Nike+ is a piece of wireless equipment which, along with your ipod tracks the time taken, the pace, calories burnt and the distance of your runs or walks. When looking at prices on the internet, it cost £19 on the Currys website and £20.04 on Amazon.

As well as this receiver and sensor pack, you need your ipod and itunes on your computer (which sends your workout data to the Nike+ website). If you dont already have a pair of Nike+ trainers, then you can purchase a special holder for the sensor, which fits onto the laces on your trainers. You can get these on Amazon for around £6 or £7 pounds, depending on the sort you want. You could, of course, get a pair of Nike+ trainers but these will set you back at least £70 which is not practical for every ones budget.

If you do have, or get the trainers, then the sensor fits under the insole in the left trainer. The receiver fits into the bottom of your ipod where you would connect it to the computer. When you first put in the receiver, it will ask you to set a couple of things to your preference. You can set the feed back voice to female or male. You can also set the distance to miles or kilometre.

When you come to doing your first workout, scroll down to Nike+ and then go to 'new workout'. From here, you can choose one of four workouts. The first is a 'basic' workout, where it does track what you do, but where you dont have a particular goal. With the next three (time, distance and calories), you can set a particular goal. With these, you will get spoken feedback every so often to tell you how well you are doing. The feedback voice will also tell you when you have completed the goal you set, though you can carry on if you wish. After deciding on your type of workout, choose the music, if any, that you want and press the centre button to start. To finish, press the menu button and scroll down to end workout.

Your ipod can store up to 1000 workouts before needing to download them. To download them, connect to itunes as you normally would do. This will then direct you to the Nike+ website to set up an account, which is free and only takes a couple of minutes. From this point onwards itunes will send your workouts to your account on the website every time you download your information.

To me, the website is the best part of the the Nike+ idea. Every time you complete a workout and download it onto the website, it comes up as a line graph type thing. This line shows you your pace throughout your run. I find this helpful as I can try to push myself harder on the areas where I tend to be slower.

The website is also helpful as you can set yourself goals, like running 40 miles in four weeks or a certain number of calories in so many weeks. I find that this has helped to keep me going on a number of occasions as I dont like failing! Also, you can set challenges that other Nike+ runners can take part in. A popular on is to see who can run the furthest in 30 days. These are for anyone to take part in.

I decided to get this nifty bit of kit as I wanted to start running to lose the spare tyre round my waist (and other wobbly bits!) and to also get quite fit. It has helped me no end, as without it I think I would probably have given up within a couple of weeks. At first, it helped me just to know how far I was actually going and also because I could slowly see my pace increasing. Now that I have got fitter and slimmer (though there is still some way to go), I have found I like running for the sake of running. It is always hard if i push myself, I usually enjoy going out and trying to run that tiny bit further so that I can try and get ahead of someone in a challenge. It is also really easy to use this bit of kit. It is easy to set up before you go out running, easy to download after finishing and easy to use the website.

I would recommend this kit to anyone who wants to get fitter or who wants to improve their performance.