute to work. Sometimes you might find a little shortcut or diversion that keeps the exercise interesting, but more often than not you’ll never record it and revert back to the boring route the next time you exercise. Berbie Software has a solution to this dilemma, with the excellent TrailRunner; now at version 1.6.

When you first run the application and play around with the interface, your first thought might be, “Hey, this is just a rebranded version of Google Earth!” That’d be wrong; while TrailRunner does present you with a mish-mash of mapping in the main window, from traditional maps to satellite photos, the application has some brilliance under the hood. Once you’ve navigated to a particular area that you want to exercise in, you can zoom in and start laying out ‘tracks’, which act as the foundations for your route.

The idea is to build up a whole network of tracks over time, that you discover while exercising or just plan from looking at the maps, which then gives you plenty of options for the main feature of the app. TrailRunner has the ability to analyse your selection of tracks, and with a few parameters (such as distance) plans a route for you to use. How is this better than looking at a map? Well, TrailRunner allows you to rate your tracks, using the iTunes 5-star system.

As a result the route planner will tend to choose tracks that have higher star ratings to give you a route that you are likely to enjoy completing. This is all well and good, but you can’t exactly cycle down a trail with your MacBook balanced precariously on the handlebars. Fortunately there are a number of export options. For the majority of users, the NanoMaps system will be most useful. This exports the route as a series of images which can be displayed by any photo-enabled iPod, mobile phone or other imaging device.

If you then forget where you’re meant to go, a quick glance at your iPod will give you a local map, orientated to the direction you should be traveling in. For those athletes that are a little more hardcore, the app also supports exporting to GPX, KML and HRM formats, allowing you to use devices such as the Garmin Forerunner. However, that isn’t all. TrailRunner also gives you the features to record your progress, either automatically by importing device data from gadgets such as Nike+iPod or by recording it manually.

After completing a few workouts, you’ll be presented with graphs showing your performance and estimated fitness, which is all very cool if you need to know that kind of stuff. It even has a smidgen of GTD sneaked in, with an exercise calendar telling you when you need to grab your running gear and hit the tarmac. Overall this application is a fantastic way of managing your outdoor exercise regime, giving you an intelligent way of planning and recording your way to completing your goals.

There are still a few issues, such as maps loading a little slowly for my impatient self and you will need to have a look at the tutorials to get the most out of Trailrunner. The amount of map data is also limited slightly, but the application allows you to add maps that you find/buy, which is certainly nice. The one thing it won’t do however, is give you the boot out the door to exercise in the first place!

TrailRunner is well worth a look as Donationware, and I highly recommend giving the developer a little something for their efforts, should you like the app.

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