In Which My Nike+ Rises from the Ashes Like a Phoenix

The Nike+, a running innovation that I raved about just a few short months ago, had fallen into disuse recently. You see, I listen to audiobooks on my generic MP3 player (better selection of audio titles available from the library than is available for the ipod) while I run. This means that the audio cues of the Nike+ (distance covered, pace) are useless to me. It also means that if I'm wearing my ipod on my arm, I can't see the display (which also shows distance and pace), and I also can't tell whether the Nike+ is actually pausing and restarting when I stop for a red light (failure to pause the Nike+ when you stop throws off the pace information on your run).

So instead of the Nike+, I've been wearing Dean's Garmin, which basically functions like a very expensive watch (although it can't actually tell you what TIME it is). The Garmin is equipped with GPS, and you won't find a more accurate gizmo in terms of telling you what distance you've just run. Oh, and treadmill runners out there, beware: I know for a fact that the readouts on the treadmills are WRONG. For a long time now, I've found myself wondering why I can run so much faster outside. When I take my run onto the treadmill, I'm doing between 5.5 and 6.5 and it feels way harder than it does outside. Plus (well, this is obvious), it takes me longer to cover three miles. I've gone so far as to run on the treadmill with the Nike+ and compare the readouts. For instance, last Friday, I did a treadmill run. Nike+ had me running 3.18 miles. But according to the treadmill, I covered just UNDER three miles. For comparison's sake, I ran outside on Tuesday afternoon. The Nike+ has me logging 3.06 miles. Mapmyrun.com has me logging 3.08 miles. So, you can see, the Nike+ is fairly trustworthy (though it does start to skew on a longer run and definitely isn't as accurate as the Garmin). I suppose that if you do all your runs on a treadmill, this inaccuracy wouldn't make a big difference. But it's irritating to someone who typically runs outdoors and only moves inside out of sheer desperation. It's like, I'm suddenly running so much slower? What gives? I mean, I can carry off an 8-minute per mile pace for a decent amount of time outside, but inside that pace almost has me flying off the back of the treadmill. Now I know what gives. The treadmill is wrong. At least in my case.

I hate the treadmill for any of number of reasons, and this just seals the deal. Sadly, with winter looming and darkness falling around 4:00, I'm going to have to move at least *some* of my runs inside. Sniff. But on the weekends, I'll be one of those insane runners you see on the lakefront path on 20-degree January days. I'm actually looking forward to it.

But anyhow, I digress. What I was telling you is that the Nike+ has been reborn. Because, you see, Mapmyrun.com is NOW compatible with Nike+. This means I can upload my data to Nike+, a site that I absolutely loathe because it is very slow and doesn't have a very good journaling function. And then I can visit Mapmyrun.com and actually upload my Nike+ data, see a graph of my run, add any little detail I want (pace, weather, music, run type, etc.), and add a map of the route if I want. As an example, this is part of the detail Mapmyrun.com shows about Tuesday's run:

Lap #1: 3.06 mi., 368 (kcal), 00:31:25

Pace: min: 07:07 / avg: 10:28 / max: 20:38
Speed: min: 2.91 (mi/hr) / avg: 5.85 (mi/hr) / max: 8.43 (mi/hr)

Now, I may be a dork, but I like to see this kind of breakdown. For instance, I had no idea I was capable of running a 7:07 mile (regardless of the fact that I probably only ran at this pace for a few minutes). The calories burned are surely off since my Nike+ needs to be recalibrated (I weigh less now than I did when I bought the Nike+). But overall, this gives me a pretty good picture of Tuesday's run. I can look at the graph and see where I stopped to cross streets or to see where I walked for a warm-up/cool-down (which is the 20:30-minute pace you see as the "max"). And believe it or not, I'll look at these runs again. Before the half-marathon, I used my Nike+ data to (accurately) predict my finish time.

So I'm a dork. Do you want to make something of it? The end result is this: If you don't want to drop a load of money on the Garmin and you already own an ipod Nano, the Nike+ might be worth buying now that you can use the Mapmyrun.com functionality to overcome the crappy Nike+ Web site. End of story.

[Editor's note: For what it's worth, and you'll only find this interesting if you're a dork like me, which means probably no one will find this interesting (not that I care), the reason I haven't switched to Dean's Garmin full-time is also an issue of journaling. It's a long, boring story, but I basically want all of my run data in the same place, which isn't possible if I use the Nike+ sometimes and the Garmin sometimes. Plus, I'm not smart enough to remember to do a few important things w/ the Garmin: Turn it off when I'm done; turn it on with enough time to obtain a GPS signal; reset it so that my runs don't all get lumped into one, impossibly long run.]