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Nike is taking the concept of new year's resolutions to a new level, and creating a lot of marketing buzz in the process.

Nike is promoting the Nike+ system, a result of its innovative partnership with Apple, through a series of year-end commercials inviting runners to make public running resolutions and issue running challenges. One commercial features tennis player Maria Sharapova promising to run more miles in January than basketball star LeBron James.

Visitors to the Nike+ website are invited to share their own resolution. Rather than setting a year-long goal, runners set a month-long goal. Runners enter the number of miles they plan to run in January, and then say what they will do if they don't meet their goal.

In order to log miles towards the goal, runners do need a Nike+ system. In addition to tracking a runner's own progress, the Nikeplus website offers runners the chance to issue public challenges, create teams, and compete against other teams in categories like most miles logged, fastest 5k, and others.

In order to enter mileage in the online running log, runners do need to have an iPod with a Nike+ system.

For more information, check out the Nike+ website at Nikeplus.com.