Inside Activity: Route Mapping

When a new product enters the market, it dazzles consumers for ten whole minutes before we're asking for more.

My praise for the Nike+iPod has been overwhelming, to say the least, but my mind has been ticking from the first step I took on the initial run. And it's as if they heard me.

If you're holed up today like I am or bored sometime this week, visit Nike Plus, even if you're not a kit owner. Just register to get access to site facilities.

My favorite new tool is the Route Mapper. For those of us who are spatially challenged and have a difficult time gauging any distance whatsoever (everything is 20 minutes away for me, even if it's in a different state), a route mapping tool is useful for measuring a route's distance, as well as planning a future run with a distance in mind.

In the past I have just taken my car around the approximate route I would like to run, but you can't really do that all the time or everywhere. Now that I'm targeting 5+ miles for each of my runs, this measuring tool will help me determine a proper route to run, which will help with those "that was only 2 miles?" moments.

Not everyone will find this tool as useful and fun (I'm an interactivity fanatic; it's part of my job!), but it's worth a look -- if only to idly map out the distance from your house to the bank, the bike shop to the ice cream shop, your work to Taco Tantos. Not that that's what I've been doing for the past three days...