A friend of mine recently ran the Huntington Beach Surf City Marathon, with an amazing time of under 3 hours and 25 minutes, a total rock star in my opinion. He has motivated me to sign up for my first half marathon in October. I know, crazy, right?! The longest I’ve ever ran in my life prior to training for this race has been two miles. The secretly competitive girl in me wants to at least keep up the pace with my fast friend who is running the half marathon with me this fall. I’d have to drop my time by 40 minutes just to keep his pace, but I can do it!

In telling my friend that I signed up for the race he gifted me with the handy dandy Nike+ iPod Sport Kit that syncs to your ipod and tracks your distance, speed and calories. It’s been a HUGE motivator to keep me going when all I want to do is give up and sit on the side of the road. You either need a Nike Plus shoe to insert the sensor device or you can buy the armband. The Nike Plus is probably the best investment a runner could buy, aside from good running shoes. And it’s barely a bank breaker at around $29 retail.

After you run you can go to www.nikerunning.com and you can track all of your runs, set new goals for yourself, track your friends’ workouts, map your run and more. If you are already a member look me up and add me as your friend. My profile name is, (you guessed it), Oodora.

Here is some more information about the Nike Plus iPod Sport Kit:

Pick your mix and motivate your run with the Nike + iPod® Sport Kit. Nike+ lets you listen to music while you track your progress on an iPod nano. Simply slip the sensor into a Nike+ Ready shoe, connect the receiver to your iPod nano and head out.

• Compatible with the original iPod nano and iPod nano video
• Waterproof, durable Nike+ sensor slips into pocket under sockliner of the left Nike+ ready shoe.
• The iPod nano tracks your progress when the receiver is connected, providing feedback on distance, time, pace and calories burned onscreen and through headphones.

Check out www.nikeplus.com for more details.

More on running and my progress coming soon!