August 9, 2007
Geek Fitness: Nike + iPod
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Today marks 1 month of being back on the road running. Last week was vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and I didn’t run much, only about 8 miles, but I made up for it this week, running every day since I’ve been back on Sunday.
Yesterday’s run was rough and I should have taken the day off to rest, but I couldn’t help myself. See I picked up a new toy yesterday: A Nike+ iPod Sport Kit.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a small device that plugs into the bottom of an iPod nano. This device talks to another small device that fits under the insole of your Nike running shoe. I’ve been wanting to try this out ever since I’d heard of it and since it was time to buy some new running shoes, I decided to give it a try. So along with a new pair of Nike shoes, I spent $29 on the sport kit.
$29 for the device seems really cheap to me. Though if I didn’t already have an iPod nano, this would have been probably too expensive for merely a curiosity. Actually, I seem to have misplaced my Nano as I’ve been using one of the new iPod shuffles and lost track of where I put it. Thankfully, I still had one left from the dozen or so that we won in an affiliate sales contest a few years ago waiting for such an occasion. So I cracked that open.
After charging up the iPod, I took it for a run. It’s a simpler version of what I get from my Polar running watch. It measures time, distance and pace and displays them on the iPod. It can be hard to read the iPod display when it’s strapped to your arm, so what’s nice is that by pressing the middle button, you can have the time, pace, and distance read to you by a sexy woman’s voice (or man’s if that’s your preference) through the headphones. You can also set it up for some target goals and I assume she’ll egg you on if you drop below a certain pace, but I just left it on a basic workout.
What’s really cool about this is that it syncs with iTunes and stores your running data there. And iTunes will connect to the nikeplus service which graphs out your workouts. In addition to keeping track of your workouts, you can set goals (distance, speed, etc.) and even challenge your friends. The widget below is from that service showing my recent run.
You can click on the widget to see a nicer view of my run. I didn’t enter my weight into the iPod which is why it didn’t track calories, I think. The green line represents pace and as you can see, I was running pretty slowly yesterday. I started out strong, but things got rough. I attribute this to a few factors:
- Like I said, I should have rested yesterday. This was my fourth run in four days.
- It was 90 degrees yesterday afternoon
- iTunes put on a frighteningly large proportion of Sarah McLaughlin on my iPod when I let it fill it up with random music. NOTE: Don’t let iTunes control your running music. Nora Jones and Christmas music in the mix are hazardous to your workout.
- Fumbling with the headphones while on the road can be a major distraction. I have a problem with keeping earbuds in while running and if I’m going to keep using this I will need to restart my quest for the perfect running headphones. Any Suggestions out there?
Goal Progress
My pathetic run yesterday belies what I’ve been accomplishing recently. My earlier runs this week were all in the 9-minute mile pace, which is getting pretty close to where I like to be. On Monday, I actually ran on a local high school track (flat, rubberized) and ran in the 8’s.
I’m down about 5 lbs to 174. The weight always comes off slowly at first as fat is replaced with heavier muscle. Now that the muscle is there, the lbs. should start dropping a little more rapidly. At least that’s how things have worked out in the past.
Thanks!
Most of my early supporters have become a bit bored with this it seems 
but thankfully they’re replaced with some new ones. It really does help keep me going knowing that I have this public view into my efforts. So please keep it up.
So, once again, thanks for your support:
- Kirk over at Practical Blog
- Sean who writes about Reverse Mortgages
- J.D. and his resource full of very bad people
- Morgan at Free Traffic Tip
- Thomas at Fort Liberty blog
- Anne at CleverMoms.com where you can get all kinds of coupons.
- Colleen and Angie (Angie, thanks for the map my run info, very cool.)
Kyle was actually telling me a couple weekends ago that he has one for his iPod too and its done a good job motivating him to run more. I like the synergy between exercise and technology that Nike and Apple have partnered on.
Welcome to the fold Scott. Time to setup some challenges on nikeplus.com! (you know the email)
I have to admit that the geek in me is really tempted by that. I have the ipod nano already but the problem is I would actually need to start running….
any tips for getting started?
One foot in front of the other Fraser. Simple as that.
Go buy the stuff. That should motivate you, at least for one run.
You guys have the perfect running weather over there.
We had some of your weather today 63F (17C) and rainy. Perfect
Scott…im a huge fan of the nike+ sensor. I got mine in Jan and it motivates me like crazy. My favorite part is when you hit a running milestone and a celebrity voice comes on and congratulates you immediately. I am always listening for Lance Armstrong. I too am lookin for the perfect running headphones so please keep me posted on what you find.
Peter, yeah, I heard my first Lance Armstrong a few days ago. Nice touch.
I’ve tried a lot of headphoness, and I think the issue is a very individual one. Wnat works for me may not work for you. I see lots of people running with the standard iPod earbuds. They just won’t stay in my ears. There’s nothing more annoying than earphones that keep falling out on a run.
I found some great earbuds from phillips that have around the ear stabilizers, but one of them broke on me just yesterday.
And I’m about to test out some new ones that I picked up at EMS yesterday. I’ll report on that tomorrow.
Nike rules! I hadn’t run since high school, but I thought Nike was so cool I actually started running again. Of course, my runs are more like 2 or 3 miles…not the Jangro 6 mile specials, but hopefully I’ll get there
Didn’t realize you could grab those widgets from Nike…gonna have to add that to my blog.
As for headphones, I use the Sony MDR-EX70LP Earbud Headphones and they work really well for running. The only thing I would say is to buy the black ones, not the white ones. For some reason the white rubber around the wires gets really soft and falls apart pretty easily…but the black ones don’t do that.
Happy running.
I almost bought one when I saw this first, but then (being the conservative shopper that I am!) decieded to first find some reviews. Thanks for this review.
I’m one of the few rare runner who prefer NOT to listen to music. I guess I like to hear the sound of cars, bikes, or muggers coming from behind!
When I’m running in the forest, I love the sound of my shoes crunching the leaves or snow.
I do have an iPod for my morning commutes!
[...] I’ve been lagging badly in keeping fit. Sure, I hit my goal of running a 10k race by my 40th birthday… a year ago. I haven’t had that monster goal to really get me running and working out. Then I read and was inspired by Scott Jangro’s running resurgence. [...]
Let us know for how long it keeps you interested.
Post some updates! You know what would be cool? If you can have a way to publish it easily on your site so people can see your progress too. For example your mom or girlfriend or your boss
Let us know for how long it keeps you interested.
Post some updates! You know what would be cool? If you can have a way to publish it easily on your site so people can see your progress too. For example your mom or girlfriend or your boss
Yes, don’t let iTunes control your running music. I’d recommend a very decent track for electronic music listeners: By Crystal Method, Drive Nike Original Run. It’s like 60mins and carefully composed to be fitted well with your workout.
Well, you are WAY ahead of me as I so need to get fit, it's not funny anymore.
Would you believe me if I said I lived very close to a gym.
Yep. I do.
AND I have membership there too.
Bad, aren't I?
I'm glad this *was going good for you though. I guess once you gain momentum, it becomes easier.
I say *was* as I don't see a recent update on your blog on how things are going for to you.
Anyway, all the best.
perde