One of my favorite parts about training is getting to go on a new route, or an old favorite.

Everyone has their own method of getting in their mileage, but this is what has worked for me.

I tried for about a week to use the Nike Run Club app, which is awesome, but something about hearing how far I had gone and how fast I was going made me feel like I was doing worse than I was.

I’ve recently started not listening to anything while running, and often times even leaving my phone at home.

So, how do I know that I’m running a certain number of miles?

It’s all in the planning stage.

Usually the day before a run I will sit down to decide my route for the following day.

As I find new routes I’ll add them to my growing list (which I keep in Evernote). If I’m repeating a distance I’ve already done I will usually choose from that list, but if I don’t feel excited about any of those paths or I’m going a further distance than I have I head to good ol' Google maps.

I start most of my runs outside my apartment, sometimes I’ll drive to a nearby park I like to run through.

Knowing that I prefer to run on trails over sidewalks I’ll scope out one of the many awesome trails winding through and out of downtown.

I just use the directions function of Google maps and add a destination to hit the different point of the route. I just kind of fiddle with a route until it equals the distance I need to go.

For example, back when I was doing shorter runs I would do something like run to Grays Lake and back, which is 5 miles. Or I would do four to five mile routes through Ashworth Park.

But now I’ve started adding and connecting different routes together for my longer runs. Which mostly just means running through multiple parks and back home.

It’s very satisfying to create a new route and find the perfect path to get your exact mileage whether that’s 3 miles or 14 miles.

I got to do 14 miles for the first time today, and to get that distance I combined three different routes to create 14 miles.

And there’s nothing quite like finally finding the perfect route to make those big runs, stepping back and looking at them, going Woah that’s far, and then knocking them out like a champ.

What are some of your favorite settings to run in? The greener the better for me!