Imagine the shear frustration I had after syncing tonight’s run and seeing that I had accumulated 99.97 miles over my first 33 runs. 99.97! I don’t know whether I should be pissed at Nike+ for not pushing me to keep going toward 100 miles or if I should embrace it because it literally makes me want to go outside right now and run the .03 miles needed to reach 100 miles.
Nike Plus - 100 Miles
On the whole, I’ve really enjoyed using Nike+, however it’s not perfect. So that said, here are 10 things I’d like to see changed, added, edited, etc.
I ran everyday last week. For the most part Nike+ has been as good, if not better, than advertised. I had one minor hiccup on day 3. I started my running indoors on the treadmill because of some serious rain. However, the rain stopped so I paused my workout. I clicked the resume button, but apparently the Nike+ system did not resume correctly. Day 3 shows I ran just over 1 mile when in fact I ran more than 3. I’ve cut my pace from 8 minutes 3 seconds per mile to 7 minutes 13 seconds per mile in just a week. I’m expecting it to level off at 7 minutes for the next few weeks. Ultimately, I’m hoping to get the training speed down around 6 minutes and 45 seconds per mile so that my race pace ends up around 6 minutes and 15 seconds.
You can track my progress here:
So I finally made it out for my first run. I had planned to start running on August 4th, my birthday. However due to some gear arriving late, getting sick, and work travel I wasn’t able to find the time. This was my first run using Nike+. I have to say, it worked really well. The Nike Lunar Trainer shoes were outstanding and the Sennheiser PMX70 headphones were better than advertised. So the gear was great, but I wasn’t. The last time I actually ran a real 5K race was in 1996. I ran a 19:27, which is a 6:15 per mile pace. My personal best is somewhere in the neighborhood of 16:12. Tonight was not quite that. You can see the results here.
So I’m basically 25% worse than I wa 11 years ago. Actually, that’s not too bad. My goal is to get up to about a 25 mile a week base and get back to the 6:15 per mile average for a 5K. We’ll see.
I love running. I ran in high school competitively. I ran in college for fun. But, I’ve taken the last 10+ years off. Ouch! Starting 8/4/2008 (my birthday), I’ll be off and running again. I’ll be using Nike+ to track my progress. After a lot of research I decided on the Nike Lunar Trainer shoes. I’m hoping they’ll be as good as my all-time favorite training shoe, the Nike Air Max Triax.
While I love the concept of the Nike+ system, I am a little disappointed that they didn’t take the time to create widgets for each of the major blogging platforms…like WordPress. It would have a been a good move to make something that users could easily integrate.
I can’t resist smirking, smiling, laughing, and saying, “I Told You So.” This Ad Age article tells the particulars. I think this was a case of Nike thinking the grass might be greener on the other side. It’s not the first time they’ve tried dancing with another partner. Me thinks they’ll come crawling back to W+K. The killer was this quote by Alex Bogusky in this month’s FastCompany regarding his opinion of the Nike work, “I think everyone wants to see the work get better than it is.”
Perhaps if the work had more soul like the new work for New Balance they’d have kept it.
Keep in mind, this isn’t about hating on Cripsin Porter + Bogusky. They do great work sometimes and sometimes they don’t. That fact makes them just like everyone else. They get so much negative attention because they essentially beg for it based on the way they carry themselves. Never toot your own horn; let someone else do it for you.
If there is one thing W+K can do it’s TV. The work they do for Nike is amazing. It actually blows me away that Nike thought they needed Crispin on board for Nike Running. But, hey I’m sure someone smarter than me is making those decisions. This is their latest work and it’s amazing.
The copywriting make this spot. You can apply the same point being made about basketball to the work we do on a daily basis. While some may make the work look easy, the reality is we great work comes through effort.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy.
