With 2009 drawing to a near, one cannot help but reflect on the year’s achievements and set targets on for the next. There is no surprise too that “keeping fit” or “losing weight” are one of the top 3 resolutions anyone can make, with almost everybody looking for a fitter and leaner lifestyle for the coming year. The bad is that, well, not everyone like us is disciplined enough to keep to our plans, but seems there is help.
Popping by Nike+, you will be greeted by an array of neat new features, it seems that the flash-laden site is now very much more community based and runner orientated now. A neat feature is the running resolution feature which you can tie down with a nike+ sportsband to track your runs and targets.
Tracking your runs is rather similar to what I see with the polar online trainer, only that you do not get advanced features such a altitude, location, fitness and heart performance. The Nike+ web running aid is a mores simpler athletic tool which can be used by anyone down to someone just picking up running for a start. The best thing is that the Nike service is free- anyone with a Nike+ account, Nike sportband and the mad urge to run can use the the site features to track your runs based on number of runs, or distance covered.
Set and track your running targets here
Besides personal targets, the distance logged in your runs can be used for placings on the running leaderboards on the site in a competitive, but friendly way. For me, well the image above shows how many runs I intend to run in a month (8 runs) so the meter will progress as you slowly reach your goal or distance. If you are up to it, you can even join or create individual or team running challenges, each with their own array of objectives (distance, pace, etc) talking about exhibitionism and keeping in shape at the same time!
To make things even more interesting, the site also allows you to create your own Nike Mini Avatar, which you can say is a “Mii-like” avatar-tic representation of your when post your running logs online or gives you an identity when you join any of the running groups on the site itself. There are still quite a little more areas I yet to explore on the site, such as map route planner powered by Tele Altas and running teams which I won’t cover in detail, maybe you can check them out on your visit.
Create your own Nike Mini Avatar
I had not been running very regularly now, particularly last year end, I hope that with this and some discipline, I can possibility regain back my marathon-ready running fitness just like what I did the year before. I will update more of my 2009 running resolutions in a separate following post.
Related: Nike+ SG website