Best Ways to Record Walking?

ElizabethOakes2

I've been walking for fitness for about a month now, and I started with a pedometer, which was fine with 20-30 minutes a day. Now that I'm doing 4-5 miles at a stretch, it rolls over at 10k, so I've started just timing my walks by stopwatch.

The problem is that I'm walking outdoors, at a local park with a lake. The trails have hills, dips, and even some stairs depending on what side of the lake you walk. Today I walked the hillier side, 4.4 miles, and I know I was working a lot harder (pouring sweat, actually had to stop and catch my breath once... bleh) than I do doing 5.5 miles on the other side of the lake but my total stopwatch time came out about the same- approx. 18 minutes per mile.
MFP's walking estimates seem to be based solely on treadmill speeds and times? Is there a better way to record my walks? Do I just need to pony up for a good elevation-enabled fitness tracker, maybe?

MeanderingMammal

If you have a smartphone you could try Endomondo, Runkeeper or similar

callsitlikeiseeit

i use mapmyrun (free app) on my phone and have a fitbit charge hr (that i only half pay attention to)

lemmie177

In addition to the above, there's the apps Strava, Runtastic, UA Record, Nike+, adidas Train & Run...

Most of the apps can use your smartphone's GPS to map your walk or use your the accelerometer to get the elevation data for you. They'll record your speed, mileage, route etc. It's just a matter of finding out which app's free version has the features you want!

ElizabethOakes2

Yeah.... I have a dumb phone. It calls people and texts, and that's about it. Guess I need to upgrade!

lorrpb

My Fitbit One records elevation gain in equivalent flights of stairs. I really like that feature. It's one of the less expensive Fitbit models.

scorpio516

Stopwatch and Google maps. It's all you need excel helps too. I did that for years. And before Google maps existed, I used the car trip odometer.

jonoc87

Fitbit charge hr's are great for tracking steps. Not so much for calories though.

ElizabethOakes2

Thanks, everyone! Looks like I'll probably stick with my stopwatch until I upgrade my phone.