The steps should take 10-15 minutes to complete and require tools that you probably already have around the house. You’ll need to buy a new battery, of course, but the required CR2032 battery is easily found at many online retailers and at your local RadioShack.
Congratulations to our challenge winners for the month of May!
Most Miles: lasabur took simonji’s place at the top with 293.37 miles!
Fastest 1 Mile: robottino keeps fastest mile honors with a time of 5′26”
Fastest 3K: robottino again, with a time of 11′39”
Fastest 5K: Jay35 takes the honors with a time of 19′17”
Fastest 10K: Newcomer keithmichael blazes to the top with a time of 35′49”
Congrats to June’s winners, and best of luck to July’s challengers. If you’re not already running with us this month, head over to the Challenges page, join in, and get running!
Forbes reports that 24 Hour Fitness will soon begin outfitting selected gyms with Nike+ iPod enabled equipment.
“24 Hour Fitness, the largest fitness club chain in the U.S., is the first to offer new Nike + iPod enabled gym equipment in select clubs across the country. Nike and Apple worked with major gym equipment manufacturers to make their cardio equipment Nike + iPod compatible so gym members can easily track and record workouts on cardio equipment like treadmills, stair steppers, elliptical trainers and stationary bikes.”
This week’s Onion includes a running related opinion column that’s too funny to pass up. It’s a piece that describes the trials and hardships involved in training for “the ultimate physical challenge: ruining a marathon.”
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. Sure, everyone would like to ruin a marathon, but who among us has the discipline and energy to get up at the crack of dawn morning after morning, through rain, sleet, and snow, and practice handing out cups of vinegar to the frontrunners? Me, that’s who. Yes, there are some mornings when it’s darn near impossible to keep going—when you feel like you just can’t chip one more pothole in the course with a pickax. But endurance ruining is all about pushing through the pain. And when the big day comes, and you make it over that final hurdle, dodge the cops, and shove an old guy into the bushes, you’ll know all that training was worth it.”
Brian Morrissey of The Internal Pigdog politely expressed some frustrations with the accuracy of his Nike+ SportBand over the course of a few posts in mid May.
“So far, I’m underwhelmed. The chart above shows my run today. After nine years of running, I figure I have a pretty good sense of pace. There’s no way it was that slow. I ran today more at 7:30 or a little below. The graph also has all these peaks and troughs that don’t make sense.”
“To test the accuracy, I ran to the park, then started Nike+. I did the four-mile loop (technically, a USATF-measured 4.04). Nike+ told me 3.71 miles. I was pretty much exactly right about the distance. My internal odometer kicked Nike+’s ass.”
Nike responded directly to Brian’s concerns in the person of Blogger user PLe1, the director of Nike’s RUN NYC program.
“Brian, just for the sake of disclosure I’m the director of Nike’s RUN NYC program. I just want that out there so it’s not like I’m hidng the fact I work for Nike.
Out of the box it’s 90% accurate and set for 8 minute pace but it’s designed so that every runner can make it work for their particular cadence by calibrating it.”
Make sure to check out Brian’s article and the article’s comments thread for the whole story.
Photographer Nick Onken is currently in Latin America on a three-week assignment for Nike Running. Details on his project are thin, but this behind-the-scenes video gives us some clues. Enjoy.
We’ve discussed how to use an online pedometer to map and route your runs. Now there’s a new piece of Mac software that promises similar functionality with a much richer interface and a great set of features.
TrailRunner is a freeware application offered by Berbie Software.
“TrailRunner is a route planning software for all kinds of long distance sports . . . . TrailRunner can calculate a route for your desired distance and export directions onto your iPod, giving you a detailed orientation while you are on your way.”
TrailRunner is compatible with the Garmin Forerunner products, promising the ability to “display and manage workouts . . . directly from Garmin Training Center.” Support for the Nike+ Sport kit is available as well. The feature list is too long and too rich to include here, so head over to the TrailRunner home page to check it out for yourself.
At first blush, TrailRunner seemed to be the one killer app I’d like to use to map and manage my run data. The fact that it’s only available for the Mac is a deal killer for me.
Are you using TrailRunner? Let us know in the comments how you like it and if you’d recommend it to the rest of us.
According to variousonlinereports, Nike has dumped ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky after a brief 13-month relationship. According to AdvertisingAge, “Nike is shifting its running-shoe and Nike-Plus business back to lead agency Wieden & Kennedy.” While this won’t make much practical difference to us in the short term, the single most interesting item about this is that Crispin Porter was apparently working on the Nike+ website. I’ve stated before the Nike+ site is prettier than it is functional, and an interview with Nike’s Chris Shimojima seems to point at some coming changes to the site. I’m hoping that dumping Crispin for Wieden may help speed that process a bit.
Great products frequently inspire great parodies. Here are two of my favorites, followed by my favorite viral Nike+ video. Enjoy the lighter side of Nike+.
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