July started out being very unkind to me. I twisted my ankle BAD and was hosed for about 3 weeks. When I began running again my Nike+ iPod sensor had died (more on that later). So, no run data for this one.
Anyways, back to the race. It was a hot and humid day, and not the “good” kind of humid I’ve heard runners talk about (I’m still not convinced that exists). My friend Devo decided to run with me (poor girl). Shana was there providing support and worry for us. They don’t call it Run for the HILL of it for nothing. It was a great race though that benefited a great cause!
I went a looong time since my last race so I was quite the nervous nelly getting ready for the 10 mile run down Broad Street in Philadelphia. Thankfully my brother Tim was going to run it as well. We parked down by the Phillies Stadium and took the Broad Street line all the way up to Broad and Olney. In typical Betz fashion we were about 2 hours early and it was COLD. While Tim busied himself by running a thousand miles I sat and froze my ass off getting up every once and awhile to stretch. Well more like make it look like I was stretching. When we were finally told to line up in our corrals I went and waited in line for the Port-O-Pot along with everyone else and their mothers. The gun went off when I was next in line. Needless to say, that was a quick pee.
OK, it has been almost a year since I started CB and almost as long since I last posted it. A few things I learned:
Keep up with the comments needing moderation
Write some posts about running (for crying out loud)
Nike can write better (and far prettier) widgets than me
I received many requests for functionality lacking in the Nike+ iPod universe ranging from the do-able (uploading missed stats) to the not-so-do-able (showing splits in a flash-based widget). Keep the ideas coming.
This is a nice “scrapable widget” straight from the Nike Plus website. Thanks to the Kimili Flash Embed for WordPress I can post my progress. Will I make it? Check back for updates!
Last weekend I ran in my first “fun run” called the Reindeer Romp. Set in my hometown of Havertown, PA it was a 5K run benefiting the American Cancer Society. Over 1,000 people came to run and walk. It really was a beautiful day and an excellent experience. Shana and Devo showed up with a sign that said Go Betty that made me laugh, get my ass moving, and smile at the same time. After I wanted to see the comparison of the Nike Plus iPod data and the official race data.
The official data:
Place - 404
Name - Christopher Betz
Div/Tot - 33/38
Div - M2029
Age - 24
Sex - M
Time - 29:28
Pace - 9:30
And the Nike Plus data:
If you live in the Philadelphia metro area, register to run next year!
Activate Sidebar Widgets by logging into your blog, then clicking the Plugins header, finding the Sidebar Widgets and clicking the activate link.
Download a copy of nplus.php (zipped) here. Unzip, and put a copy in wp-content/plugins/widgets in your WordPress blog folder.
Activate the Nike Plus widget the same way you activated the Sidebar Widgets (above).
Click the Presentation Header, then Sidebar Widgets. You should see Nike Plus listed under available widgets.
Drag and drop the Nike Plus widget onto your Sidebar.
Click the settings button (looks like a blue and gray table).
Here you specify the options:
Title - This is the title that will display in your sidebar.
Button Text - This is the text that will display in the Sidebar Widgets configuration screen.
Nike+ ID - This is your Nike+ ID (your email address) that you use to sign into nikeplus.com.
Password - This is your Nike+ password that you use to sign into nikeplus.com.
Proxy - This is optional. Only fill this out if you are behind a proxy. This is common for hosted accounts (like Godaddy). Leave this field blank it you don’t have a proxy!
Local Path - This is a path to a directory where the XML data will be stored. The blog must have rights to create and edit files in this directory. Example: /home/content/s/c/r/scrapdog/html/nplus/ .
Now click Save Changes and go look at your stats! If this doesn’t work for you, please leave a comment and I’ll help you out. Thanks!
Well it turns out that the problem I was having before was due to a proxy that godaddy has. This is a big ‘duh’ moment for me, but I’m glad I’m past it. I’m currently updating the widget code so that all you do is have to give your nike id and password when you first setup the widget and you are set. The only thing I have to consider is how to deal with the proxy issue. For anyone interested look after the break for a breakdown of the process so you can do whatever your heart desires with your running data.
