Goodbye Nike+
I’ve expressed my frustration with the Nike+iPod system before, listing both shortcomings and improvement ideas. After declaring my marathon goal I have become even more aware of those shortcomings, and those frustrations topped Sunday last week when I ran a new personal best in a 10 km race. After the race my iPod, which I had calibrated just the week before, said I had run 9.47 km. That’s a 5% deviation.
Having wanted a Garmin Forerunner 305 for a while I finally decided to just buy it. I had just learned that my next bonus would be quite reasonable, and my birthday is just next month. Of course, it was only after talking to my mom a couple of days later I realized how stupid it was to buy something off my wishlist this close to my birthday.
In any case, I can hardly take back my new purchase, but I do feel quite bad for not thinking about it before.
I recieved the Forerunner Thursday (and you can see my unboxing on Flickr) and played around with it a little bit to familiarize myself. It was on Friday, however, that I did my first proper test with a 6 km tempo run.
Since I was only missing something like 20 km to reach the 1000 km milestone in Nike+, and for comparison purposes, I brought both the Forerunner and my iPod on the run. The differences were astounding: The Forerunner measured the run to 6.25 km with an average pace of 4’43”/km. On the other hand the iPod measured the run for 5.76 km at an average pace of 5’08”/km…
I measured the route using a Danish running route planner (løberuteplanlæggeren) to 6.22 km. A little bit of arithmetic shows that the Forerunner deviated by less than 0.5% while the Nike+ kit was more than 7% off!!! That’s a huge deviation and completely solidified my resolve.
After that test run I decided that I, after today’s long run, would stop using the Nike+ kit for running altogether. It simply doesn’t give me the information I need. Add to that the ability to make workouts, something which I suggested for the Nike+iPod experience all the way back in my original Nike+ review. You can do that with the Forerunner, and so much more. Unfortunately, the Mac software does feel a little unfinished, but it seems they are working on better solutions. At least I can still use it for the things I need (post-run information and making workouts).
So how did it go with my Nike+ running? Well, I passed the 1000 km milestone today.
A fitting end to a love/hate relationship.