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Who remembers having a spiral notebook to log workouts? If I look hard enough, I think I could dig up mine from my pre-smartphone days. Now with the power of a smartphone, it's all in the palm of your hand.
Two years ago I had reviewed MapMyFitness and was blown away by all the statistics available. I also loved how I could import my Nike+ and Garmin GPS-watch workouts, thus giving me a record of all my workouts in one smartphone app.
Over the past couple years, I've continued to use MapMyFitness off and on alongside Nike+, while learning about other fitness apps, such as Wahoo, RunKeeper and FitBit.
Earlier this year I received the offer to explore MapMyFitness's newest feature: its MVP subscription, which includes several additional features. I explored the newest MapMyFitness during the months of January and February, putting in nearly 100 road miles while exploring its social media settings, statistical analysis and ability to integrate well with most other popular fitness apps.
I had the opportunity for a one-on-one demo session with one of the co-founders of MapMyFitness, Robin Thurston. I was well-equipped to truly explore the new tools that came out in February.
About MapMyFitness
MapMyFitness is a comprehensive fitness training app, seamlessly merging web-based analysis tools with mobile and device-based data collection tools. From running to biking to swimming to walking your dog to even Zumba, MapMyFitness has thought of everything. I had written about the free MapMyFitness about two years ago. I listed pros and cons of the app, and compared it to Nike+. Many of those features are still in place, so I don't think I need to repeat myself. If you're interested in the free download, it can be found at the Apple App Store, Blackberry App World or the Android Market.
Robin Thurston explained to me that MapMyFitness has over 13 million registered users and is compatible with over 200 devices, from the latest FitBit to your favorite Garmin bike computer. Thurston used the term "device agnostic" to describe the near transparency MapMyFitness strives to have with other fitness electronics. I thought that was well-put.
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About MVP__
MVP is MapMyFitness's premium subscription service, currently available for iOS in full form, and in a partial format for Android. The Android platforms are expected to have full functionality by this summer. Launched in February 2013, MVP offers an incredible new level of analysis and social networking to your workout. In addition to doing away with the ads, MVP has dozens more analysis tools, course planning tools, personal coaching and live tracking with connectivity to your favorite social networks. As of this writing, upgrading to the MVP service will cost you $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
If you use the free version, you already have many workout tracking and analysis tools available, but if you want the next level, MVP will do it for you. In particular, their additional statistics, Route Recommender and Live Tracking are all available if you upgrade. Let's learn more, shall we?
Additional Statistics
By upgrading to MVP, you are able to view more statistics about your workout. Once you record a workout, you can view pace and distance information divided into splits. Here is a sampling of what you can view:
- Pace divided into custom splits, from 0.1 miles all the way to every 10 miles if you're an ultra-marathoner.
- Enhanced heart rate information. If you run with a heart rate monitor strap, you can view convenient graphs of your heart rate, plus see your max/min heart rate, and analyze how much time you spent in your cardio or max zones.
- Power Zone summary. If you are a cyclist and have a Power Meter device, you can view enhanced analysis of your power output, most of which correlated from heart rate.
Route Recommender
This is likely one of the coolest parts of the MVP program. Let's say you're at San Diego Comic Con and it's your first time in San Diego. You're staying at the San Diego Marriott (hey, we can all dream, right?) and you want to take a leisurely run through the crowds in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Simply input the run starting location into the web version of MapMyFitness, a desired run length, and the system will output you an appropriate-length route that starts and ends at your location.
I love this! I know this is going to come in handy when I get to my new community in Colorado Springs this June!
Training Plans
MapMyFitness has numerous fitness training consultants on hand who have helped develop training plans that you can customize into your own calendar. If you were to take a look at MapMyFitness's list of running training plans, you might see some familiarity with other well-known plans.
I signed myself up for the 10K Intermediate training plan to start this week. Once you choose your start date, MapMyFitness will pre-load the expected workouts into your workout calendar. As you perform the recommended workouts, your workout calendar will match up with your training plan.
I also was able to import the training plan into my iCal app and my iCloud, thus syncing it with my MacBook, iPad and iPhone calendars.
Coaching
With MVP, a coaching feature is available for your workouts. Do you want to maintain a certain pace? Heart rate? Speed? Distance? You can have a voice come through your app to let you know where you stand.
I used the coaching feature to help me keep tabs on my pace. You can set the pace you want to maintain, and how often you want the coach to give you a status: 15 seconds through 5 minutes. I chose 5 minutes.
After the first workout with the coach, I was somewhat frazzled. The coach presented me with my near-instantaneous pace every 5 minutes. My pace varied greatly depending on whether I was running uphill, downhill, into the wind, against the wind, or even what point of the stride was being pinged by the GPS. Ms. Coach Lady told me my pace was 7:37 per mile at one point (whoo hoo!), 10:53 per mile at the next (oh noes!). I usually run a 9:15-9:30 per mile pace.
I discussed this with the developers. I asked for some more information about the algorithm used to calculate the pace...in other words, just how instantaneous was this pace measurement? While they didn't give me the algorithm itself (I didn't expect that although it would have been cool), but I did learn that it was averaging the last 10 GPS points reported by the iPhone.
How often does an iPhone log a GPS data point? I'm afraid I don't know that. I did some Internet sleuthing, but so far have come up short. Based on the detail in my MapMyFitness maps of my workouts, I get the feeling 10 points can be recorded in a pretty short time. Let's say every second: meaning my pace might have been a 10 second average. No wonder there's such variation.
Nonetheless, I presented feedback suggesting that the average pace cover a longer time. Hearing such a slow pace can be disconcerting if you aren't the type to think about how the value is calculated.
I don't think the coaching feature is a bad thing, I'm merely suggesting that it's important to understand how the software works.
Live Tracking
This, unfortunately, is where I ran into the most hiccups. With the MVP subscription, Live Tracking allows your Facebook and Twitter friends to see you running in real time, in the form of a profile picture moving along your route on Google Maps, along with some analytic data. If you're at a desktop computer, anyone can see you running, but if you wanted to view the runner on a smartphone, you yourself will have to be an MVP member.
As cool as Live Tracking is, I need to caution you that this is a very public feature. All of your privacy settings, both on your phone app and on your desktop MapMyFitness account, need to be set to "Public" and "Everyone". If you start or end your run at your house, that will be shown, especially if the person viewing your map has satellite mapping turned on.
Why did I have hiccups? Because I needed to find all the switches for the privacy settings before I could get this to work! It took a couple months of attempts and testing, and my poor Facebook and Twitter friends probably got sick of all the times I'd ask before my workout, "Please provide feedback whether you can see my workout."
It was one spot where I had failed to switch the privacy to "Public". It was within the main MapMyFitness.com account settings.
But ultimately it worked out and my friends were able to report to me that they could see my medal-wearing, two-thumbs-upping profile photo moving slowly along the course.
If you have enough MVP friends, I can see this feature being a lot of fun -- at a large race, for example...
...which brings me to my next point.
Other Observations: Battery Life and Photography Along the Route
I used this app for two longer races during my testing: The Pensacola Double Bridge Run on February 2nd, which is a 15K race that starts out with 4000 runners, then is joined at the 10K point by another couple thousand 5K runners. Let's say 6000 runners total, many of whom are using their personal GPS and smartphone devices to track their workouts, all in a relatively close space.
Guess what happens? If you've attempted to upload a picture at a large con, you'll know right away: Your battery drains pretty quickly, doesn't it?
When I took my training runs around my neighborhood, I'd estimate my battery drained at approximately 5% per mile. That's with many of my other apps still running. I'm okay with that.
For the Double Bridge Run, in part due so many people competing for the same signal services, I was draining my battery at nearly double that rate: My 9 mile run drained 90% of my battery, still while keeping other apps open. When I finished I had time to snap a couple pictures of me grinning at the finish line and then I had to stop using my phone.
The second long run I used the app with was the Disney Princess Half Marathon on February 24th. In this case, I turned off ALL OTHER APPS on my iPhone to use MapMyFitness during a 13.1 mile race, but the phone still drained very quickly, likely due to the 28,000 other runners, plus several thousand spectators along the route. I was proud of myself for still having any battery at all on my phone when I finished, although it drained completely within 10 minutes of finishing the race.
A friend who uses the free version of the app lost his entire 36 mile bike ride last week because his iPhone ran out of battery during the workout. He suggests a periodic save-function so that when one resuscitates his/her phone at home, at least the partial data could be saved.
If you do lose your workout data, MapMyFitness does have the ability to manually input the workout, including with a map, but if you use a heart rate monitor or power monitor, that information would be lost.
Another feature I'd like to address is the photography capability. During the Double Bridge Run, I was able to take several pictures from in the app along the route. There's a convenient icon in the lower left corner of the map that made it quick and easy. I was also liking how the photographs were geotagged along the route as they were saved to the phone. The photographs will be permanently saved with your workout information in MapMyFitness.
Unfortunately, two things happened after I finished the run that disappointed me.
- Once the race is finished, you don't see the geotagged photos applied the route anymore. The photos are available in the web version of the "Route Details", but are no longer matched to the route.
- ALL of the information (i.e., the Exif data) was stripped from those pictures. Most of my iPhone photos get imported into iPhoto with additional information, such as the geographic information, f-stop, ISO, and the name of the camera.
I recommend continuing to use your smartphone's own camera app if you want to preserve the pictures.
To conclude, MapMyFitness and MapMyFitness+ apps are available as one-time downloads for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 platforms. MapMyFitness's MVP subscription service is available for $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year to iOS and Android members who want to take their fitness analysis to the next level. Upgrade to MVP from within the app. If you are sick of in-app ads, are in need of a personalized training program, or are as big a map geek as me, I think the annual subscription -- which comes to a mere $2.50 per month -- is worth certainly the price for the serious fitness enthusiast.
A complimentary one-year MVP subscription was provided to me for purposes of this review. I used the iOS app with an Apple iPhone 4S, and viewed web-based information on a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8.3 (Mountain Lion).
