As you all know I have been using the Nike plus sport kit for my iPod Nano for the last couple of weeks and I love it. I am a huge advocate for the Sport kit and I think that Nike should obviously sport me an endorsement deal. I’ve only done 12 runs so far, but found some tricky behavior that will hopefully be useful to you on your Nike Plus journey.

TURN IT UP: If you are using the pouch that attaches to the laces instead of the Nike Plus shoes, make sure that the transmitter pod is face up. By face up, I mean the orange side up. I found that if you have it in upside down your reading will be inconsistent and can be off a great deal. Example: My Nike plus said I ran .75 Mi in 40 minutes. I don’t think I could even crawl that slow. After turning it right side up, it was back to its well behaved self again.

DOCK IT: Dock (or plug in) your Nano after EVERY run. I ran once, then I ran again without docking the Nano, and found that even though the data is saved in your Nano (If you are docked, go to itunes and click on your iPod - you will see the workout history which should give you the correct total of your runs) only one run is sent/uploaded to Nike.com where all the goodies for your goals and measurements are.

CALIBRATE: A sensitive piezoelectric accelerometer (In dumb blonde that means “the little computer that goes in your shoe”) monitors your footstrike when you walk or run and determines the amount of time your foot spent on the ground. This contact time is directly related to your pace. Just keep in this in mind, if you have a long stride your pace will be slowly. Try using a non impact style of running so you dont “bounce” when you run. In other words, just move your legs faster, you dont have to open up your stride and involve your entire technique. Either way, it has a 90 percent degree of accuracy, out of the box. You can calibrate the system to your stride for increased accuracy, just remember to try to maintain the stride for how you calibrated it. Ordinarily, the sensor does not require recalibration. You may want to consider recalibrating if your fitness level changes or if you would like to try to improve the accuracy of your results.

Best of luck to you all!

Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl