Big news fell into my inbox and around the web yesterday – Nike are releasing a GPS watch powered by TomTom. The Nike+ SportWatch enters the market to compete alongside the Garmin, Polar and Timex range currently in production.

Nike already have a MASSIVE community of runners who used its devices on Apple products. They have had the benefit of creating very slick interfaces which work in perfect harmony with the Apple ethos.

The Nike+ SportWatch GPS is designed to be simple and intuitive with only three buttons and a Tap Screen for navigation. During the run, the new Nike+ SportWatch GPS captures location information while showing runners their time, distance, pace, and calories burned on an easy-to-read screen featuring a customizable layout. Throughout the run, the GPS receiver works in tandem with the shoe-based Nike+ Sensor to deliver highly accurate pace and distance data. This sounds much like the Garmin Footpod/GPS model but typically the other systems increase the price to have the extra footpod setup. The benefit of the footpod is that sometimes you have to run in a gym or out of satellite range – this way wherever you go you get readings!

The features seem vary similar to all other devices, heart rate monitor, backlight, history. What I’m hopeful is that some time has been spent on the user experience which is something that I often think that my garmin struggles with. The touch screen feature will be interesting to see when my hands become sweaty or are in gloves!

If I’m totally honest I wasn’t expecting Nike to release a fully fledged GPS watch, I have had a few conversations in the past how I had expected them to create a simple watch that hooks into Smart Phones (iphones/androids etc) hence using the phones GPS receiver and processing power but giving the runner the extended information in an easy to read fashion. I would have thought this would be relatively cheap to create vs what they have outputted.

It will be interesting to see how well this does in the market. Nike/Tom Tom are entering a very competitive arena and from the press info I have I’m not sure its going to be suitable for tri-athletes, no mention of waterproof,  so really is a tool for the runners of which how many will give up there £1.99 Nike+ GPS app for something that is likely to be over £100 (realistically nearer £200 I’d have expected).

Regardless of the negatives I’m very interested to see what Nike/TomTom bring to the field!

It’s the start of the New Year, people have eaten too much and the resolutions are out. Top of most lists will no doubt be to dust off the trainers and go for a run. However, gone are the days of string vests and shorts like Ron Hill.

In order to get out of the street door most 21st century runners have to be armed with so much technology that in some instances it takes longer to get going than it takes to actually run! Over the last few day’s I have re-tweeted various free gps apps which the promoters are giving away for free during January no doubt to get them up the charts and people more aware of them. Unfortunately they are all competing against the marketing power of Nike, who the majority deemed to be one of the first GPS app makers into the market. However, this was far from the case, they just have a lot more money to spend on advertising. Interestingly enough though, currently they are one of the few apps which you have to pay for!

What is a GPS App

A GPS app is an application which sits on your smart phone and uses the onboard GPS to provide distance, speed, pace and other useful information to the runner. Most applications will then post this information back to the apps respective site where after your run you can assess your route, check out your splits and do a whole magnitude of other data processing. It provides the ultimate diary for any runner, and indeed cyclist, walker or any other hobbyist that maybe interested in how far or fast they do something. There have been equivalent watches which provide very similar functionality (at a very high cost) for a number of years but this may be the device for the casual enthusiast!

Free Apps

So far I have only played with apps on the Android and iPhone and I will be the first to admit I have not tried all of them as there are so many. But the ones I have tried are listed below

• Endemondo (iPhone / Android)

• miCoach (iPhone)

• OutFront (iPhone)

• Runkeeper (iPhone / Android)

Each one of these apps have pro’s and cons and their own unique selling point, but for me accuracy is the most important and the results of each are fairly sporadic. I think the most accurate one I used was Outfront. The results were fairly similar to my Garmin which bodes well. I would love feedback from others though as to what apps work and why. Ultimately accuracy is the most important factor but on top of that user interface is critical and where some of these win on one they fall short on the other.

Which Phones Can I Use

At the moment I have posted links for iPhones and Android phones. I know that all models of the iPhone work with all the apps above but the older models suffer from poorer GPS and hence are less accurate. I’m sure there are apps for Nokia and Windows based phones but I have yet to try them.

What about Nike+

Nike+ is simple, very simple – the user interface parallels the Apple experience and it just works. However, its not free and it also doesn’t provide as much information to the runner – in my opinion! Go for one of the other apps, download all three whilst they are free and give them a go. You aren’t wedded to any of them so play and see what you like.

Feedback

Please let me know how you go with your app by commenting below – I’d love to get feedback and construct a review post if possible!

At the moment it seems not a day goes by without there being a new running app being released or brought to my attention. I can now name 6 apps I’m aware of for the iPhone and a number of these have been successfully ported to Android and some even to the Blackberry. The big question seems to be do these apps bring the demise of the GPS watches which are commonly attached to runners wrists?

Without much thought I suspect for the beginner runner this is a definite ‘Yes’, the Gamin/Timex watches are typically expensive pieces of kit. If you don’t know someone that has one I think you could easily not know about them or be put off by the cost and ‘scare’ factor. Whilst Garmin is a big brand it is nowhere near that of Nike and as I sit writing this post I know that almost 1 in 4 of the people I know has an iPhone or Android based phone meaning they can pick up a competitive app for practically nothing.

I have reviewed the Nike+ and Adidas miCoach apps previously on this blog and both offer a great foundation for the runner at a maximum price of £2, or so you initially think. Since getting my iPhone many years ago it has barely left my side, it allows me to stay connected on the go, check emails and write blog posts! Now it could come out for a run with me, but it doesn’t – why not? Even my 2 year old phone is worth a couple of hundred pounds and replacing it would cost more like £500. I wouldn’t dream of putting a laptop in my back pocket whilst running (ignoring the logistics of course!) and my phone is just that. I am a big sweater and also I’m not just a fair-weather runner, when it’s raining I can still be found running and I’ve yet to be presented with a casing I trust in rain, snow and sweat conditions. I know for a fact, even though the iPhone maybe preloaded with Nike+ you will get little help if your phone dies due to water damage! The other big thing is the iPhone isn’t the smallest piece of kit and logically it can’t sit in a useful place to see statistics. Some apps have integrated a voice split indicator, very useful but it’s not available when you instantly want to see it. Come mid run (and I have witnessed this) it’s amusing to see people fumbling around hoping to hit buttons on their arm before giving up, detaching the phone playing then reattaching the device.

What I have to constantly remind myself is I am biased, I have already gone out and got an expensive Garmin so can’t really compare. If I didn’t have the watch and was starting running today I think there is a good chance I wouldn’t have bought one. Finding it difficult to justify the expense possibly opting for an app and making do with my old Polar Heart Rate monitor. I would accept a level of inaccuracy but wouldn’t know any different and I suspect by now I would have upgraded my phone just for this reason. However, which app would I be using? I think that’s for a separate ‘to follow’ post as otherwise once again this post maybe of dissertation length.

I would love to run a test on new runners to find out how people use these apps, I suspect that on the whole Nike will have got it spot on with it’s simplicity for new runners but fails to be of much use to those who need to dig a bit deeper into the data, it provides an app to use on the phone but not online. The adidas unique selling point is the coaching partner but how many people will bother with that – especially when the app is free! If you had to pay for the app it would possibly have a similar effect as paying for a gym in forcing you through financial guilt? The app I played with today (review to follow) seemed much more tailored to people who used Garmins. The website had lots of graphs, stats and information, the developers are clearly thinking for the future by offering API’s, widgets etc (something Garmin still lacks) stuff a coach or dedicated runner can analyse when they return from a run.

Would I stop using my Garmin? Not yet, I can be reasonably careless with it (although i shouldn’t as it is easy to forget how much it is worth!), it can take my heart rate and most importantly I can look at it easily whilst running. I can set up screens to show all the information I would ever need and by just lifting my arm I get these figures. Simples

N

On Friday night I finally managed it out on a run I could test this app out on. I had already been informed of possibly poor results due to poor GPS on the 3G however the app seemed to do well.

As with the micoach the app was pretty intuitive to set up, the interface feels very similar and merely an extension to the old Nike+ footpod app. It seemed to hook into the satellite pretty quickly and before long I had queued up some music and was running.

To be honest, I don’t like playing or even touching my phone whilst running, I tend to try avoid taking it out as I don’t want to damage it as it’s an expensive bit of kit. With that in mind I shoved it in my pocket and let it be. I got updates through my earphones informing me I hit mile markers. These also informed me of my average pace, a nice touch meaning I didn’t have to play with buttons!

One thing that did annoy me was that when a text came through it seemed to pause the app. This is probably resolved with the newer iPhones that allow multi-tasking but for me I was left puzzled as to what was going on. If it doesn’t pause things on the new phones maybe its worth suggesting going to airplane mode but I guess that would stop the app working, will have to try that next time.

The app turned out to be respectably accurate. I think it came in at under half a mile difference to my Garmin or 10%. Didn’t pay attention to the battery indicator but I’m pretty certain it would have drained it. However, my phones life is already tiny with or without apps running! On completing the run I stopped the workout and it instantly transferred the data to nikeplus.

The nikeplus site is sleek but possibly lacking exact data. It could possibly do with some tables of splits etc as the graph is a bit clunky and basic? Whilst I think the graphs on the Garmin could do with being a little smoother using averages the nikeplus seems a little too smooth!

Anyway in conclusion a nice little app, sadly lacking heart rate functionality and also it still fails to store track listings as they are playing (please Nike just add this feature, I want to see what tracks I run faster too!). It’s a nice alternative to the MiCoach App but does not include voice coaching the main differential between the two.

Let’s see how the battle of running gps phone apps progress as I’m already aware of others in preparation!

N

Rather unsurprisingly and just over one month after the release of the adidas MiCoach GPS app Nike have released an alternative. This morning I got an email from nike informing me as a nike+ member I should be the first to know about the nike+ iphone gps app and like a sucker to technology I went off to read all about it and check it out.

I was hoping that this would be the first of the two to join Heart Rate Monitor and GPS as I assumed the newer iphonescould interact with the device but alas, this still seems to be lacking from the build. Although it has led me to question whether the iphone 3gs/4 has Heart Rate facility? Answer in the comments below if you know! Anyway, over to the app itself – oddly they have charged £1.19, peculiar considering the Adidas one is free, I also would have expected some hype and fanfare over the app maybe free for ‘x’ days to get people aware of it, maybe that campaign is still to come however if you had paid and then they made it free I guess you’d be a bit annoyed!

Following a foolish stumble out of the office door last night I am not able to get out and test this app with a run today as I may have liked to have done. Apparently the GPS on the iphone 3 is nowhere near as good as on the newer phones, however I guess it should be as accurate as the micoach review from before. I guess in order to get to the real detail with these reviews I need to get a play with the iPhone 4 but in order to do that the cost somewhat outweighs that of buying a new Garmin!

The install of the app was pretty easy, the user interface felt much like that I was used to from my Nike+ of old. Nike+ saw me through many miles and up until March time I used it almost religiously racking up over 1000miles on the system, however I stopped using it finding my Garmin a lot more usable and accurate – the GPS version *should* rectify this! Fortunately for Nike its website in my mind is spot on, funky and very neat. The graphs presented are clever, albeit a bit difficult to understand, they could show the results in a slightly more obvious manner. I always disliked the fact that it didn’t store information about what track was being played but other than that it did everything that could be expected from an accelerometer.

The iPhone app seems to mimic the colour scheme and feel of the website creating a simple to use experience. Within minutes I had logged onto my online profile and was ready to start the app going. I decided to “go for a run”, which actually meant walking back from lunch which apparently took me 0.2 miles just to see if it worked. The interface was good, allowing the phone to be locked whilst showing useful information, it also appeared that you can get information to be spoken to you in different intervals. Once i clicked stop on the app it seemed to upload it automatically and it appeared on my nikeplus.com profile.

Obviously have been playing with social media for quite some while feeding into twitter and facebook neatly and cleverly, something that adidas micoach to work on and also having a quick squint at the webpage I can get the information and build my own interface for it – Perfect!! Should be a good test when I next get out for a run. I’m sure it will kill my battery so its only going to get a 4miler or so and as mentioned already I’m not expecting too much from its accuracy due to the phone not the app. Update to feature soon when I have actually gone for a run!

Also when I get a few mins free time I think im going to dig out my API attempt last time to facilitate a wordpress plugin or sorts for it. If there is demand for this out there please comment and I’ll get it going sooner rather than later!

Till next time.

A few months ago I purchased the Long session Audiofuel track to use during my marathon training. I really liked the idea and think it worked pretty well. I actually used the track on my Silverstone Half and achieved a PB.

The concept is simple, using tracks with different bpm the pace can be altered by landing your feet on the beat. Much like with spinning classes you are in essence moving to the music. The long run session sets off at a slow pace and injects different bpms throughout, all with the intention of keeping you alert and pushing you through pain barriers. I didn’t realise how much a beat in a song affected my stride and cadence until getting this track.

I decided to then download a few of the other tracks and last week I used the intermediate interval coaching session. I loved it. I have never been a huge fan of intervals, finding them repetitive and dull. The track turned the session into something much more enjoyable. It was a pyramid interval track going faster and longer and then reducing after meeting the peak of 75seconds at maximum effort or 180bpm.

The songs are all unfamiliar but that didn’t seem to bother me. I’m starting to wonder how unhelpful some of the tracks on my iPod may be. If the bpm is low perhaps I’m slowing without even knowing!

The tracks remind me a bit of the Nike+ training tracks which used to be aligned with the footpod. However, Nike appear to have given up on this approach as I haven’t seen any new ones in some while which is a shame. The Nike ones tended to involve songs you would know and coached by big names like Serena Williams, the band OK Go all adding power and credence to the tracks but the marketing, at least in the uk has been poor.

Why not check out the tracks, if you run on your own but with an iPod I think most would like and benefit from them.

Click here for the Audiofuel website.

Competition for MiCoach…

The ultimate selling point of the MiCoach up until now has been the fact that it’s not just a foot pod it also harnesses Heart Rate technology to provide a much more rounded report. Whilst the review highlighted its cost the device still could offer more than the Nike+, until now that is.

If you have a recent ipod the likelihood is you have heard of Nike+ but you may not be familiar with what it is. In January I blogged about the handy little device but since I bought one many years ago not much has changed with it and in the light of more competition Nike have obviously decided to introduce some new features.

I haven’t seen much on this yet – looks like they are being sold on the Nike Store website for £40 which would bring the kit up to about £50, assuming you have an iPod of course.  They haven’t released audio coaching with HRM but suspect given time this will come too. All in all this must be a bit of a concern to Adidas but I think this will take a while to catch on and possibly Nike have entered the market too late.

Quite why the Nike+ software hasn’t been extended to harness the power of the iPhone 4 puzzles me. It has GPS technology built in yet they still chose to ignore it. When nike+ creates a gps, HRM application for the iphone the likes of Garmin et al will start to worry as people will switch. Nike+ can extend to cycling too offering the user the ability to have a multisport tool all under one shell. A Garmin Edge will set you back £200 to attach to your bike, an iphone holder for your frame as little as £10 from ebay, a forerunner is £200+ whilst a arm strap for your phone again, £10. Sure you need to have bought an iPhone which isn’t cheap but more and more people are moving to this device so come on Nike catch up and create the ultimate sports app!

I have always been interested in running technology, I believe I only really got motivated to keep running because of the Nike+ kit I got a few years ago. Since then I have moved onto the Garmin Forerunner a device I don’t think I could live without now. When I was given the opportunity to try out the MiCoach I jumped at it, having seen promotional merchandise in every running shop and magazine I opened.

I knew very little about the MiCoach pacer, I was aware about some technology Adidas launched with Samsung phones a little bit back but that was it. After a bit of research I was to discover the MiCoach is a Heart Rate Coaching device which logs distance traveled using a pedometer. The heart rate monitor is what brings it to a different audience to the cheaper Nike+. » Continue reading “MiCoach – The review…”

Just before the 2008 I set up this blog to follow my training and push people towards my sponsorship pages. Back then I thought some people may find it enjoyable to follow my ups (and many downs) and learn a bit from it (I was also hopeful that people would get over the poor spelling, punctuation and grammar!) Over a year later I’m running the marathon again and still blogging – and hey here’s a new link to my sponsorship page of 2010…

Anyway for many months I suspect the readership of the blog was minimal, a few cursory glances but that’s about it, however in September 09 I published a blog post about my weight loss and general health. From being the kid in school who would use almost any excuse to get out of running I was now doing it of my free will and enjoying it! Just last week I was talking to a school mate and his brother (who is still at Forest – my old Secondary School) whilst out on my 4M warm up jog and said I bet if you told the teachers who you went out for a run with this morning they wouldn’t believe it – that’s if they remembered me! Anyway, I spammed that post over face book and Twitter and it actually got read a few times and it appears there is at least one person who read it and took notice of it.

A school mate is about to embark on a 50k trek and as is typical for every sponsored event I got the obligatory ‘Facebook Sponsor Me’ email. I had a squint as to what it was as it didn’t look like the typical race for life one plus it had a silly name! Anyway the challenge looked cool so I emailed saying I’d send money and he replied that day saying I had been a bit of an inspiration to him – he had read some of my blogs, gone out and bought a nike+ and was now running and had roped in more and more. How cool is that!

I don’t think he is alone in picking up running because of me, I’m pretty certain a number of my uni friends took seeing me run that 26 miles and realised that running is possible for anyone, I ran a 10k last summer with mates who I never expected and know there are others running 10ks this year too. I think people see what I was and think well if he can do it so can I.

I love the fact others are running and that maybe I have been an inspiration for them, I would love to reach out to others too and help get them the confidence to put a pair of trainers on and go for a run of any distance!

Keep running and this time next year it maybe you training for the marathon!

N

ps please feel free to comment on this post – would be great to know who has read this all the way to the end

Having promised a review of all of the technology I run with for some time I have finally decided to pull my finger out and actually do it. It seems fairly obvious to review my Nike+ device first as it is one of the first gadgets I really purchased to use whilst running and I am still using it. At a later point I will create a subsequent review of my Garmin Forerunner watch should anyone want to know about that!

In about Feb ’08 I started running, I’m sure most thought it was a whim, a passing fad. However, for my birthday I asked for an Ipod Nano and whilst in the States I picked up one of the nike+ widgets. Darren,  a colleague from work already had one of these so I’d half seen it in action and was eager to get out with it (judging by my archive I went out 3 days after getting it!)

Before you begin (hidden not so obvious extras!)

So you have purchased the nike+ kit
and are eager to get out and run, well hold your horses. Unless you have special nike+ trainers which have a little hole cut into the sole to house the dongle you are going to have to either make or buy a ‘holster’ to attach to your laces. You can pick one of these up from ebay pretty cheaply – I have only used this one so can’t really review it but there are certainly others on the market. The dongle slides into the holder and then the holder is attached firmly to the laces. The device I have has a pivot hinge which allows the holder to be easily removed from the trainers unlike some which are weaved into the laces, this mechanism has its obvious pro’s and cons the later being the device can come lose/break off which has happened to me once so far resulting in needed to purchase a new kit.

Lets Run…

Ok so once you have got the little dongle in place and you have placed the widget into your ipod (if you have an old school ipod) you should see an option on the menu screen that says ‘Nike+ Ipod’ from this point the submenu’s should all be fairly self explanatory. Chose the run type you want to do, chose your playlist and away you go, once you have finished tap a button on your ipod and plug it into your computer.

Itunes will now do the rest of the work for you – syncing your data with the nikeplus servers which has a nice little portal to track your runs, see how others are doing etc. As the system has no concept of gps don’t expect masses of data but its a nice little automated online diary.

The Results

As the nike+ is just a glorified pedometer the distances and speeds mentioned should not be taken as completely accurate. Once calibrated they suggest to take a 10% margin of error, if you want almost 100% accuracy you will need to look at one of the gps devices out there which tend to be more expensive. If you want a relatively inexpensive first device i’d suggest looking into these. The Nike+ website is really nice and clearly a lot of thought has been put into its design and usability.

Verdict

I tend to recommend this device to all new runners, however, with iPhones apps and nokia phones starting to offer gps mapping perhaps the end is insight for the current Nike+ so who knows! If you have an ipod/iphone already goto the apple store and get the dongle for like £10 and your pretty much good to go…