Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

Nike+iPod impressions

While in San Francisco a few weeks ago I decided to pick up the Nike+iPod kit built for runners. Purchasing the receiver (which connects to an iPod nano) and shoe-insert set also meant I needed to buy a compatible pair of running shoes – possibly the first time I’ve bought shoes to complement an accessory! I had a chance to test out the kit yesterday, and I have to say – it’s totally cool. And yes, that’s in bold and italics for you. I would love to give the PM(s) for this product five gold stars – but I’m verging on broke so I’ll just continue with a glowing post.

The basic deal after putting your favorite workout music on the device is you get to choose from a number of objectives for your run: a target distance – say 3k, 5k, or 10k; a set time to run – say 30 min., 45 min., or 60 min; or a set number of calories to burn – say 400, 500, whatever. All of the options are customizable, so you could set to run for 88 minutes if you wanted.

During the run, you have the option of listening to a female voice (a sort of gruffly sultry mix) or male voice announce every fixed unit of your target how much you have left. In other words, if your objective is to run a set time, she’ll chime in every 5 minutes with how much time has elapsed, or how much time is left if you’ve passed the half-way point (which she announces enthusiastically as well). If your objective is to run a set distance, she’ll chime in every 1k or 1mile doing the same thing as with time. You can of course mute the “trainer” if you want, but I found it quite useful and surprisingly not annoying – music fades to the background so that you don’t have the voice yelling in your ears.

Another surprisingly fun part of this kit is its online integration with Nike+. Not only does the nano store up to 1000 workouts, but it presents each one in a nice graph and subsequently allows you to compare all of your runs with yourself – to gauge your progress – or with the million+ other users who are logging their runs. If you click on the thumbnail and look at the path, you’ll see some stats from my last run. Each little circle on the yellow line represents when I listened to the trainer-voice – the evenly spaced ones were the fixed-interval announcements, and the randomly spaced ones are when I clicked to hear my progress. You’ll notice the yellow line is also a bit squiggly, basically visualizing my speed throughout. There’s a pretty big hill towards the end of my run, so that probably slowed me down a bit :P

I’ve only tested the kit once, but it feels quite accurate. And it’s super exciting to finally have the stats to my runs logged without any hassle. Sitting down with pen and paper to jot times and calculate progress is the last thing I want to do after sweating for an hour. This is a seriously well implemented example of how technology is making my life easier and more enjoyable.

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