Why, you tempt them with technology and the promise to see their progress visualized, of course!  Having a little motivation (ie: roller derby) doesn’t hurt either.  You see, I haven’t even thought about running since a season-long track and field career in high school.  And even then I was more of a sprinter than long distance.

The Key Tools

iPhone 3GS

Every iPhone 3GS (and iPod touch!) ships with the Nike+ app already built in—it will record your workouts including distance, time, and pace.  When you plug your iPhone into your computer, it will automatically send your workout history to your nike.com account.

Nike+ Sensor

The Nike+ sensor is a small accelerometer that you’re supposed to put into a Nike+ shoe.  As you walk, jog, or run,  it broadcasts a signal to your Nike+ app on the iphone or ipod.  Apparently some girlfriends are nervous that their significant others might start using it as a surveillance device.  I dont know about you, but I never wear running shoes so I’m not going to start to worry about that.  So as I said before, you’re supposed to buy fancy $100 Nike shoes to put this little guy into well… I’m not keen on dropping $100 on shoes unless they’re cute, and that brings us to our next tool:

A Box Cutter

I used this to cut a slit in the tongue of one of my sneakers and planted the sensor deep down in there.  No $100 shoes for me, hell, I didn’t even have to buy a $3 sensor pouch.  Just some purely Macgyver type stuff.

The Couch to 5k App

When I used to actually have a gym membership (purely for the classes and treadmills) I gave the Couch to 5k running plan a shot.  However, it was super annoying to keep an eye on the time and remember how long to walk and jog.  I always thought about making a playlist in GarageBand where I could put in verbal cues of when to walk and jog.  This was before the days that I actually owned an iPhone, and after minimal research I found the Couch to 5K iphone app.  For $2.99 I could have all the verbal cues to tell me to run and walk and cooldown I ever wanted.

What’s great about the Nike+ app is that it will play your selected playlist and continuously run in the background until you stop or pause your workout.  This allows you to run the Couch to 5K app which will play the verbal cues loud enough to hear over your music, and you can always unlock the screen to see the countdown to the next cue (and to the end of the workout if you’re lazy!)

But what surprised me most about my first time running outdoors in about 4 years is that I ran 2.4 miles!  In about 30 minutes!  I know that’s not amazing by most peoples standards, but I don’t think I ever even came close to a 13-minute mile in high school.  I hated gym class.  I especially hated the presidential fitness test.  I attribute my pace to endurance practices at roller derby.  Not only did I crush my expectations in my first workout, but I got home and immediately posted the results to my nike.com account for everyone to see… and that’s what’s going to keep me running in the future.

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