Nike++

My nano arrived today, so my lonely iPod sport kit (which was patiently sitting on my desk for the past couple of days) got some company - and I had to go try them out.

(Any idea what the color of the line means? Some people have a yellow one...)

Given where I work, I have tons of iPods. I didn't really think I needed a new one - until they announced the sport kit. It was then a matter of waiting for a new revision and finding some free time - and here we are.

All of the components are pretty nice - the hardware is really simple, software on the iPod is easy to figure out* (except... more on that later), the integration in iTunes is pretty transparent, and the Nike website is really cool. I mean - I'm in a graph... how awesome is that!

I'm enough of a data nerd that I'm somewhat tempted to carry my nano around with me all day to see what it would look like - maybe once or twice, just to try it. And since the battery lasts 24 hours, it could actually work :)

The possibility of wearing it during marching band rehearsals is intriguing too - both for myself and using one of the kids as a test subject :) ... it would be educational - really! However, that would mean I would need to trust one of them with my iPod...

Digging through the content of the iPod directories, it looks like the content of the run data is stored in XML files, which alleviates my fear of having data locked into the Nike site (as cool as it is). It doesn't record each of the individual steps (which would have been really cool for marching band tempos :), but it has a summary and some information about events in between - though I didn't look too close yet.

I wish there was some way to add information to the runs on Nike's site, to give some reference info about what was going on. I tried doing a 45 minute run tonight - which started out with me walking at first to warm up. I ran for about 20 minutes, and then my episode of Coverville (on iTunes) ran out, and I needed to pick another. Unfortunately I was still trying to keep moving during this, and I accidentally ended my workout session. I started another and ran the rest of the way home. I was going to grab food, so I just paused the workout until I started walking again.

The end result is that I have 2 workouts, both of which have quirks. My 45 minute workout lasted 25, and I have another 30 minute one where I'm only running for 10. Whew - it feels good to get that out... no more hanging my head in shame. I just wish I could write that on Nike's site somewhere :) Including the walking sections in my workout brings my average mile time down, so I'll probably avoid that in the future (gotta beat the system somehow).

On to the future...
I'll probably "gear up" soon and get a real pair of running shoes. I really don't like having keys in my hand (even less in my pockets) , so the Nike shoe 'wallet' appears to be in my future as well. I really like the new iPod headphone design, but my left earpiece was falling out constantly during the run - I'll have to figure out something for that too.

Drop me a line if anyone else wants to do challenges - with my recent lack of exercise I'd imagine I can help you feel good about yourself :)