I’ve been asked twice this week alone how to turn a GPS logged race into a pretty little map for your blog post, social media use etc.
The process is pretty simple – and I’m sure there are other tools, methods and processes out there for doing this. This is the one I stumbled upon, and it’s easy to do and quick. Also – I’m pretty sure any other GPS logger will allow you to export the files too – I just happen to be most familiar with Garmin.
You’ll need:
- A logged race. I use a Garmin watch, and Garmin Connect.
- Google Earth (download link – it’s free)
Log into Garmin Connect, and find the activity you want. Look for the little “gear” in the top right, and export to GPX file.
Click this downloaded GPX file – and open it in Google Earth.
It’ll look like this (click to make bigger)
At this point, you can use the directional and orientation tools in the top right to rotate, zoom, tilt and make the map look neat (for example, I usually move the start/finish lines to the bottom of the screen – or if we ran up a mountain, I move the peak to the top), – and if you experiment, you can import multiple files at once and get creative. Then you simply save it as an image file.
This results in a JPG you can use anywhere.
If you have a different way of doing something similar, post to the comments!
