omnibus redux

Thursday evening, after our runs, we went home to celebrate Valentine's Day -- where among other things, I received a beautiful magenta iPod Nano, which I immediately christened "Cupid". Given the on again, off again issues I'd been having with my Nike+ system, even after replacing it, we had pretty much decided that the problem was the little old silver Nano.

So on Friday after work I went to the gym downtown to run on the treadmill -- I'd read that you don't have to re-synch the sensor if you get a new iPod, so I thought I'd give it a go. Happy to report that it worked just fine -- pretty much right on with the mileage on the treadmill -- so I excitedly came home to load the information to Nike+.

The data transfer went smoothly, but unfortunately the run didn't get added to my goals or challenges. Weird. I could see that it had loaded, and that it was being included in my monthly total... but it wasn't picked up by my resolutions.

I did a little snooping around the forums and saw posts from a super helpful "Nike Pro" named Clover -- so I decided to PM her (?). She got back to me with supportive and friendly information, reminding me of just how great the interface and the support of the tool is. Chalk another one up for the "love" argument. It didn't solve the problem, but at least I heard back very quickly that it was an odd but known issue and they were working on it.

Saturday was a lovely lazy day, with a little road trip and some walking around. Good to have some rest. Because Sunday was long run day -- and we were scheduled to run 8 miles. Eight! Unbelievable. But we got up early and headed out in the sunshine to Green Lake, where we mentally prepared ourselves to run around the lake 3 times.

It was cold, but the sun was out so we warmed up pretty quickly. Still, my knees felt really stiff. We ran slow but steady, with Wil watching the heartrate monitor and reminding me to slow down. By the third time around the lake was getting really crowded, which is both nice (it's great to see people out being active) and awful (it's challenging negotiating the stroller squadrons marching three abreast across the entire path). The other annoying thing is that my sensor wasn't working correctly. After three times around the lake, it only recorded 3.5 miles. Of course, it got the time right; however, seeing my "pace" as 25 minutes/mile is pretty demoralizing. So I'll go with Wil's information -- 8 miles, including a 5-minute warmup walk, and two 1-minute walk breaks, at an overall pace of just over 11 minutes/mile.

I reconnected my iPod to iTunes a minute ago and see that my miles are now registering as part of my "goals", however, it's sad to see that they're not my actual miles. I think I need to stop obsessing so much about the "results" and celebrate what I accomplish in the real world. Yes, I'm a dork.

Then today we got up early and took the bikes out for our first real-world bike ride of the year. Heck, it's my first real-world ride since Chelanman last year -- I know this because I had to cut the numbers off my bike and helmet. We did a nice little 10-mile jaunt to the Burke Gilman Trail and out to the university where we learned two things: 1. Wil's new saddle is a bit too painful for early season riding; 2. Sunny still doesn't really know how to use her gears effectively. But it's early, we had a good ride, and I didn't fall off my bike. So that's a plus.