NIKE : Experience

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Nike retail conference in Portland and they were just launching the new Nike+ sneakers that worked with the iPod Nano. I dropped a few subtle hints (OK, I begged!) and lo and behold, a pair arrived at my office earlier this week. So, of course, that meant I needed to try them out and do some running, which I haven't done in quite a number of years.

And it was pretty darn cool to hit the track and watch my stats in real time. Well, actually my stats really sucked, so it wasn't really fun, but the way it worked was cool. It was really simple to set-up and it took no time at all to have everything up & running (pun intended). My first day, I went out for a walk at lunch just to see how it worked and I've done a few miles since then.

One of the best features of the Nike+ system is that you can download all of your information and track it online. I was able to very easily set-up a goal -- in my case number of calories burned -- and track it over the course of your workouts. It even allows you to challenge people all around the world!

Now, you talk about your communities. According to the stats on the site, 4,633 runs were logged in the last 24 hours and 267,000+ miles have been run. Given the fact that the sneakers have only been available for about a month, that seems pretty good! I wish that they had a way to connect runners, so that you can find fellow runners or build your own community, but maybe that's coming or maybe I just didn't find out how to do that.

So, my first couple of runs were pretty slow and painful, but I'm hoping that it'll give me the push that I need to start exercising again. I have to admit, it was a tad depressing to know that I walked 1.8 miles and ran another two and only burned about 500 calories! Hell, that's like about 20% of my normal after-dinner cookie intake! But, I guess it's better then not doing anything at all and I do need to lose at least 20 pounds. Yea, I know you're thinking "Hey, why don't you just stop eating cookies after dinner?, but that's the easy thing to do isn't it? But anyone can lose weight by eating right! Where's the challenge in that? I'll let you know how I make out.

Link: NIKE : Experience.