nike

While I love my fancy Garmin watch, most runners don’t need $400 worth of tech on their wrist. That’s why the Nike+ iPod system is so brilliant: cheap, stupid-simple and gives you the basic info—time, pace, distance—automatically uploaded to Nike’s training site. Which is why the utter lack of innovation since the system debuted more than two years ago has been disappointing.

Last month, we wrote about Nike's "revolutionary" new shoe, the LunarGlide+, which promised to be all things to all people: a stability shoe when you needed the extra support, and a cushion shoe when you don't. The difference is a sandwich of new kinds of high- and low-density lightweight LunarLite foam in place of the typical hard "post" that keeps your foot from rolling excessively inward.

Running shoes for real runners are regularly categorized into two types: stability shoes, for those who over-pronate, and cushioning shoes, for those who don't. Nike's LunarGlide+, available July 1 for $100, claims a novel mid-sole architecture described as "Dynamic Support," which eliminates the need to choose between the two types. But more impressive than that assertion is the simplicity of the design by which Nike hopes to revolutionize the industry.

I'm not Tiger Woods. And, despite your Sunday red shirt and supermodel wife, you're not either. So our likelihood of making single-degree adjustments to an already biomechanically unsightly swing in hopes of consciously creating a slight fade or draw is unlikely. The best we mere mortals should hope for is the ability to hit a ball straight, no matter how ugly the swing, 18 consecutive times off the tee. And now, thanks to an adjustable driver from Nike, technology will take care of the rest.

Nike is doing it again. In an event dubbed The Human Race, the king of sports marketing is planning a one-day, 10k race for 1 million people (preferably all clad in Nike) in 25 cities across the world. The races will wind across the globe—the first is in Taipei and the last, L.A.—and each is topped off by a concert at the end. So on August 31, 2008 the world (or at least participants in the same time zones) will be running together

Nike is to Apple, as Adidas is to . . . Samsung? In the race to make people run, Adidas is gaining steam with this week's European release of miCoach. Like the iPod-based Nike + system, at the heart of miCoach lies a Samsung phone that similarly follows your progress and motivates your workout.

The phone wirelessly tracks data from a chest strap heart rate monitor and a stride sensor that hooks onto your laces (an advantage over Apple's system since it lets you keep your sneakers). Workouts are built and analyzed on a full-service website complete with graphic data and recommendations for your fitness objectives.