Go outside! (And bring Fido, too!)

Lately one of the things I enjoy doing the most is taking Stella on hikes here in Orlando; every time I have energy and free daylight hours I take her somewhere to run. I can honestly say though this new found hobby was only discovered through the use of a running app: Nike+ Running.

A friend and I had gotten our dogs together a couple of times to go for walks and we would unknowingly walk as far as seemed fit and turn around to return to our cars, that seemed fine to me. I mean, why do I need to know exactly where I'm going and where I've been, it's just dog walking right? Yeah that's what I thought too until I tracked my walk using the Nike+ Running app. 

I first discovered this app from a photo that was posted on Instagram and honestly thought it was cool because the map of the walk was overlaid onto a picture from the actual walk, making it a super easy way to share a cute picture as well as your fitness accomplishments. After downloading the app and testing it out for the first time I was disappointed to realize that it doesn't work that way on Android, it's just an iPhone update, so every time my phone updates apps I anxiously await to see if that's one of them, alas it hasn't yet happened.

Despite the lack of sharing abilities I still use the app and do so quite frequently. Not only does this app show me the exact path I walked/ran, it tells me my fastest mile times, my pace, calories burned, and it keeps track of total miles. So far, using the Nike+ Running app we have hiked a total of 28.30 miles! There are also accomplishments that it gives you for different things and this is motivating to me to see how I've been doing. 

When we go hiking I like to take the map of our walk and overlay it with the map of the trail, it's usually an almost perfect match (except for that time we got lost at Wekiwa, but I'll save that story for later). I don't know if I would've found my hiking hobby if it wasn't for this app and I know that Stella enjoys it far more than I do. For now I'm simply walking on these hikes, but I think soon I will start to try and run them too. If I were to rate this app I would give it 4 out of 5 stars and that's only because of the missing Instagram sharing option, whenever that comes out it will be a perfect match for me! I'm sure from the images below you can see how much Stella enjoys our adventures.

Stay tuned for more about our hiking adventures and my nature bucket list!