The New Nike+

I started using Nike+ with my second-gen iPod nano in January 2007. I ran weekly for a solid 6 months, right up to my wedding. But that final month was painful. As a complete novice, I had no idea that all running shoes were not created equal. I had the wrong shoe for my feet, and I developed a really bad injury to my left foot.

I pretty much took a couple years off, only running occasionally.

I decided to get serious about it again in January 2011 by starting to train for a 5k to take place that March. I went to a running store and was fitted with a proper set of shoes, and I used Nike+ to track my progress, and Felt Tip's excellent Run5k (née Couch to 5k) to give me a training plan.

I've always enjoyed Nike+. I think it is a creative system to encourage fitness, and I need a lot of encouragement. I use their Nike+GPS app in lieu of the built-in Nike+ app on my iPhone now, as Nike has shown more love to the service than Apple has in recent years.

My one longstanding gripe with Nike+ has been the site has been entirely written in Adobe's Flash since its inception. I'm not a big fan of Flash.

Today, Nike launched the new Nike+. It's built on HTML5, and is refocused around Nike Fuel — Nike's metric for measuring different types of activity throughout the day. Gone is the white and orange interface, along with the comical — and useless —"mini" characters. Now there is a sleek white and black interface with green accents.

Everything is smoother and faster. Maps of your runs have a more interactive feel to them, graphs look sharp, and information is easily accessible.

This reworking of Nike+ has been needed for a very long time, and I am pumped to finally use it.