fun way to track your progress

We all know you're supposed to track your progress towards your goals, and there are dozens of methods for doing so.  Today I stumbled across one that was a little different than the others - an easy way to plot your distance on a map to see how far you've run, biked or swum!

Here's mine so far this year.  (measurements as of today; click either picture to enlarge.)

Key:

Running - the radius of the green circle, centered at my house.

Biking - the radius of the red circle, centered at my house.

Swimming - the radius of the white circle, centered at the end of the Huntington Beach Pier in Southern California.

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For me personally, this is a big motivator.   Whenever I can see my progress, I want to go a little further each time, knowing the circles will grow!  I wonder if I'll be able to swim all the way to Catalina Island by the end of the year, or if I'll run far enough to leave the State?

These circles are super easy to create over at a website called FreeMapTools.com.  The only downside is I can't find a way to make them dynamic, where the circles get bigger automatically as I enter my new workout results.  Maybe somebody out there will build a tool that does that.. Are you listening, RunKeeper?  In the meantime, I'll just update this once in awhile to see how far I've gone.

ps - My RunKeeper results are public, so you're always welcome to see what I've been doing lately.  Or better yet, join my street team.  (not sure what to do with a street team yet, but I'm sure there's something for it...)

-Chris Butterworth