Got up bright and early last Sunday (5:30 am) to go for a practice walk. My backpack is currently filled with 20 pounds of basmati rice ( I like basmati rice) as I don't have all my gear ready yet. The recommended weight for me is pretty close to 20 pounds so was a pretty good test.
I walked 22.4 kms over 4.2 hours or a pace of 5.4 kms per hour. Over my Camino I expect to be in the 3 to 5 kms per hour depending on the terrain and elevation gain. My home town tends to be a little flat!
I know I am supposed to dress in layers and eat something to start up the engine. My layering consisted only of a long sleeve quick dry shirt therefore I was immediately cold. My breakfast consisted of looking at a banana and simply going out the door.
Clearly I have to adjust my ways however that is what training and testing is for so I'm still ok!!
Overall I felt good after adjusting my shoulder straps to better carry the weight on my hips. Last week I cinched them up and ending up carrying the weight on my shoulders and guess what? Very sore shoulders! Thank goodness I am a quick learner (not).
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| Guy - pretty spiffy I know! |
Pretty ridiculous
I want to be able to record my walk on Google Earth and give access to anyone interested. Pretty simple you say! Well after going down many goat paths here is where I have landed.
Equipment
Bad Elf GPS Pro receiver, Apple mini iPad
Software
Apple iPad apps for Bad Elf Pro and GPS HD Motion X Drive.
One time setup
I was hoping to link directly from Blogger (software for this blog site) to a file from the GPS HD Motion X Drive software however that wasn't to be. Here is what an expert user responded to my plea for help:
You can try hosting the file and then linking to it or possibly even embedding it, but other than that, there is no way to upload a KMZ file to Blogger directly.
Great! Now what do I do?
Well first I had to host the GPS KMZ file so I found that you could do this on Google Sites which essentially provides a website for dummies service. I managed to do that although my website is nothing more than a shell and is really sad looking.
Next on Blogger I found a gadget which allows setting up link to a website. I did that and you can it at the top right hand corner of my blog titled Guy's Daily Camino Walks. All set!
Each day what are steps?
1) Power on Bad Elf Pro device outside and acquire satellites and then press other button to start recording. Very simple.
2) Walk my route
3) Press other button to stop recording
4) Open Bad Elf app on iPad and change iPad settings to Bluetooth
5) Bad Elf GPS data point sent by Bluetooth to iPad automatically
6) Open GPS HD Motion X Drive app on iPad
7) Import track to Motion X Drive app from Bad Elf app
8) Share track from Motion X Drive app which sends an email to my Gmail account
9) Open email and click on View on Map which opens to the Motion X website. From there click on Download KMZ file and then copy URL.
10) Edit Blogger Guy's Camino Daily Walk by Adding File and pasting the URL from Motion X. Add a description and I am done! I think!
Special note
If you click on a daily track, review it and then close Google Earth you can then do the same for a second track and view tracks individually. If you do not close Google Earth between opening up tracks then the tracks are added to each other which will combine multiple days of walking.
Was it worth it?
It was fun learning something new however feels like it will a miracle if this all works. Let me know if you are having success viewing tracks on Google Earth (free app or software)
I would be interested in knowing if you have success with the link.
