Why does mapmyrun.com give me such a high calorie burn?

If you do burn 100kcal/mile (rule of thumb that a lot are familiar with), the mapmyrun deal is only erring 8-15% or so. If you know it's high, it's not a big deal.

I know it's high. I really don't care. Being the summer and running what I'm running, I could give a rat's ass about counting calories--I dunno I just wanted to know if it was giving me 'extra points' so to say for running faster, or longer, etc. I dunno know why I started the thread, I guess I was just bored and wondering if there was a decided reason for this... still any answers would be appreciated.

I just used the tool for my run today out of curiosity, and it said I burned 780 calories in 5.8 miles at 6:54 pace. I am 5'9" and 170 lbs. My route was pretty flat, too.

I almost want to suspect that it exaggerates the calorie count for diet-obsessed joggers.

Letsrunners are probably also a little more efficient than your average jogger, and I'd be surprised if their algorithm took that into account. ("How many miles have you run in the past three years, and what's your current 5k?")

Here is the formula to get an exact figure. It was posted here a long time ago by Jack Daniels himself.

(1) get a calculator

(2) multiply your weight in pounds by .454 to get kilograms(3) figure it costs about .2 ml oxygen per meter per minute running speed (8:00 pace is 200 m/min so cost is .2 X 200 = 40 ml per kg body weight per minute of running. 7:00 pace is 230 m/min , so that cost about 46 ml per kg per minute, and 6:00 (268 m/min) costs 268 X .2 = 53.6 ml per kg per min.

(4) 40ml per kg for 8 minutes = 320 ml Oxygen per Kg body to run a mile. 46ml per kg for 7 minutes = 322 ml oxygen per Kg body weight to run a mile. 53.6ml per kg for 6 minutes = 322 ml per kg body weight to run a mile.

(5) so it is clear that it costs about the same amount to run a mile whether at 8, 7 or 6 minute pace (same for slower or faster paces -- the cost per minute gets greater as you run faster, but you multiply that increased cost by fewer minutes to run the mile.

(6) Now all you have to do is multiply your weight in Kg (from #2 above) to get the total ml Oxygen it costs you to run a mile. (example: if you weigh 60 kg, then it will cost about 321 X 60 = 19,260 ml O2 to run that mile

(7) 19,260 ml = 19.26 liters of Oxygen

(8) each liter of O2 can be roughly converted to Kcalories by multiplying liter O2 X 5 ( in this example 96.3 kcals, arrived at by multiplying 19.26 X 5)

(9)for this individual 10 miles would convert to about 963 kcals

(it's easy to see that a 50kg person would burn fewer and a 100 kg person would burn twice as many as a 50 kg person

(10) some people are more economical than others and some less economical so the oxygen demand is less or more per minute, but not a major difference.

(11) I assume this is the way the calculators that are part of a treadmill, caclculate your caloric expenditure -- but they must ask for your body weight or they can't do a very good job of it.

(12) Live it up

Daniels is wrong, he hasn't factored in heat production, which is much higher at faster paces.

I have searched a few different sites for an answer to this question, and like everyone else that posts a reply, I don't have an answer either, but wanted to say that I agree! The cals burned for me are consistently almost double what I believe to be the correct (or more accurate) total which I get via a heartrate monitor and polar watch. I'd love to know how to reduce it in map my run though, as it syncs directly with my fitness pal and I always have to amend! I am going to try halving the weight I have entered into my profile and see what happens!! Hope you find an answer!