When it comes to getting outside during the winter there is nothing quite as fun as skiing. And if one of your primary goals is to get a good workout and burn a few calories then it’s important to understand that not every day on the hill is created equal. That’s why Sports Tracker’s latest new feature is such a diamond.

Sports Tracker’s latest update effectively separates the time you spend skiing from the time you spend doing other things.

For instance, there are some days when I go up the hill to ski as hard and fast as I possibly can and rack up as many vertical meters of descent as possible before my thighs burst into flames.

And then there are other days when I go up for an easy day of cruising, just to soak in the snow and sunshine, spend time with friends, stop for a nice lunch and top it all off with a refreshing malt beverage at the top of the mountain.

In either case, because of the nature of resort skiing – riding lifts, stopping for lunch, going inside to warm up, etc – time spent on the mountain does not usually equate with time spent skiing.

Sports Tracker is all over this and the latest update effectively separates the time you spend skiing from the time you spend doing other things.

What this gives you is more accurate statistics about your workout. For instance, most recently I went up the mountain with a friend I haven’t seen in awhile so there was a whole lot of stopping and talking when we could have been skiing.

How much stopping and talking?

Looking at the Sports Tracker data, it seems that out of the 3 hours and 31 minutes we spent up the mountain we only skied for 1 hour and 17 minutes. There’s nothing negative about this at all because we had a whole lot of fun and ended up skiing almost 13 kilometers with a descent of 3663 meters so it was still a nice little workout. But there’s no more fooling myself into thinking those cruisey days up the mountain can be confused with a full-day workout. Doh!

Of course, this new feature is in addition to all the other great features that make Sports Tracker as essential to a fantastic day of skiing as a pair of custom-fit boots including:

• a map that shows your tracks for the day – satellite, terrain or hybrid
• number of runs
• a table that breaks down each run into time, kilometers and descent
• total duration of the activity
• ski time
• distance
• descent
• average ski speed
• max ski speed
• slope profile
• calories burned
• a graph that compares speed with altitude
• sharing options – private, friends, everyone, Facebook, Twitter,
• 3-day summary showing the number of workouts during that period, total distance, total duration
• heart rate analysis for those who opt into the Premium option.

The new skiing feature is available now on the Android version of Sports Tracker. If you have used Sports Tracker for downhill skiing let us know what you think about it in the comments below. Powder to the people!