Nike+Fuel Band

I’ve recently been fortunate enough to obtain a Nike+ Fuel Band from eBay due to my tenaciousness. These things are in high demand and are only available on the Nike+ Store website in so many numbers at a time (they keep selling out, high demand vs. supply on hand), not to mention the fact that upset me most: the website delivers to a few overseas countries, besides the home country of USA, but does not currently ship to their northern neighbors in Canada. This, I’m told, is coming this fall, but I’m not very patient when it comes to these things. I am, however, tenacious in my bidding activity on eBay, and I had to dig deep to find some semblance of patience when it came to this. Like I said, these bands are in high demand and my bids were constantly being squished, simply because I refused to budge and rebid at an outrageous number. I would bide my time, finding patience and “watching” many size medium fuel bands on eBay, just waiting for the right moment to bid, only to be met with the message “you have been outbid” more times than I care to remember. Then one day, about two and a half weeks ago, I won my bid!! I just couldn’t wait for that parcel to come in!

Last Saturday, a week from yesterday, was my first day wearing my Nike+Fuel Band and it is awesome. It takes everyday activities and with a built-in sports-tested accelerometer, changes them into what’s called “Nike Fuel”, a measurement in numbers. Each day you can try to meet and exceed your set fuel goal for that day, choosing whether or not to change it for the following day. I met my goal of 2600 Nike Fuel my first day, though some days I wasn’t able to meet my daily goal while others it was exceeded by a long shot. The Fuel Band also tracks approximate calories burned and steps taken throughout the day. Experts say that on average, a person should take 10,000 steps per day, but the majority of us do not take that many. I’ve noted the days that my fuel goal, as well as my steps per day, have not been reached. I realize that those are “slower” days at work, involving less walking and more sitting, or a particularly “lazy” day at home, not doing much and not being active enough.

Since wearing the Fuel Band, which wears like a bracelet, I’ve tried my best to either get out and walk or go for a run. I had to take 3 days off from running, but still went for walks. Last evening, I finally got out for a run where I ran for 24 minutes straight and stopped only when I arrived back at my door. The three days reprieve was to let my calves, once again, rest and heal. After the run last evening, it didn’t seem to be my calves bothering me, but my stabilizer muscles around my ankles. My trusty ice pack came out of the freezer and after placing it in its sleeve, was strapped around the left ankle (the most bothersome one) for 20 minutes of cool relief. It’s a very pliable ice pack that can also be used in the microwave as a hot pack, though I’ve only ever used it for icing purposes. Last night, I was only hoping to reach a goal of 20 minutes of steady running, but surprised myself, as well as my body, by pushing hard for a 24 minute finish. I haven’t heard the last of my lower legs as they are quite achy, though it’s a good ache (if there is such a thing…lol), the likes of having a good solid gym workout. I’ll take a rest break tonight, ice them and will probably go for a walk (before the relaxing and icing part of course) just to meet my Nike+Fuel goal, but also to decrease the stiffness in my lower legs. The Fuel Band has given me more motivation to “get out there” and be active!

Nike+Fuel Band also has a Nike Fuel app for the iPhone and it’s so fun to sync them throughout the day, just to see, visually, how close you are to obtaining the day’s goal. It also has a share feature for Twitter and Facebook to let your friends and followers know you’ve achieved your goal.

For more on the Nike+Fuel Band, please check out the link below where you will find informational videos:

http://www.nike.com/fuelband/

Stay tuned for more running updates and Nike+Fuel!!!

Shift Change

Once again, I allowed three days to go by without a run, but that was due in part to my weird shift I used to work. My shift consists of 12 hours but since last August (18th day, Aug.2011) my team was working from 10 am to 10 pm, which made running after work very unappetizing. My preference has always been to run in the evening, so it was a bit of a change in my routine to attempt to do this in the morning, before my shift started. After all, I was up around 7am and only went to work for 10, so why not try running in the morning? Well, I only seemed to have the energy for this every so often, which in all honesty, was not as often as I would have hoped, or liked for that matter. Scrap that idea. And there goes several days with no runs logged…grrrr! My brain was sending me on a guilt trip…”you have to exercise, just think of what you ate today!!” LOL!!

My team received some great news last week in the form of a new time slot for us…a shift change of sorts. So the rumors we had heard a few weeks before were true. It was happening! As of April 30, today, we would be commencing our shift at 8am and ending it at 8pm. We are what’s called the “daytime peak truck” therefore, we log on and log off, without relieving anyone or having anyone relieve us at shift change. For us, it’s shift start and shift end. Simple as that. Once upon a time, we were the 9-9 truck, which still allowed me to do my evening run, but when they switched us to 10-10 last August, I had to rethink running that late at night. And so, in pranced Sir Laziness with his evil ways, forcing me (okay, I admit, I went rather willingly) to continue to forgo my runs, and before I knew it, I had not run in months.

No More Excuses now!! I have an early start and an early finish at work, no reason not to run after the shift. So, I came home, changed and ran out the door, down the street, around the lake and up a hill onto some side streets I hadn’t tackled yet. My pace wasn’t too fast tonight but I really tried to focus on the quality of my run instead of the speed of it. For the most part, I ran the better part of 3K, maybe a little more, stopping once to take a quick pic of the lake (couldn’t help it, it was beautiful) and along the way, slowing my pace only 3 times, once was very necessary as it was after the trek up the hill and the next slowdown was when I was almost home with about a kilometer left to go (I had set it up to run a 4K as my goal) and I noticed a pinching sort of cramp in my left hamstring and glute. I pressed on and after the brief slowdown (they were less than 30sec each this evening, yay me) I picked up the pace again and attempted to run through the cramping. I managed it and made it home with a time of 32min and 55sec, a distance of 4.17K and pace of 7’53” minute kilometers. Not too shabby for someone who was tired from working 12 hours and being on the road for most of it. I’m happy with how I felt after completing it.

During the run, I had my tunes playing at a moderate volume, the air was fresh, no traffic rushing by (on the side streets anyway), the night sky was beautifully clear, the stars were shining brightly, the half moon was up to light my way along with the streetlamps, and what do I hear above the music? Birds!! High up in the trees, singing their nighttime lullabies, making me smile as the song of a bird tends to do to me. It was such a true sign of spring and summer, just to hear them sing like they were. This is why I love an evening like tonight to do a run. The air is so clear, crisp and cool, it’s very cleansing and I feel like my mind and body are cleansed of the clutter I accumulated in my busy work day. I still feel that way now, albeit slightly more relaxed, as I have stretched, cooled down, showered off and topped up the water glass. I’m ready for bed shortly as I have one more 12 hour shift to work before enjoying 4 glorious days off, but I must say, I’m really liking our new shift change time. Running, I think I’m here to stay!!! No wait, make that I KNOW I’m here to stay!!! My running fire has been rekindled and this change in shift time will really boost my desire to run after work.

I will be able to run a straight 5K soon enough if I can continue at this rate. My coaching program had no run slated for today, but I did one anyway, so stay tuned to see what tomorrow’s after work run will be!