There's nothing better than having the support of your running buddies whether it's the one or two that you regularly run with or the large running club you belong to. Training for a marathon or any (endurance race for that matter) can often wear you down both mentally and physically. Having friends to push you or for you to push during your training can be very helpful and motivating. Running buddies are amazing tools in your training arsenal.I stumbled upon a great social website for runners called dailymile.com. Dailymile is a social training log for runners, triathletes, and cyclists. It bills itself as "The easiest way to share your training with friends and stay motivated." Founded by Ben Weiner and Kelly Korevec (active athletes who share a passion for putting in daily miles, and creating great web applications), the young site already has around 20,000 members who've logged over 1 million miles!
I'm a member of a few other running sites where I can log my mileage, but dailymile is the first where I've really connected and become friends with other runners right here in my own state as well as all over the country. In addition to making runner friends and logging your miles and workouts, you can plot your miles, time, pace, and calories. You can overlay your graphs with that of your friends and compare your training with theirs to find interesting trends in your training data and train better. The site also has video applications, a mapping tool to track and share your favorite running routes, the ability to share your workouts on FaceBook, and you can even import Nike+ data.
Take a few moments to check out da
ilymile. If you do, I think you'll quickly get hooked like I did. I've made some really good friends through the site. I may or may not ever meet these people in person, but that doesn't really matter. I'm here for them and they're out there for me to motivate, encourage and celebrate our accomplishments in a sport we love—running.The New York Times is running a special section titled “Marathon Tech Review.” They are reviewing tech products every Friday up to the start of the New York Marathon. Dailymile would love to be one of the products they review. If you've been using dailymile and have enjoyed it as much as I have, drop The NY Times an email nytmarathon@gmail.com and let them know how dailymile has been helpful in your training.
A dailymile friend of mine Loic Le Meur recently had the privilege to run with Ben and Kelly in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Check out the video clip below of their run.
Great write up, Thad. I'm totally addicted to Dailymile. I've met so many great, accomplished runners who are very motivating. It's nice to share your achievements and running milestones with other runners, especially when nobody at home really understands the whole running thing.
ReplyDeleteHey Tammy! Thanks!I know exactly what you mean great to be surrounded by fellow runners. Funny how you can make such good friendships and be so far away. Kudos again to that great workout you had! Hope some of that info I sent has helped. There's so much info nowadays, it's hard to process it all for how it applies to youself and your own training; it sure is for me anyways.
ReplyDeleteHA! Like I need one more thing to be addicted to? LOL
ReplyDeleteFine. I'll check it out. ;)
Hey Jo Lynn! With 20,000 members, I bet you'll find another don't-wanna-eat-right runner-friend! :-)
ReplyDelete