One of the most frustrating parts about moving to a new town for me has always been coming up with new running and cycling routes. It's hard enough to learn your way around town when trying to get to the grocery store or find the post office, let alone designing a good, straightforward loop or out-and-back (I hate out-and-backs) route that doesn't have too many turns, is easy to remember, and mixes in a good number of hills.
Fortunately, I came across a link to this feature on the USATF site in just the right time.
America's Running Routes
Through software provided by Google Maps, the USATF has created a searchable database of running routes for the entire country. Not only can you browse runs by town, state, and starting location (e.g. residence, park, athletic club) but you can also rank other people's routes too. And, best of all, you can map your own route and add it to the database for other people to enjoy.
The only flaw I see is that you have to zoom in pretty tight to see the actual road names on the map and then printing the route can be troublesome, as you either have to print multiple tightly-zoomed in areas, or the overview and draw the road names in by hand. Unfortunately, this feature doesn't generate a Mapquest-like directions list.
But regardless of this flaw, this is still a pretty powerful tool and I will definitely be adding to this database soon.
1 comment:
You should try RouteLoops.com. You just enter a location and a distance, and it will give you a random route that starts and ends at your location. It's a brand new route every time.
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