Adding Fun to Your Run with Nike Plus

“Hi, my name is Dave, and I am a nerd… a nerd who is try­ing to get in shape by run­ning every day even though run­ning alone can be mun­dane.  A nerd who is stay­ing inter­ested in run­ning by gath­er­ing data about my run­ning using an awe­some gad­get called Nike Plus.  If you are a health con­scious nerd like me, I encour­age you to check out Nike Plus.”

Recently I wrote that I had started a pro­gram of exer­cise com­bin­ing inter­vals of run­ning and walk­ing in an effort to get into bet­ter shape. One of the great things about the run / walk pro­gram I was uti­liz­ing was that it was pro­gres­sively more dif­fi­cult.  Each week you ran a lit­tle more and walked a lit­tle less. This increas­ing chal­lenge made run­ning inter­est­ing.  Each week was more dif­fi­cult than the week before, which kept me moti­vated to get out and run each day.  I am pleased to report that I com­pleted the pro­gram, and I am now a full fledged run­ner — not a great run­ner but a run­ner none the less. 

While on vaca­tion a few weeks ago, I got the chance to run / walk with my sis­ter in law Katie — who is an avid run­ner.  One morn­ing between my gasps for oxy­gen while try­ing to keep up with her, I expressed my con­cern that I was going to need to fig­ure out a way to stay engaged in run­ning once I com­pleted my walk / run pro­gram.  She sug­gested that I check out some­thing called Nike Plus.  I thought it sounded kind of cool, so I put in on the “things I need to check out some­day” list in my head… and then quickly for­got about it due to the pain in my lungs, knees, and ankles.

Last week, my wife, who began run­ning a few weeks before I did, informed me that Nike Plus was some­thing that we needed to get.  It seems Katie had told her about it too, and thank­fully, my wife’s mem­ory and lis­ten­ing skills are bet­ter than mine.  So we went out and picked up a Nike Plus sen­sor and tested it out.  In a word — Awesome.

Nike Plus is sim­ply a small sen­sor you put on your shoe that then works with your ipod to mea­sure the speed and dis­tance of your run.  It could not be eas­ier to use.  You pick a work­out, pick your music, and hit go.  As you run, you can push a but­ton to find out how far you have run and what your cur­rent pace is.  It will also tell you when you reach mile­stones like 1/2 miles, 400, 300, 200, and 100 meters to go.  It keeps you engaged in run­ning by giv­ing you con­stant feed­back, which in turn moti­vates you to run harder.  

Once you fin­ish run­ning, you can upload and track your data online, day by day and run by run.  Doing this con­verts run­ning from a monot­o­nous, iso­lated activ­ity into an engag­ing, ongo­ing com­pe­ti­tion against your­self.  “Can I beat my fastest mile?”  “Can I beat my fastest over­all time?”  “How many miles can I run this week?”  It is like being the main char­ac­ter in your own video game.  Each time I upload the data, I look for peaks and val­leys in my time, think about my run, and pon­der how I might be able to improve my results next time.  Each time I lace up my shoes, I am com­pet­ing against the last time I laced them up, and each time I start to get winded, I think about beat­ing yesterday’s time. Even if I don’t suc­ceed, it is fod­der for thought as to why. 

Not only can you com­pete against your­self with Nike Plus, but the web­site also offers the abil­ity to set goals, fol­low train­ing pro­grams, cre­ate teams, sched­ule events, map routes, blog, and engage in dia­logue, con­tests, and com­pe­ti­tions with other run­ners — thus cre­at­ing a com­plete com­mu­nity of engaged fit­ness geeks.  It is com­pelling to see so many oth­ers engag­ing in the same ongo­ing strug­gle to put the right foot in front of the left more quickly than the day before.  The site adds a great ele­ment of com­mu­nity to the very per­sonal activ­ity of run­ning.  It is an excel­lent moti­va­tor and a great source of use­ful information. 

So, I con­tinue my jour­ney to renewed phys­i­cal fit­ness — a jour­ney made nerdier, and hope­fully more suc­cess­ful, with technology.

Thanks for read­ing the post.  Gotta run.

To learn more about the story of how Nike Plus came to be, check out this story from Wired.

To check it out for your­self, visit the Nike­Plus website.