It's All Good

I went for my long run Saturday. I was still feeling a little under the weather trying to beat this cold. I did 4 miles on Friday and 13 miles on Saturday. On Sunday, true to my word I re-tested my calibration. I warmed with about a mile run out to the track. I set my Nike+ for 2.00 km which is 5 laps of a 400 meter track and off I went.

I was almost bang on for the 2000 meters. In fact I was probably out by about a step. I felt relieved to know my mileage was not fraudulent after all.

I was feeling good about the mileage calibration being accurate. So I decided to lay it on the line and do an all out mile according to my calibration verified Nike+. Okay this was a mistake. First of all I didn’t dog the 2km that I ran around the track. Second I didn’t dress the part as I was wearing a jacket, Dri-Fit long sleeve, and running pants. So with about a minutes rest I gave it all.

You know the funny thing about looking at those squiggly graphs after you download you data is that it is so accurate of your second by second paces. That is exactly what my graph looked like to a squiggly line. Not some undulating wave with an overall increasing trend. I’m talking about peak-valley-peak-valley and so on. I could feel my self waning as the laps progressed.

But yet here is the next conundrum, when my Nike+ voice lady came on to say, “Half way point I had completed two full laps plus I was already on the bend. Hmm! When she came on to say “Congratulations you’ve completed blah blah blah” I was standing at the corner of the football field’s end zone. Hmm! So I paced it back to the start and came up with 114 paces. With an average pace of about 3 feet give or take I was at least 300 feet past the 1600 meter mark.

One mile is not 1600 meters but its close. I believe it is 13 meters longer which is about 40 feet not 300.

So what does this tell you? Obviously my stride opens up on short sprints as do most peoples. This is probably why Nike+ doesn’t list a one miler as one of the preset distances.

I know I’m dwelling way too much on this. In fact I got a post from SLB+ a man of infinite miles and a lot of wisdom who said “Don’t let it chew you up”, and if I wanted real accuracy to go with a GPS like Garmin or Suunto. Thanks SLB+


P.S. In any case Joan Benoit Samuelson gave the congrats at the end of my mile+ too. Sweet!