Training runs and maps

It's nice to have several goals while training- apart from gaining distance and speed, I like to see more of the city. For my first marathon, I tried to run over all the bridges I could in the NYC Metro area. I was pretty successful overall, with the exception of the Verrazano Bridge- a motorized-vehicle only bridge that links Brooklyn to Staten Island. That bridge is my White Whale- I can't wait to cross it on foot after years of seeing it span overhead while I run along the waterfront.
Training for this race, I'd like to mix up my usual runs with some more adventurous routes. I have two base runs- a 4-6 mile loop of the beautiful new Brooklyn Bridge Park, and a 7-10 mile loop of Prospect Park. I do these on weekdays, then try new runs on the weekends when I have more time and distance to hit.
View Short runs in Brooklyn in a larger map

In an effort to share my routes, I'm also experimenting with how to include maps on this blog. One of the limitations of this technology is the inability to share our running routes, but maybe it's better to just have an idea of a running route, and explore how to get there. Then again, when you're on mile 16, you don't want to realize that the entrance to the bridge is a quarter mile inland. For longer runs, I use gmaps-pedometer to gauge a distance, then wear my GPS watch to make sure I'm reaching my target distance. It's nice to keep ideas of where bathrooms and water fountains are, in case you don't run with supplies. An attempt to upload my June Marathon route from my GPS watch... failed:

The Northface Endurance Marathon

It would just be too easy for that to work. Instead, I found I can use MapMyRuns:

Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRun