Track Your Walk, Run, or Bike Automatically on Your iPhone

I mainly walk and lift weights for exercise.  I track my exercise in Fitocracy on my iPhone to help keep my motivated (and at a much less detailed level in LoseIt!, to help me track calories). Even though these apps are easy to update, I found myself wanting to track how long, how far, and where I walk, without having to enter data in yet another app. This is the niche that RunKeeper fills.

RunKeeper takes all the work out of tracking walks, runs, hikes, or bike rides. I simply launch the app, click the Start Activity button, and start walking. RunKeeper uses the GPS to track my walk automatically, including total time, total miles, current pace, and average pace.  It even gives me a breakdown by mile. If I want, I can see where I've traveled as a route on the map.

RunKeeper plays well with others. It has sharing via Facebook, Twitter, and it's own web site if you want accountability for exercising with your friends. You can even form "Street Teams" with other users via the web site to only share with those in a much smaller circle than your social network friends. Fitocracy works well with RunKeeper too, keeping your Fitocracy app up to date automatically with your walks, runs, etc. (You do have to go into Fitocracy and end your workout for the day to get credit for a RunKeeper activity, though.)  In fact, the number of apps that integrate with RunKeeper is actually pretty large, though many of them are only web apps, not iPhone apps. The latest iPhone app that integrates with RunKeeper is an interesting one called GymPact.

If you move about for exercise and want a simple way to track that, RunKeeper is as effortless as it gets. After all, you want to spend your effort on the exercise itself, not on trying to track it.