The iPhone has Nike+, Android has plenty of decent running apps to help you get the most out of your favourite sport, but what about Windows Phone 7?

Hidden in the Marketplace is a free app called Run the Map, but does do what it says on the tin? We’ve been pounding the streets with our phone to find out.

Map the Run

Format

WP7

Price

Free

Where

Marketplace

Run the Map has two main pages and keeps everything as simple as possible. The first page is called Recorder. It’s the main page that you will find yourself using pre run and on the run itself.

Here you can set whether you want to track a run, a cycle, a drive, or a walk. Switching between the relevant exercises is as easy as cycling through icons and there is a start, pause, resume, and clear button.

Once you’ve pressed go, it starts the clock.

The clock measures elapsed time, distance, average speed as a top line and then in addition to that measures current attitude, current speed, attitude increase, average rate, and attitude decrease so you can see the hills on your run.

All the information is tracked using your phone's GPS and that has pros and cons. The pros are that all of the above is tracked perfectly, the bad is that if you lose the signal because you are running under tree cover or the phone is in your pocket then the app stops recording.

That’s important because on the second page of the app is a map of your run overlaid on Bing maps so you can see where you’ve been.

On the map page you can switch to a road map or aerial and change the colour of the route so you can see it clearly and where the app hasn't recorded you get the blank bits. 

Once you’ve completed your run you can then export the data as a KML Keyhole Markup Language, which is handy as you can’t keep runs within the app.

Sadly for the social media types there is no way to tweet your run, Facebook your run, or do anything social with this app, this is all about running and tracking the run you are on rather than creating a running diary or letting your friends know that you are running.

And hey, if you don’t like it, it is free.