The Nike Leaderboard Quest - An Experience with Nike+iPod

You will find lots of surprises in your Nike+iPod Sport Kit. They are not obvious until you actually start using the product, so I’m not going to spoil it for you.

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My First Run

Although I’ve been running the same routes for years, I have never taken the time to measure the actual distances. I had estimated that my current path was approximately 4 miles. The Nike+iPod sensor is supposed to be 90% accurate for most runners right out of the box. But, because I had not actually measured my running route I had no way to know how close the distance measure really was. So, on this initial run I took careful note of the locations of the one-mile splits as indicated on the iPod.During the run I received audio feedback on distance and pace just by tapping the center button. I had a lot of trouble at first with the Nike+ armband - you cannot actually see the screen when the iPod is in the case and sometimes it shifts so the buttons don’t exactly line up. Also, finishing your run is a hassle because you cannot readily access the “finish workout” function from the menu.

As soon as I got home I went to my office and attached the iPod to my desktop computer. The workout information from my iPod was automatically uploaded to the Nike+ website where I could view each run individually and see how it progressed. I could also view roll-ups by week and by month allowing me to ompare yourself with others around the world in various categories. I immediately locked in on the US Men’s Weekly Distance category for ages 40-44. For the week of October 1st the Men’s top 10 leaderboard in my age category by distance showed as little as 30 miles. So there it was - if I could just run 30 miles in a week I could make a top 10 listing. The stage was set . . .

Sunday - My Quest Begins

Before I could start my assault on the leaderboard I had to verify the accuracy of the sensor and iPod. So, based on the previous day’s run I set out in my car to verify the distance at 3 miles (I knew the exact location of the the 3 mile mark by the iPod’s measure). When I got to the location my trip odometer was almost at 3.3 miles. So, the iPod sensor was off by almost 1/10 per mile.

I immediately set off of the local high school running track, iPod and Nike+ shoes in hand, for a calibration run. My first calibration run was performed at one mile. I tried to verify the calibration at a distance of 1/2 mile but it was still off. So I tried another calibration run at 1/2 mile being very careful to start after the screen had initialized. This did the trick. Subsequent laps were dead-on the mark.

The only problem was that I had lost almost 2 miles of workout on the calibration. So, I waited until the evening and did a long run - approximately 6.5 miles. For the day I had logged 9.11 miles.

Monday

My daily plan was to do a slower 3 mile run in the morning followed by a long 5 mile run in the evening. Hopefully, I would able to log at least 8 miles per day.

For my morning run I logged 3.11 miles. On my evening run, I enlisted the help of my neighbor Mac (the high-school cross country runner). This was both good and bad. It was good because I really enjoyed the company, but it was bad because we kept a very strong pace for the first few miles (I’m sure that it was not fast for him, but it was for me).

At the end of my run I had logged 5.08 miles, but I was feeling it. This brought me to a very important realization - I was running the wrong course! Instead of the hilly every-other-day “normal” course that I was used to - I should have been running a flatter course. Why was I suffering on all these hills when my goal was to just put as many miles behind me as fast I could? So, I changed my daily strategy moving forward.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning I enlisted the help of my friend Veronica. She averages about 4 miles every other day. I would often seen Veronica running with here little dog Mikka along the same course that I was running (the hilly one).

I suggested that we try the new flatter route and see how we do. It was perfect - we logged 4.06 miles on a very even pace (a mile more than my orignal plan for the first daily run). That evening I hit the same course and logged another 4.92 miles.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning I finished a 4.57 mile run on my own. I was very tired and in need of a break. I decided to take the evening off to relax and start fresh again on Thursday.

Thursday

On Thursday morning I logged 5.04 miles. I was consciously extending my morning runs each day so that I would not have to make up any difference on the last couple of days.

Thursday evening started out like all my runs, but on a gradual uphill section of my course I started to feel stiffness in the back of my upper left leg and then there was the pain. I was forced to pause the workout for a few minutes while I worked the cramp out of my hamstring. I ended up logging 5.11 miles. A toal of 10.15 miles for the day!

Friday

The hamstring issue did not go away. I read up overnight on the best course of action. Some websites recommended heat, others recommended ice. Some websites recommended stretching, others said that stretching would aggravate the strain. I was really at a loss about what to do. I did hand massage the area along with some light stretching. For my run, I shortened my stride and tried to stay a bit more on my toes. This helped somewhat, but I knew my last 3 runs were going to be tough and probably much slower than the others. Even with all this, I was still able to log 9.75 miles for the day.

Saturday

My last run on Saturday brought great relief - I was ready to end my quest. Mentally, it was harder to keep running during the middle of the week than it was either at the beginning or the end. The excitement propelled me at first, but at the end I had become used to mileage and what to expect. I logged my final run at 5.46 miles.

The Results

On Sunday night I waited up late to see the leaderboard updates, but they didn’t come. My standings for the week still had the previous week’s mileage (that was only one run at 4.22 miles). I was sure that I had made a top 10 distance for the week in my age group. On Monday - still 4.22 miles. I sent off an e-mail to Nike. Then another, and another. My wife even sent an e-mail. I got no response to any of my messages. For weeks after I would check the leaderboard and I never saw my results in the standings. I know it was working for the previous week, because I was able to view my ranking after my first run.

My friends told me that I should be happy with myself and that I did it, not for the recognition, but for my own personal satisfaction. This didn’t make me feel any better - so, here it is world - MY NIKE MILEAGE for the WEEK OF OCTOBER 8-14. I know that I was NUMBER 1 that week on distance for MEN, Age 40-44, in the US, but that’ll just have to be our little secret!