Christmas is over, but my birthday is only a month away…

I want this…

Nike+ Amp Remote

My birthday is 1st Feb, so all donations gladly received!!

From July to December – or why I haven’t really got this blog going!

So, I had the grand ideal of recording my plans to get fit, but life kind of got in the way.

So since my last post I have made a purchase of a new iPod Nano with Nike+ kit (very nice and when I use it it motivates me!). I signed up to the Nike+ site after my first run with the kit and it’s great, it records distance, pace, calories etc. It works with a sensor that sits in your Nike+ trainers, or a trainer pouch, if, like me you don’t have Nike+ trainers. The sensor communicates with a small sensor that connects to your ipod Nano. When you are ready to run you set the distance you wish to go for, choose your music and away you go. Every 1km (you can set it up for miles but kms work for me) a voice tells you your distance, calories burned and, if you press the middle button on your ipod, your pace. As you get towards the end of a run the voice counts out your decreasing distance in smaller increments (e.g. 500 metres to go, 400 metres to go etc) – this actually works as a motivator to push yourself for the final sprint.

Once back home, you plug your ipod into your computer and you can send your run info to the Nike+ website where your runs are stored. The site is great and records all your run information as well as allowing you to set goals and challenge other runners.

Once logged in you can view your historic runs:

Nike+ Runs Chart

You can also delve into the detail of the run by clicking on one of the green bars above.

Nike+ Run Detail

You can the name the run so you remember where you failed to meet your goals!

Overall the Nike+ kit has been worth it as it has pushed me to actually set goals for my runs. Since using the kit my pace has gone from 6′18″ per km to 5′27″ per km.

So what has that done for me? Well I started out my training (which includes the gym – I’ll blog this later) at 104 kg (fat b*****d) and got down to 94 kg (not so fat b*****d) and, due to slacking off and Christmas am up to about 96kg.

I’ve got 2 goals over the next 3 months – get down to less than 90kg and be ready for the Reading Half Marathon. Bring it on!!