Filed under: Bupa Great Capital Run, St Albans half marathon, nike+ sportband, running, running gear | Tags: nike+ sportband, running, running gear
Judging by the number of hits I’m getting on my previous post on the subject of calibrating the Nike+ Sportband, there are a few other people out there struggling to make theirs work.
The weird thing is, after calibrating it once and being convinced it was nowhere near accurate, I’ve worn it for a couple of accurately measured races and discovered that it’s actually not far off the pace. It measured 12.56 miles for at the St Albans half marathon, and 5.86 miles for the Bupa Great Capital10k. I haven’t re-calibrated it at all.
So, my advice is, try calibrating it over a short distance – then wear it for a couple of longer runs that are accurately measured, and see what it says. Maybe I was just having an off day and thought I’d gone further than I actually had…
Filed under: London-Brighton bike ride, X-bike, cycling, nike+ sportband, spinning | Tags: cycling, London-Brighton bike ride, nike+ sportband, spinning, X-bike
Last Saturday I decided it was time for a “proper” bike ride, so headed up to my parents and went out with my Dad. He cycles several times a week to meet the other retired old gits at the “nursing home” (in reality a garden centre that makes homemade scones and beans on toast for them, before they go toddling off to the pub for a lunchtime pint. One of Dad’s mates drank eight pints the other day, and still cycled home in time to cook a Sunday roast. Which was a little confusing for his family on a Thursday evening.)
Anyway, he agreed to take me out and suggest that we go off-road through the Gorhambury House estate near their house. That turned out to be a good plan – because, on the main road that we needed to cycle along to get to the estate, I was cycling a bit like a granny driving a Rover 200…clinging on for dear life and braking my way down any slight descent, on bends and whenever a car approached. I got down the bottom of Bluehouse Hill and into the estate, feeling like a gibbering wreck.
Once into Gorhambury though, I started to relax a bit. Dad gave me some tips on my grip, when to indicate and brake, which made me feel a bit more secure – and we had a really nice ride. Not very far – Dad’s bike showed 12.8 miles (mine showed 14.5, which may be part of the reason I couldn’t accurately calibrate my Nike+ Sportband last week) – but enough to give me the confidence to go out on my own a bit. He’s also put me on to Wiggle to buy gloves and a lock for the London-Brighton. Fantastic service too – my order placed on Saturday arrived on Tuesday morning.
I’ve also done a couple of spinning classes this week. Class sizes are a bit depleted at the moment – not sure everyone’s enjoying the new X-bikes. Admittedly they take a bit of getting used to – and the classes are way harder than normal spinning – but I’m really enjoying them. It’s about as close to the sensation of outdoor biking as you can get indoors.
Filed under: St Albans half marathon, half marathon training, nike+ sportband | Tags: half marathon training, nike+ sportband, running
Thought I’d try calibrating the Nike+ Sportband. I went out on my bike round the block, and measured a distance of 1.57 miles. Back home, I dumped my bike, switched on the Sportband and jogged round the same circuit. The Sportband measured 1.78 miles in 14:07 mins. So it was a bit out, but not off the scale. One and a half miles in 14 minutes is about my normal jogging pace, I would say.
Having calibrated the Sportband on my PC, I set off to do the river run that I did on Monday. I didn’t feel too good last time – it was a bit of a slog from start to finish – but today I felt loads better, and discovered a surprising new “top running tune” on my Shuffle: Eminem’s Lose Yourself to which I bounced along quite happily. I’d taken the precaution of wearing sunnies, which I was glad about when several flies made a beeline for my eyeballs. I finished the run in 42:44 mins – knocking three minutes off Monday’s time. Hoorah.
My newly calibrated Sportband didn’t seem so happy, clocking my run at 2.84 miles. Now, I might be a bit of a plodder, but I could have bloody walked that distance in 42 minutes. So now I’m not so pleased with my new Nike purchase. Does anyone know the best way of calibrating these things with any degree of accuracy?
Filed under: St Albans half marathon, X-bike, gym, half marathon training, nike+ sportband, running, spinning, x-dream | Tags: half marathon training, nike+ sportband, St Albans half marathon, X-bike, x-dream
It’s 18:10 and I’m drinking my first cup of tea of the day. Anyone that knows me will find this rather surprising, but it’s been a busy one.
Got up at 6am to go to the gym, and ran 5km in just over 30mins on the treadmill’s “sport training” mode, which included some nasty inclines (I hate hills, but know I ought to do more of before the St Albans half marathon). I also had a go on one of the X-dream bikes, manufactured by the same firm as the X-bikes (which are going in today for the spinning class tomorrow). The X-dream looks like a sportier version of a normal exercise bike, with trail bike handlebars which tilt from side-to-side and gears operated by buttons on the handlebars. Mounted on the front is a Dell screen, which shows “you” on a computer-simulated trail. You ride around the trail, overtaking (or being overtaken) by other riders. Your lap is timed along with your speed, cadence, calorie count, and a multitude of other stats and graphs. My only complaint is that my character was obviously male with fat legs. I shall investigate whether you can create and save your own little character, like you can on the Wiii.
After that, I headed into work for an hour or so (spilling my first cup of tea all over my brand new laptop, docking station and papers – whoops). No time for another cuppa before heading into the big smoke for a journo briefing at Yauatcha. Very lovely Japanese food, and nice atmosphere, though a little noisy for business. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but chopsticks turned out to be ideal for eating seabass with: my tooth is still not up to metal cutlery, and you can’t really eat with a plastic baby spoon/your fingers in polite company.
Based on Warrior Women’s recommendation, I managed to sneak into Nike Town on my way home to buy a Nike+ Sportband. This is going to revolutionise my running apparently. Hmmm…better get out this weekend while the weather’s nice then.
Right, time for another cuppa…
