dailymile is a “social training log for runners, triathletes, and cyclists. dailymile is the easiest way to share your training with friends and stay motivated”. I’ve been using dailymile for the last week to track my training for the Vancouver marathon, and overall I’m very impressed with the features.

The key benefits I can see from dailymile so far are:

1) It’s a very effective online training log:

• Keeps track of all your workouts, including distance, heart rate, calories burned, intensity, etc
• It automatically keep fun stats like your total miles traveled, times around the earth, donuts you burned off, etc
• You can auto-sync workouts from your Nike+ (and they say Garmin GPS coming soon)
• You can create your training routes with Google Maps and keep them in your profile

2) It works as a good motivator to keep up with your training:

• By placing your training where friends and others can see, it pushes you that much more
• Friends can comment on your training and provide encouragement/ advice
• Viewing the performance of people in your area can help inspire you
• You can learn about some good new running routes and races

3) There is a good social media aspect to dailymile:

• You can add friends and track their progress
• You can add comments to others’ work-outs, and add ‘motivators’
• You can post your work-outs directly to Facebook and Twitter
• Ability to add pictures and video
• You can get various widgets, like the one below

4) You can add the races you plan to run to your profile:

• Allows you to keep track of all your races and how many days of training you have left
• You can see what other dailymile members are running in the same race

5) Its free!!

Overall, I really like dailymile so far and will use it at least until I’ve accomplished my goal of completing the Vancouver Marathon. But realistically, I see myself using this tool for a long time to come. If you’re on dailymile, be sure to add me as a friend.

Does anyone have any experience with other similar online tools?

Tags: dailymile,social media,training
Categories: Running, Websites
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Trailpeak is another great resource to add to your arsenal of trip planning. It’s a great user-maintained website where you can find information on thousands of trails – water, earth, and snow. You can search for information on a specific trail, or browse by region and decide where your next adventure will be. Users can upload pictures and share their experience with each trail. The site also makes it easy to create your own wishlist so you can keep track of all the peaks you want to conquer, and which peaks you’ve already tackled.

Trailpeak’s trail database is built and maintained by … you! Our mission at Trailpeak is to provide the best source of hiking, mountain biking, climbing, kayaking, canoeing, skiing, and snowshoeing trails and trip planning tools across Canada and the US. We like to think of the terrain we play in and protect as one big Island. With 10,000 trails and growing, we’re one of North America’s largest trails sites, and the site is completely free.

The site is free but you have to buy a membership for the ability to download GPS coordinates and a few other knick-knacks. You can also upload your own GPS coords for a trail in order to get credits for GPS download.

Beyond trail information, there is also a decent forum, and a nice directory of outdoor events.

They also have a free iPhone app you you may want to check out.

Tags: Trailpeak
Categories: Websites
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Thanks to Trails BC for bringing this to my attention:

The new website for the Sea to Sky Trail recently went live. It’s a great place to keep up to date with the on-going development of the trail, which will be a part of the larger Trans Canada Trail. While it will be years before the entire trail is complete, a large portion is  Ready to Ride, run, hike, ski and snowshoe.

Check out the video below for a great overview of the trail:

Sea to Sky Trail introductory video from G McKeever for the SLRD on Vimeo.

Tags: Sea to Sky Trail
Categories: Hiking Trails, Websites
1 Comment »

Pure Outside is good local outdoors blog I’ve been following for a while now. A lot of the posts are about hiking, and have a Vancouver Island focus, but they also do a good job of covering the spectrum. Running, biking, travel, trip reports, whatever you’re after, be sure to add this one to your feed reader.

We all want to get outside more. Well, most of us do. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to be happy, outside, in the fresh air. Forget the noise, smog and people of the city and head outside into the wilderness where there is so much to see and do. You don’t need to pay for any of it, it’s all there for the taking.

This site is for Awesome Series. It began as the Friday Awesome Series where a few friends decided to make one day a week awesome and outside. It didn’t matter where or how just the activity was awesome and it was outside. From the Friday Awesome Series, it went to Sunday Awesome Series and then to any day a few of us could get out and enjoy the air, the trees, the dirt and the water.

It’s all about doing something outside. Back to where it’s pure, it’s fresh and it’s Awesome.

Think pure. Think outside.

Check the site out, and you can also follow @Pureoutside and the main author @rcthink on Twitter.

Tags: Blog,PureOutside,Vancouver Island
Categories: Websites
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Are you heading somewhere on vacation, wondering what the best hikes are in that area? Besthike.com is a really cool website that lists all the best hikes around the world broken out geographically.

Most are challenging, multi-day adventures. But we also include the very best day hikes: the Tongariro Crossing (New Zealand) & Zion Narrows (USA), for example. We do not (yet) include off-trail scrambles or climbs.

This site helps you get started organizing the trek of a lifetime. The best guidebooks are listed to help you plan. (Be sure to get the most recent edition.)

The website lists out the best hikes by area, and either has their own description and information, or a link to a guidebook/ blog post that does.

For example, for Canada’s West Coast:

CANADA WEST COAST

• West Coast Trail TOP 10
• Chilkoot Trail Yukon / Alaska
• Juan de Fuca Trail
• Stein Divide, BC <guidebook>
• Stein Traverse, BC <trip report>
• Nootka Trail
• Della Falls Trail
• Forbidden Plateau <blog>
• Long Beach, Vancouver Island <blog>
• Howe Sound Crest Trail, BC <guidebook>
• East Beach, BC, Tlell – Rose Spit, Haida Gwaii
• Coast to Coast Vancouver Island (future)

It’s a really fun website to poke around and get ideas!

Categories: Hiking, Websites
1 Comment »