Thursday, May 4, 2017

10,000 miles of run tracking (thank you, Nike)

I have been obsessively tracking my miles run since July of 2009. I had just hit 45, and was unhappy that all my resolutions for my 40s had gone down the toilet.

Healthy lifestyle could never quite take hold. And unhealthy habits were hard to break. As a technophile early adopter, I was super excited and hopeful that Nike's then revolutionary + SportBand would help me do what I had failed to consistently do for my entire adult life.

With a janky little accelerometer in your Nike shoe, the wristband tracked your mileage and speed. It was the first taste of running tech crack that got me going on the road of a long run of purchases in the Garmin family, from the Forerunner 310 to the 935, and tracking and analysis from Nikerunning.com to Garmin Connect to Strava.

Yes, I quickly went overboard, running from 0 to nearly 100 miles (and back down to 10) in the first few months I started running.


But at least I was able to track it and work to correct the errors of my ways. I discovered consistency through data feedback. Yes, many people have done it for decades with running logs (always too much work for me, including driving around trying to measure running paths in my car), but the new running tech enabled measuring and tracking easily at the press of a button. And here we are eight years later, and the odometer on my tracked miles run is about to roll over from 9999 to 10,000 on Saturday.

 

A lot of naysayers don't like the concept of trackers and GPS watches for various reasons. But for me, it gave me the ability to hold myself accountable and keep my running going over the long haul. It's not something I think I've ever said, but thank you, Nike, for getting me off my ass on a regular basis and helping transform my physical and mental state for the better through running.

No comments:

Post a Comment