Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 12:32 pm
Distance: 5.01 km
Time: 32:07
Weather: Foggy
Temp: 2ºC
Humidity: n/a
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 166
Weight: 162.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 4380 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone, Nike+ Run Club app
Today I decided to be wacky and use the Nike+ Run Club app for my run, since it now monitors heart rate. And I got wacky results!
My pace was a strangely slow 6:24/km–this is more of a joggish than jogging pace, and while I was running slower due to some lingering icy patches on the trail, as well as to keep my BPM down, I wasn’t that slow. Another sign that things were off was the distance I had to travel to get to 5K. At the point the Apple fitness app would be reporting I’d completed the run, the NRC app was saying I’d only completed around 4.41 km. That’s a huge discrepancy.
There is no way to calibrate the Nike app, so I’m not sure why it was so bonkers. It seemed to get the BPM about right, since that data is pulled directly from the watch (it was 166, still a tad high but much lower than the last few runs so yay on that). I wonder if the app somehow didn’t use the GPS and instead relied on the much -less-accurate accelerometer. On the other hand, I’ve found that non-GPS runs tend to err on the side of being too generous with pace, not too stingy. A further complication is that what you get in the watch and phone apps depends on whether you are using one of the Nike-branded watches, as they come with some exclusive features, such as built-in Siri support. It felt wrong having to start the run by pressing buttons and stuff.
It was almost worth it for the better stats and ability to access the runs on the web (I find it immensely irritating that the fitness workouts through Apple’s app can only be reviewed on an iPhone–not even an iPad, which would at least give you a bigger map to look at).
The final quirk was no audio notifications. I wondered if this was another feature locked out of the non-Nike version of the watch, but it turned out to be working. I just didn’t hear it because the audio literally comes from the watch, not through the phone via the watch. So I was getting alerts but was oblivious to them because of the music blaring away. I only caught a bit of the summary at the end when I’d paused the music. I could fix this by starting the run from the phone instead of the watch or by syncing the AirPods to the watch (which also means listening to music from the watch, not the phone).
Anyway, it was in all a disappointing experience.
The run itself was okay, no issues other than the left knee being stiff to start but warming up not too far in. I did 5K on the river because I’m pretty sure the lake trail is still a pathway of treacherous ice and adventure.
I’ll walk tomorrow at lunch, which will allow me to survey the Langara Trail to see how it has weathered (ho ho) the recent snows.
Also, this marks the first run of the year. If I keep up this pace I’ll complete 365 runs by year’s end! That is somewhat unlikely, but I’ve already topped the number of runs I did in January 2016.
