Sunday, June 1, 2008

Long Runs + Calibration

Friday marked 26 days since the marathon. The rule of thumb is one day of recovery per mile of the race. I've felt fine for some time now, but I'm cautious after races because it's really easy to get hurt. Last week, I ran over 30 miles, and I'll probably do another 35 this week. Today I returned to the long run, albeit at a level that I wouldn't consider long during training: 10 miles.

The interesting thing is I might have figured out the Nike SportBand. After I posted about how disappointed I was with the accuracy of the SportBand, the director of Nike's Run NYC replied to the post. That's awesome. He suggested I need to calibrate it because -- and this is the part I really liked -- I run at a faster pace than it's optimized for. I went for a five-mile run yesterday, including the four-mile Central Park loop for calibration. The SportBand was off .3 mile again, and it was pretty easy to adjust the calibration once I found the option. (It's hidden after you hit a little "i" button in the corner of the uploading window. Today's run came up at 10.33 miles and 1:15 for a 7:15 pace. That's more like what I run. What's great about it, for me, is that Nike reached out to me directly. I'm not sure how Ple1 found my blog, but he seems to have helped solve my problem. Nice job by Nike.

8 comments:

darryl ohrt said...

Cool. Stoked that you're on the system.

Tell your friends at NikePlus that they should fix existing bugs...

+like not remembering users and requiring a login over and over,

+ and the challenges that don't log, or take forever to log,

+and the "paula" greeting bug that plagues you from 400 or so miles to the 500 mark.

It's insane that they have the kind of user base they've collected, yet they so rarely give the product's webware any attention or updates.

But otherwise - totally lovin' it.

Brian Morrissey said...

Darryl,
I think the Nike+ site sucks. I'm amazed at how there's so little functionality, or it's hidden underneath showy Flash stuff. I'd like to examine my pace during my run. If I can do that, it's unclear how. I'd like to tag runs in order to reorder them to compare how I do for different workouts. Most of all, I'd like to export my data outside of NikePlus.com. When can't I share it on Facebook? And why can't I find and connect with you on NikePlus? Can I?

Laura said...

Paul is awesome! My favorite was when I posted on my blog about how I thought the guy at the Nike Runners' Station was hot and he told me the two possible names of the who it could have been :) Sorry to hear you're struggling with the Plus though...

PLe1 said...

Darryl,

Go once you sign in on the upper left under your name it says "Edit". Hit that and one of the options is "Remember Me". That should take care of the signing in thing.

We run a lot of challenges in our programs and I've heard the not logging thing a few times but I've never actually experianced it. I'd check your time zone though and make sure everything meshes. I know that's one of the ways the system can get screwed up.

The Paula thing is a quirk they knew about around Boston and it was something they considered low priority at that time. They were rolling out the SportBand at the time and I think it was a problem with an update they had issued around the same time. I can't remember what the resolution was but try updating the software and it's possibly been fixed right now - or just get past 500 and problem solved.

Brian, I agree with increasing the datamining capabilities and I've had a lengthy discussion about the possibilites. The concern is keeping the site simple because the majority of users aren't seeking that kind of info, and the ones who are have already moved on to Garmins. An idea they're kicking around is having a "sandbox" tab where you'll be able to go in and screw around with the data, but I don't think it's a hot item on the list.

And I think I originally found the site searching for Runners' Station posts. Kind of market research for a internet running nerd. But I'm glad the calibration worked. Like I've said you should stop by our runs from Niketown, NY Running Co, Paragon, or the Station. All free and good times.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I bought Nike Sportband. I have bigger problem. I couldn't see anything on display after second workout. It's true that I sweat during summer days, but I think that Nike company should count with it.

greating from Europe-Czech

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