Runkeeper, Wreck Beach Farm and Cow Shit resistant running shoes

I run through the paddocks of Wreck Beach Farm, mobile phone in hand. Near on 132 acres of beautiful scrub on the Bunurong Coast. It’s an out of the way spot, just two hour’s drive from Melbourne, but it feels more remote than that: gravel roads, somewhat unkempt farms with a few lifestyle blocks scattered in between. The nearest humanity is a couple of hills over, a shack settlement, Harmers Haven. Twenty or so weekenders hunkering into the sandy clifftop overlooking Bass Strait.

Need to pay attention, the ground is a little treacherous, pock-marked with hoof-prints, rabbit holes and wombat warrens. I pass banks of Tee tree, through patches of bracken fronds, before stopping to open and close the barbed-wire cockies gate that separates two paddocks. Cresting a rise, I startle a mob of grey kangaroos.

My mobile phone, GPS enabled, is in hand all the while. I have the RunKeeper application running, not to track fitness goals but as an experiment to see how accurate the tracking of my route is.

Amazingly accurate as it turns out, returning to the farm shed just on dusk I have a detailed record of a 4km route that criss-crosses paddocks and hills mapped to the metre. All done from the palm of my hand, a 15cm x 5cm x 1cm collection of microchips, metal and alloys.

The RunKeeper App is a fitness program allows you to track movement based exercise: running, jogging, walking, even cycling I guess. It summarises calories burnt and allows you to configure a tailored fitness regime, which you are then prompted on. In exchange for this service, users hand over their data. The app owners (Japanese sportswear giant Asics) build a detailed profile of running habits and location they use to sell and promote to you accordingly.

I would be interested in a set of cow-shit resistant running shoes but I am yet to receive the offer. Based on this recent jog, I am also interested in the possibilities this tracking capability might have for my research. RunKeeper may allow me to easily plot my route while undertaking remote walks and field trips. I could then extract the digital record of my route from app, and potentially combine it with the geo-tagged photos and media collected on that trip. All of it could be quickly mapped out a digital map. That all sounds pretty cool, perhaps not as cool as cow shit resistant running shoes, but still pretty good.