The Nike+ SportWatch GPS, a collaboration between sports brand Nike and sat nav maker TomTom, was unveiled earlier this year at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show but becomes available in the UK at the beginning of April, retailing for £179.

The GPS technology captures location information, at the same time displaying the runner’s time, distance, pace and calories burned with the aid of a shoe sensor. Joggers can tap the backlit screen to set laps.

Plugging the device into any Mac or PC will launch an interface that uploads the user’s statistics on to nikeplus.com.

Runners can also access a catalogue of routes, published by Nike or by other joggers, searching by location, length and difficulty. The watch’s sleek design and easy-to-read screen makes this a highly desirable piece of kit for competitive runners.

The watch does have one potentially annoying feature: on-screen ‘Attaboys’ acknowledge the achievement of personal records and offer what Nike calls ‘post-run encouragement’.

So if you don’t put in the mileage, your watch will let you know about it.