I am feeling Blue - But in a good way.

Back in January, when I started using the Nike+ running system, I realized it was going to be an excellent motivational tool. The system encourages you to set goals, or join challenges with people from all around the world.

In addition to the above, it rewards your runs by assigning you a "level" depending on how many kilometers you have run. Levels (and the associated colors) are assigned as follows:


Yellow (0-49km, 0-30mi)
Orange (50-249km, 31-154mi)
Green (250-999km, 155-620mi)
Blue (1,000-2,499km, 621-1552mi)
Purple (2,500-4,999km, 1553-3106mi)
Black (over 5000km or 3107mi)

I just hit level "BLUE", which means I have run over 1000K since I started using the Nike+ system. Here's my run summary.

Running at an average of 5 minutes and 30 seconds for each kilometer (that's equivalent to running at 11kph on the treadmill), I have burned enough calories to drop my weight by 20 Kg (using the general rule of thumb that every 3850 calories you burn results in 1 kg of weight loss).

I started using the system in late January (a little less than 5 months ago), so it also means I have been running an average of 200 kilometers per month.

At this rate, I should hit the "PURPLE" level somewhere in February 2011.