Taking a few runs off this week because I've got bronchitis. YEAH!!! Last Sunday's 20 miles was really hard but I was happy I did it. Longest distance yet! Laela rode her bicycle out and brought water to me which was immensely helpful. I can't help but wonder if I'd have fared better by not staying out at Bob's Bar until 12:15 the night before. I woke up at 5:15 on Sunday morning so I could get it done before it got too hot during the day.
Since I don't have a whole lot else to talk about this week, I thought I'd post up a review of the Nike+ Sport Kit. I had a friend ask me about it and I tend to write a book every time I talk about it, to here it is in all it's glory:
Get ready for a book, I love talking about this thing. I've been using mine since May of 2008 and have logged 1681 miles with it. First and foremost, if you are expecting GPS accuracy on your distance, this isn't the device for you.
The Nike+ sport kit for iPod is combined of two pieces:
One is a small accelerometer that you put in or on your shoe. You do not need Nike+ running shoes (Nike shoes suck). I use the Tuneband Shoepouch to attach mine to my laces. http://www.grantwoodtechnology.com/tuneband/
The second piece is a receiver. The Nike+ Sportkit only works on the following models of Pod: iPod nano (any generation),iPod touch, or an iPhone. You plug the small receiver into the iPod's dock connector.
The receiver uploads a new menu to your Nike+ iPod. After you supply your iPod with some information about you it will tell you how far, how long, and how many calories you burn per run.
To start a run you select a distance or a time from the Nike+iPod menu, tell it if you'd like to listen to a playlist or shuffle all songs, and then you tell it when to begin your run. (It'll measure distance in kilometers or miles) It'll tell you audibly at predefined intervals how far you've gone. For instance it'll notify you at each mile, when you've reached your halfway point, when you've got 400 meters to go.
Anyway, back to how it works. Every time your foot strikes the ground during your run, the accelerometer in the shoe sensor sends a signal to the receiver and then it stores that data in an XML file which is resident in the iPod's RAM (this becomes important later when I discuss the Nike+ Sportkit drawbacks). It'll keep recording your footstrikes as long as your run is active. As soon as you tell it that you are finished with your run, the iPod takes the XML file and writes it to your iPod's flash storage.
The next time you connect your iPod to your computer, iTunes will take that XML file and upload it to the account you've set up on the Nike+ website. It'll then display your run to you in your web browser in a graph format. It'll also generate some widgets that you can share on your Facebook page or on a blog. I use three of them on my blog:
http://speedwalrus.blogspot.com/
Things to keep in mind about the Nike+ Sport kit:
1. It is imperative that you calibrate it for best accuracy. To do this, you take it to a track and walk and/or run for a predefined distance at a comfortable pace for you (I do this once every six months and do half mile walking and a half mile running). It takes this data and applies it to the distance calculations during your runs. If you just use the default calibration, it can be as far as .2 miles off per mile.
2. Your iPod HATES moisture (this includes sweat). Occasionally during the runs your iPod will lock up on you (I think it's because sweat gets into the dock connector but it could have other causes too). The only way to get it unlocked is to do a soft reset. Unfortunately because your xml file is stored in RAM during your run, when you reset it you'll lose the current run. It's REALLY frustrating when that happens and it happens to everyone that I've talked to that uses it. It probably happens to me once a month but it seems more prevalent when it's super hot out or when it has just rained.
3. Do not buy the Nike armband for your iPod. It is awful for controlling the iPod and is great at trapping moisture.
I hope this was helpful. Don't hesitate to ask me any more questions about it. At $30 I think it's a great investment, but it's important that you realize it's limitations before you get involved with it.
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