Nike Plus users?

I have a Nike Plus kit for my Nano, and I have to say that it is great for helping motivate me (tech nerd) to run. One person even called it the multiplayer game of the year for last year:
http://www.cabel.name/2006/08/multiplayer-game-of-year.html

Does anybody else here who is trying to get into shape use one? If so, are you up for some friendly competition?

(p.s. I can only manage about 2 miles 3-4 times per week, for reference)

Wow that is really neat. I had never heard of this before. Thanks!

Well, if you pick one up, let me know and we can set up a challenge. My girlfriend, who is currently working in Lesotho, is able to participate with me from over there, which is cool. She always wins! :(

From a tech geek standpoint, this is a pretty wicked synergy of devices. It’s a shame I don’t run or own an ipod.

I bought a nano and Nike Plus for the wife for christmas.
I’m the family tech geek, but she absolutely adores it.

Nike/Philips allready had the idea with the Nike+Philips Run, which was a great MP3-player (it even had radio and a strobe light), but just had crappy software. This is somewhat inferior but the integration into iTunes and the iPod is what pushed it from geekery to mainstream cool.

The Nike+Philips Run went unused for most of the time, the pink Nano and Nike+ is essential for my wife’s runs. She almost missed a run the other night because the chip had fallen out and she couldn’t imagine going for a run without it.

Why didn’t they make it compatible with the Mini? There are a billion of those things out there.

because theyd sell less nanos!

It’s damn tempting… I like a bit of competition to get me motivated to run. But… I’m not a nike wearer, had my last shoes fitted by specialists and couldn’t reliably buy nikes with confidence.

You don’t need Nike shoes… just to attach the RFID thing to a shoe. I use this thing to put it in:
http://www.marware.com/Sportsuit-Sensor-for-Gen-2-iPod-nano

Does it actually manage to accurately track the pace and distance? I could use it to get my army required (In in the NZ reserves) run time down. It’s kinda tempting… because… it’s almost like a game!

And for 300-or-so bucks I could be all set up.

But I’d need to synch my nano to my laptop and leave my main ipod for my GF or my main machine I guess. One per box and all that, right?

Damn… it’s kinda tempting.

My mom makes little pouches that you can thread through your shoelaces and keep the sensor in there. I guess they work pretty well. I’m the only one in my family without a Nano.

My wife has slim feet and can’t use the Nike+ shoes either. She uses a pouch like the one Bob describes and all is fine.

The Nike+ is not as precise as a runners watch with GPS, but if you calibrate it on a track it’s pretty darn precise. Unfortunately it doesn’t come with a pulse measurer or the ability to connect to one, so for real serius running Garmin, Polar and others still make the better device - but the Nike+ is a darn sight funnier.

My wife was convulsing with laughter the first time Lance Armstrong popped into her ears and congratulated her on her new personal best.

I’ve still got some lingering foot issues from a partially torn plantar fascia due to a snowboarding injury earlier this year, so I haven’t been able to really run for a couple of months.

I’d be interested in getting involved with some Qt3 related tracking site to show off my ~30 miles per week running habit once I healed up, except for the fact that I own two iPods and neither of them is a Nano and while this is cool, it isn’t cool enough for me to go buy a third iPod.

Not sure of the exchange rate, etc… but I bought a refurbished Nano for $90 USD, the Nike kit for $30 and the shoe pouch for $10. Honestly, I made my own shoe pouch that I used for a while. Total cost here: $130 USD.

I bought it because I was writing a research document about it for another company and I got hooked to the competitions and stat tracking. When you first get one, you have to calibrate it to a known distance with both walking and running - then it is accurate. I have no need to be uber-precise or to know my pulse, etc… so this is good enough for me.

You can synch more than one iPod to a computer and/or an iPod to more than one computer, and it will still upload. At least, it did for me.

Actually, you can have multiple Ipods on one machine.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300432

In this case, the easiest fix would be to use the nano to work out, and just make a workout playlist.

You’re a superstepper.

Hah, now I find out more about these two devices. Not only did I recently buy an iPod (Shuffle), but I also bought a nice pair of running shoes, both of which I used to train for a local charity run.

The tracking/gaming part would have made the whole process more fun. I pretty much just went with the brute force method of, get out there and go! As someone else mentioned, I also grew fond of running in the dark, for almost identical reasons.

I spoke with quite a few runners over the course of a few months, nearly all of them saying your body (mostly your knees) will eventually “go bad” if you run often over a course of ~10 years. At the start I hated running, but after a while it was very relaxing. I’m not exactly thrilled of having weak knees though.

And ankles, don’t forget those. Mine sprain on a weekly basis but they heal the next day, usually. Last month though, they nearly ruined my trip to London. Lower leg injuries of all sorts are a major PITA.

Recumbent bike FTW!

Bahaha, very good :)

Ok, I went and bought a shiny red Nano and the nike thing and an arm band. I’ve kinda been thinking about this for a while as my 20gig ipod is too heavy to carry around and it’s not good for it in the pocket.

So, while I charge the thing, do we build a community or some sort of thing?

TinyPirate has been created on Nike.com site thing. I mucked around and got a couple of quick runs in. It would be nice to have a little more control over goals. I want to hit 1.5m in under 10.30 (and so on down)… but it doesn’t quite do it. Instead, i’ll be doing 1.5m runs and set pace at ‘7 minutes’ for a mile.

Clay? Anyone else?