7 Running Websites You Should Know About

There are some great running-related websites out there.  Here are some of my favorites!

Athlinks.com – This website lets you find your race results and view them all together.  It’s also the best place to look up a friend’s race results when you can’t remember the specific event.  Bam, suddenly you’re the friend who remembers exactly which race they ran last weekend.  You can even look up the race times of a potential running partners to see what they meant by “I’m a casual runner”.  (My casual is not the casual of someone who’s been running since high school!)

Strava – This website allows you to upload your running and cycling activities from a variety of GPS devices, or from the free Strava app for your smartphone, and see how you stack up against other runners in the area.  People create segments, and Strava automatically populates a leaderboard showing how fast different runners have completed that map segment.  You can follow people, create groups, and give people kudos for their workouts.  It’s a way to keep track of fitness goals and connect with fellow runners in your area, so don’t think it’s just about who’s king of the hill.  I wrote a blog post about Strava with a few screen shots that you can read here: http://www.iamrunningthis.com/whos-the-fastest-kid-on-the-block-just-ask-strava/  If you’re on Strava, connect with me!  Just search for Kelly Caiazzo.

Runner’s World What to Wear – This online tool from the experts at Runner’s World lets you enter weather and workout conditions and provides you with a customized recommendation for what you should wear in order to be most comfortable.  I use it as a rough guideline for choosing my race-day outfits or what to wear on a run when the weather has recently changed and I can’t remember what I used to wear last season.

Cool Running’s Pace Calculator – This allows you to calculate the pace, time, or distance if you enter in two of the three variables.  Use it to figure out what pace you need to run to finish a 5k in under 30 minutes, or to see what running 10:30’s would get you for an overall time in the half marathon.

Cool Running’s Find Events – A great way to search for upcoming races.  You can search by race distance, date, and location.  It’s usually quite comprehensive, and has links to online registration where applicable.

Cool Running’s Find Results – Unlike athlinks, which gives you individual results, Cool Running is THE place to find results from an entire race.  Looking on Cool Running prevents you from needing to know which company (racewire, racemenu, etc.) managed the results.  Results are available on Cool Running just about the same time they’re available anywhere.

another mother runner – add yourself to the AMR tribe, buy cute running gear that advertises your mother runner status, and check out their free training plans and workouts.  I like their training plans because they recognize the possibility that we’ll miss a workout, and they let us know which ones are o.k. if we have to miss them, and which ones we’d better get out and do.  They also have a list of women’s running clubs and some running playlists to keep your i-pod inspired.  They also have a powerful photo gallery titled “What A Mother Runner Looks Like”.  It’s real, it’s powerful and it’ll help you remember that your body can be strong, powerful, a giver of life, and the best it’s ever been without looking like anyone else’s.