Trying (and failing) to match Renuka via Nike+ (or why the app is driving me crazy)

By Les Tan/Red Sports

Renuka finishing second in the We Run SG 10K U-25 category in a time of 40:57.43. On her left wrist is the Nike+ GPS sportswatch, the bane of my existence these last two weeks. 😉 (Photo © Joseph Lee/Red Sports)

“AAAAH! Not again!”

That has been my almost daily response on the Facebook wall of Renuka Satianathan these last two weeks.

Every time I think I’ve done a decent training run of anywhere from 5km to 9km in the last two weeks, along comes Renuka’s matter-of-fact Nike+ Facebook updates telling me she’s done 7.37 miles (11.86km) or 10 miles (16km). She doesn’t seem to run anything shorter than 10km at one go and she seems to do this almost everyday!

Red Crew mate Colin Tung wisely told me to just match Renuka by time, not distance. I felt better after that. Slightly.

Now, of course, there’s no way right now I am going to match the training mileage of Renuka, a 2011 South-east Asian Games 10,000m runner. I’ll need a new left leg if I tried it for even just one week.

Another Red Crew mate, Soh Rui Yong, told me he does about 60km a week, while Colin said he hits anywhere from 80km to 100km a week. (Soh Rui Yong and Colin Tung are elite athletes as well.)

However, inspired by Colin and Rui Yong after seeing them run at the 2012 Army Half Marathon, I decided to get off my rear end and start running again. As a training aid, I’ve been road testing the Nike+ app on my iPhone 4.

I asked Renuka what she thought of Nike+ and she said: “I think the feedback about pace and distance is a helpful motivator. I’m awful at judging either of those and used to just run for a set time depending on how I felt.

“The virtual training log is a good feature for people training for a target race, I think. If you don’t have a coach and hate keeping a diary (I can completely relate!), the automatic record you get online is great, especially when you can share it with others to seek their advice on your training,” added Renuka.

As for me, I’ve logged 12 runs totalling 77km with it, including my run at the We Run SG 10K on Sunday, and I’ve come to one conclusion — it’s maddeningly addictive.

Here are five reasons why.

1. You can set a goal
No point running without any target, right? So I gave myself a goal of running 120km in six weeks. With just over three weeks left, I have run about 67km.

Every time, I finish a run, I get some small pleasure in seeing the green bar move a little closer to the goal I set. When I get to my goal, I am going to have a satay party.

Click on image to see a larger version.

2. You can journal your run
I like recording the highlights of the run I’ve gone on, and being able to record whether I ran on the road, trail, beach, track or treadmill is also neat. For those with multiple pairs of running shoes, you can also log your mileage by model.

Journal your run, express how you feel about the run, and track the mileage you’ve done with a particular model of running shoes.

3. You can map and measure your run
I get another kick out of seeing my run mapped out via GPS. After sweating it out, there is some satisfaction in seeing the route traced out as proof of my effort.

With the app, I’ve been running all over the place, cutting through open areas and housing estates while avoiding the roads, all happy in the knowledge that I would get the distance recorded. (You can see my run at the Nike We Run SG 10K event as mapped out by Nike+).