I've been asking for this for YEARS!

So, for years I've wanted the maps of a mapquest or google maps, but the ability to trace a route and find out how long it is. I run (or I used to, and I fantasize that someday I will again....), and I always wanted to know how long my runs REALLY were.

You could sort of approximate the mileage using tools like mapquest, but only if you ran ONLY on actual roads. As soon as you take a bike path, you're hosed. And, if you know your pace well enough, you could guess at how far you ran, but that doesn't help you if you're trying to find a new route, or if you're just anal like me and need to KNOW!

Well, thank you Google! Check out this link; you can click on a starting point, and then click on other points on the map and the tool will draw a (straight) line from point a to point b, and tell you how far it is. Keep adding points, and poof, you've just mapped out your route!

The cool thing is how good I was at guesstimating how far I ran; I mapped out my old standard run, which I always told myself was between 3 and 3.25 miles. It was 3.26 miles!

I see hours of playing in my future......