Blogger’s note: I haven’t been paid to review Endomondo and Map My Fitness. I’m doing this because I wanted a program that doesn’t put as much of a strain on my Blackberry’s battery as Endomondo does. Unfortunately, Map My Fitness doesn’t fit my needs either. I hope this review will help others in their quest to find a fitness tracker.
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Really? I was only halfway through my first half-marathon and I heard a familiar beep. My Blackberry’s battery was dead. I only had a few minutes before it would shut off. If that happened before I shut down my fitness tracker, Endomondo, I’d loose my race data.
I closed down everything mid-race and continued running. That’s when my quest to find a more reliable tracker started.
Endomondo is available in free and paid versions. The free version allows you to see the duration of your workout, average time, current speed, and calories burned.
After the workout, you can look at your route and see your split times.
You can also enter a workout without having the program on while your working out.
You can visit the website and make the reports more detailed. You can also join challenges. The current prizes are premium memberships.
You can link Endomondo with programs such as My Fitness Pal in order to connect your diet and workout data. It doesn’t transfer my Endomondo data to My Fitness Pal like it claims to do, but that may be because I use the free version.
Friends can track you online as you run and offer encouraging words.
Map My Fitness offers less features on the free phone app. It allows you to see the duration of your workout, average pace and speed and current pace and speed.
To view a map of your route and details other than what’s on the app, you have to go to the website. I like this website better than Endomondo’s.
They allow you to customize the data more. For example, if I go on a run with a stroller, it shows up as just a run on Endomondo. On Map My Fitness, I may input it as a run on my phone and go online to change that to run/jog with a stroller.
Endomondo is based in Denmark, so there are more international users. On Map My Fitness, I was able to find local users, routes, and groups more easily.
It also provides weekly updates on your workout. It’s nice to be able to see your progress without having to visit the website all the time.
My only problem with Map My Fitness was the GPS. It was unreliable. It doesn’t work if the phone is “locked” or when it’s cloudy. Sometimes I’d do the same route, but at different times of the day. The GPS would work for the first trip but not the second.
If it wasn’t for the huge GPS problem, I’d switch to Map My Fitness. But for now, I will continue to use Endomondo. The GPS hasn’t failed me yet. I just don’t use any apps during long runs. I map them online.