Over the last couple of years I’ve turned into one of those weird people who gets up early on Saturday (and other days) and goes for long runs.

This whole running enterprise is a most precarious thing as it can easily be derailed by bad weather, tiredness, twinges or offers of brunch. Therefore, I have to make sure that I have a range of motivating factors to counterbalance the evil distracting forces; competition is good (guilt is even better) and who doesn’t love lovely stats?

I’ve been relying on the lovely attractive stats that are generated by the Nike+ app to tell me how I’m doing and whether I’m beating Keith and Michael or not. I do like it when that noted athlete Ellie Goulding says nice things to me after certain runs too.

But now, Nike+ is being weird. And unreliable. And therefore attacking some of my main motivational reserves.

Have a look at these.

Here’s a section of my run on Jan 12. Note the zigagging pattern of the green line (i.e. me).

Jan 12: Was I drunk?

I was not drunk and wobbly. Compare this to the same run in December.

Dec: Look at me go (in a straight line)

I used the WalkJogRun site to measure a sample kilometre (the area that is roughly 2km-3km in the first pic).

One kilometre in reality.

It’s rather longer.

So, Nike+ went a bit bonkers on that last run. Being a stats nerd, I don’t want to flick back and forth between apps as I’d like to be able to see my progress and development over time. However, there’s no point having bogus, inaccurate data so, Nike+, I’m watching you…

UPDATE: I ended up breaking two World Records on Monday so it was time to bring this to @NikeSupport on Twitter. They responded pretty quickly and help sort things out. Another reminder that Twitter can be a great source of Customer Support.