So I've had a LaceLid to use my Nike+ sensor with non-Nike shoes for some time, but as Vibram Five Fingers have no laces, that alone wasn't going to be of much use. So I decided to do a little DIY to get the Nike+ sensor to stay on my Vibrams.
All you need to a get a LaceLid working with your Vibrams is a pair of scissors, some tape (optionally) and some shoelaces, string, etc. I decided I'd shorten an old shoelace. First, I wrapped the Scotch tape around the point in the shoelace where I was going to make the cut; this has the effect of giving it on of those shoelace endings with the lace wrapped in plastic. Then I cut right in the middle of the tape, leaving both the old shoelace and the new stub with shoelace endings.
Once I had my stub shoelace, I tucked the sensor, which was in the LaceLid, behind the velcro strap of one of the Vibrams and then simply used the stub shoelace to tie it around the other side of the strap. That sensor wouldn't be going anywhere.
But I was a bit too early in declaring victory over my Vibram/Nike+ conundrum.
The thought had crossed my mind that the measurements given by the sensor while running might be a little off, given the different position of the sensor on a Nike shoe, on a non-Nike shoe with a LaceLid, and on Vibrams with my DIY hack job. In the Nike versus non-Nike + LaceLid comparison, the measurements were a bit off, but not so much that you couldn't use them, so I never bothered to recalibrate the sensor.
That would not be the case with Vibrams. I was running along one of my usual routes today when I passed the half-mile point, at which I usually get a notice from the Nike+ system. Nothing. Curious but thinking that maybe it was at the mile that they notified me, I kept going. When I got to the mile without any notice, I checked my distance and it was clearly way off. I was able to next check my distance at the 1.5 mile point, which I know well as it's the turn-around point for all those 3-mile runs on Hal's schedule; it was somewhere below a mile. Basically, the distance measures was somewhere around 2/3 of what it really was.
The time of course was still accurate, so I used that to quickly determine my lazy I'm-not-pushing-it pace had me running 9:45-9:50 miles, so to hit my 4-mile goal for the day I simply ran until I hit about 20 minutes and then turned back, making my entire run today a bit over 4 miles. The Nike+ clocked me in at 2.71 miles.
Although this is a pain, it can hopefully be resolved. The Nike+ sensor can be calibrated; basically you run a set distance like 400 meters and the sensor determines the number of strides needed to run that distance and thus how long each of your strides are. Clearly I'm going to need to do this now that my sensor is hooked up with my Vibrams.
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