Nike+ iPod = Awesomeness!!!
We know I am a huge fan of Apple products. We also know that I am a huge fan of Nike products, so the two of these companies teaming up to create Nike+ iPod is more than a dream come true.
I know, I know, I’m behind the times. This has been around now for over two years I believe, but I’m just now FINALLY getting into using it…and it’s AWESOME! Seriously, for anyone looking to train for any kind of running race without a coach or a group to train/run with, THIS is the coolest thing ever!
I had to replace my Nike+ because I had lost one of the pieces of my original set (thus me not using it this entire time). It’s much cheaper now a days, so while in the Nike store yesterday signing up for the Nike Bastille Day 5k, I picked one up. I also got new earbuds (Nike Vapor 3-Way Sport Headphone) because my apple earbuds broke.
The headphones? PERFECT! It comes with a shorter cord which I thought would be a problem, but it ends up that the designers for both companies are truly genius and CLEARLY get input from actual athletes when designing their products. The cord is just long enough to reach my iPod Nano (the older model, not the new ugly square kind) that’s cradled in my arm band. The cord sits behind my neck and travels up my back to my ears and amazingly, I had NO trouble with getting tangled up in the cords or anything. The comfort grips that wrap around and behind my ear to keep the headphones in place are GREAT! They did the job well and they were not too expensive…actually, they ended up being WELL worth the price. We’ll see how long they last with sweating and heat and the abuse headphones get from us active types!
Anyway, it’s comfortable and a great way to keep my music and information close to my ear without knocking them out of place while fighting cords that are too long! The Nike+ itself is really great. I just put the shoe sensor in a little velcro cradle I got from Fleet Feet that cost me $10.00 and then plugged the other piece into my nano, selected the type of exercise I wanted to do, and badda bing, I was ready to go!!!
Each mile the Nike+ lady’s lovely voice told me how far I had gone, and then how much further I had left once I hit the middle mark.
It tracked how fast I was running, how far I had run and what my average pace per mile was. I LOVE this thing. Not only that, but it stores the information onto my nano so I can then sync it up with iTunes on my computer and info gets sent to my profile website on Nike+’s site! I CAN KEEP TRACK OF ALL OF MY RUNS THIS WAY!
It’s super great! This little invention is perfect, PERFECT for runners!!! It let’s you set it so many different ways, you can set it for time, calories burnt, distance (both miles and kilometers) and even let’s me choose to use the woman’s voice or the mans. I get to pick my “power song” which is a song that I can play whenever I feel I need a boost of energy…it’s a fun little feature.
Basically, I’m in love. Between this new little gadget, my new headphones and my bike, I feel that I’m really going to be able to turn this whole bad training trend around!
To top off the great things Nike has to offer, I learned this past week that Nike has several marathon training sites that they offer throughout the week…for FREE!
So Saturday mornings, at Foster Ave beach they have the weekly long runs that we can join in on at no cost. UM…HELL TO THE YEAH! This is really fantastic! I can’t WAIT to get involved. I’m going to find out more information about it tonight, and once I do, I’ll post it here for everyone else to see, but right now, it sounds like a great way to get back on track and make sure to get my distance runs in there at the right training pace.
Tonight I will be testing out how accurate the Nike+ system is on it’s own. I didn’t calabrate it last night in order to see what happened if I didn’t. Since I’m running a 5k tonight, I know that I can set it to a certain distance, run that distance and compare to see how far it shows I ran as well.
I’ll update you all on that accuracy tomorrow too!
In the meanwhile, happy running, biking, swimming, volleyballing and sporting people! More to come soon!!!
Best,
Devin
July 10 2008 03:10 pm | training and weekly maintenance run