Running Equipment

I am trying to get my exercise by getting myself in shape enough to run. I am visiting a friend in Dallas and she is teaching me so much. She gets up at 4 am everymorning and runs and is training to be in 5K runs. She has a Garmin Forerunner 201. She says she uses it to measure her distance she runs. I know you can get pedometers to measure your distance but you have to enter your stride length for your walk, jog, run, etc. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for equipment to acurately measure you running distance or want to share what equipment your use for your walking/running. I know I can drive where I run and go from there, but that is time consuming.

Any advice is greatly appreciately.  

Garmin Forerunner...I can't begin to tell you how badly I want one of those.  I cant justify the money though.  I do use a Polar F11 heart rate monitor to help me calculate the number of calories I've burned during a run and it also helps me to determine my speed just by dividing the total distance I've ran by the total minutes.

I map my routes ahead of time with the path tool in Google Earth, especially when it's a trail

Other times I use the gmap pedometer:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

There's also MapMyRun:
http://www.mapmyrun.com/

Here's something else that's cool:
http://www.heywhatsthat.com/profiler.html

I use the site above occassionally to calculate the percent grade of my route, or sometimes I just use it to search for really steep streets to charge up.

I hope these are the sort of things you're looking for!  :)

All I use is mapmyrun.com and a TIMEX Ironman watch (available at Target) with an interval timer and lap timer/recorder to keep track of pace, etc.  That and a good pair of running shoes and that's all you need.  Pedometers can be useful but they aren't necessary.

My watch has helped me the most because it counts off my walking/running intervals, beeping when the interval changes.  It's also easy to use. 

Stephanie, if you are just starting out running having all sorts of equipment is not all that necessary.  I use www.mapmyrun.com to calculate my distance, but I try to make it fun and not too scientific.

I usually end up running for TIME and not for DISTANCE - such as 40 minutes easy or 10 min warmup then alternate 1 min fast with 1 min walk for 10 minutes or do a long run on the weekends that could be up to an hour. 

If I were you, I'd start out with just time and run somewhere safe and fun, then if you find that you are definitely sticking with it, your local running store could advise you on proper running shoes and equipment. I have a Timex GPS device but it seldom works correctly (doesn't work anywhere woodsy or when it's too cloudy as it cannot connect with the satellite).

Good luck and keep us posted!  - emese

Thank y'all so much. I love mapmyrun.com. It was exactly what I was looking for. I am still exploring the other recommendations, too. THANK YOU!!