Nike is no novice when it comes to an on-line presence, and an app for training and motivation. They have had runners log hundreds of millions of runs, with a staggering total of more than 2.5 billion miles. If a relay were set up for that distance, it would circle the Earth more than 108,000 times! The Nike+ Run Club amounts to a reliance of the app, but one which is careful to capture your other runs with the previous version - the Nike+ Running app, good news to the OCD among us (and if you have been running compulsively and recording obsessively, you know what I mean).

At Nike, the phrase “be a sponge” is often bantered about. Mark Parker, President & CEO, NIKE, Inc., has noted the eyes-open mandate as a habit he picked up as a child, when he would take long walks with his grandmother and soak up the natural world — plants and rocks, seeds and bugs. This attentive observation is shared by Nike designers, who consciously connect to the world around them. They interact with athletes, view art and travel the globe to activate their imaginations and inform their creations — a dynamic blend of influences that has recently taken on a vivid tone.

The 100 meters, for all its brevity, is best understood as a series of moments. Sprint experts break the event into three phases — drive, maximum velocity and maintenance. Sprinters tackle these phases through either a stride-rate or stride-length approach, meaning some sprinters are superb off the blocks; others, expert at catching pace deep in the dash. The rare runner who can master all phases breaks records.