An Inside Look At The Nike Company Store

I was back in Oregon for Christmas visiting my family, and while I was there I decided that while in the heartland of Nike country (my dad's office is literally next door to the Nike World Headquarters) I should check out their product line. In high school I always ran in Nike, but in the year's since I've moved around to other brands and as such I didn't really know what their shoes are like now.

My friend Heather works there, so she got me into the Company Store:

This is where the employees and their friends and families (which is basically everyone in Portland) shop, and as such everything is half price. Everything, no sales, no coupons, just an across the board price cut. Not only that the selection was really spectacular; to prep I had spent a lot of time online checking out their catalog and I saw a lot of shoes in this store that I hadn't run into on the site.

But being the week after Christmas it was a complete madhouse: hordes of New Year's resolutioners trying to find the perfect gear and almost as many young, fit employees decked from head to toe with Swooshes trying desperately to keep things in order.

But in all of this chaos I was looking for just one shoe: the Nike Flyknit Free. The Free is Nike's concession to the minimalist movement, but what really attracted my attention was this new fabric called Flyknit: the upper is actually knit out of this tough, fibrous, stretchy material so it has no seams and a fit like a rugged sock:

I found a sparsely populated corner to do some strides and they felt great. I don't know how well they will handle full-time running but they were so different I had to give them a try.

This place is a little more stripped down than their normal store fronts, but the checkout line did have this great cartoon of Pre:

I will say this for the company, their marketing department is killer because everything Nike looks hip and sleek and mean. Speaking of style check out my Christmas beard:

Overall it was a blast. If you are ever in Beaverton, OR and know someone who works there definitely check it out.

Resolved

Today is the last day of the year so a good day to talk about resolutions. I've been thinking about change a lot recently and something I realized is how set we can become on even the most trivial things. For example, if you always eat cereal for breakfast it can feel heretical to do anything else; however, upon further reflection you may realize that there is no compelling reason to only eat cereal.

Or there is a compelling reason, rather: habit. Compelling, maybe, but not justified. And I think this propensity comes from the structure of the brain, because as you do a certain task over and over, your brain builds new neural pathways that enable you to continue to do that same activity. So changing those pathways, rebuilding, renewing them takes deliberate, focused effort.

But we all have things about ourselves and our lives that we'd like to retool, big and small. But if change is so hard what is the biggest chance of success?

Change in the smallest possible way

If you want to start lifting weights but are afraid of the effort or pain, then decide to do the simplest, shortest set of exercises that are still meaningful, and decide to do them once a week.

"But where is your sense of adventure?" you might be thinking. Such meager goals can seem a little cowardly, unless they are taken in the right context. That small step can be the first of a long series of goals that will eventually lead to greatness. Running three miles every day can lead to five which can lead to 10 and then 20. This in turn can be part of a plan to finish your first marathon, which in and of itself can be a preparation to a triathlon that is helping you get to an ultra-marathon in the mountains of Peru (I don't know if such a race exists but I hope it does. If not then maybe someday I can start it.)

Do you see how small decisions can form the foundations of grand, sweeping, majestic life plans? This is how they balance, the mundane and the magnificent. So that's my hope for each of you, that your life means something to you, that you are each pursing something important, something that matters.

Maybe someday?

The Health Triangle

I know this looks like something from an old 7th grade text book, but I definitely made this myself.

I'm just finishing the semester and as usual I'm finding myself starting to fray at the edges-too much work, stress, not enough of everything else. Sometimes you have to purposely allow things to get out of balance to finish something really important, but it takes a toll on your body. So it made me think about the relationship between rest, diet, and activity and how closely tied they are because each piece affects the other two.

Sleeping-> Exercise

When you don't get enough sleep it saps your energy and dulls your reflexes. Not only are you going to be less motivated to work out, it makes moving around unpleasant and even harmful if you constantly push your body without letting it get the recovering you need from sleep.

Sleeping-> Eating

I've been working late nights and so I'm always hungry when I get home from work at 2 AM but don't have time to make a good dinner, so I often just stop at McDonalds (I love the mal-beouf but it's easy to over-do it.)

Eating-> Exercise

If you don't eat enough or eat the wrong kinds of foods you feel heavy and lethargic when you head out for a run.

Eating-> Sleeping

I can't fall asleep at night if I am hungry-better to have a late night snack and get the z's you need.

Exercise-> Eating

When you recognize that the purpose of eating is to fuel your body instead of to cure boredom or deal with stress or to please your senses then it changes how and when you eat. I can't tell you how many times I've rethought my lunch because I knew that I had a really important workout later in the afternoon.

Exercise-> Sleeping

If you wear yourself out during the day falling asleep at night will be as easy as laying your head on the pillow (I think that the sedentary upper-middle class lifestyle is the cause of our cultural dependence on sleeping pills.)

Running News: "new" girl wins marathon

As you might have seen on Flotrack Becky Wade just won the California International Marathon with a time of 2:30, which is apparently the 5th fastest time this year by an American woman. You can see an interview with her about it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en6w7Ix63NQ

I had never heard about her so I decided to do some research: she ran Track and XC for Rice, she competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials for the steeplechase, and she just returned from a year long study of running cultures around the world.

Yeah, that last one caught my attention too. Apparently it's called the Watson Fellowship, and it's an award where you can construct your own research project where you can go wherever you feel like and do whatever you want. Great gig, right?

As a blogger I thought, "Man, that would be a killer adventure to blog about" and sure enough I found Becky Runs Away, where she started last July and wrote about her entire experience. She went to 22 different countries so I can't wait to see what she experienced. Usually the post-college world trip always comes across as aimless and self-indulgent, but hers had a focused, academic purpose so this seems like something substantial.

It's especially interesting because if her purpose was to learn how to become a championship runner her win at the CIM is a good indication that it was a success. A lot of athletes get burned out in college so maybe the time away from the high-level competition allowed her to recharge and come back with renewed energy. Or maybe she found something special on her odyssey. I'm going to start her blog from the beginning and try to see for myself.

A long time runner and student, but finally a fan

I've been following the collegiate cross country season for the first time which has slowly drawn me in to it's tangled web of competitive drama.  I kept up with the local running news in high school because I was part of a team, but when I came to BYU I wasn't fast enough to compete for the school so running became more of an individual pursuit.  But I signed up for Flotrack Pro and found that they live stream a lot of major races, so my Saturdays have been sleeping in, wearing sweatpants for way too much of the day, and binging on races and interviews.

What I found was that my own school was one of the strongest: the BYU men won the Roy Griak Invitational and placed highly in a bunch of other tough races. Unfortunately XC is so poorly advertised that even while going to classes with these guys I still didn't know how competitive they were.  The one runner I knew about was Jared Ward, because I had seen him pace Miles Batty at an indoor meet last year and was impressed by how strong and smooth his stride was, but I didn't see him at any of the races this season so I figured he must have graduated.

Jared Ward

It turns out he didn't graduate- he was yet another victim of the capricious whims of the NCAA, and had lost his eligibility for his final year at BYU because of an unsanctioned fun run he did a couple of years ago (if you Google Jared Ward you can read all about it, it's pretty unfair.)  Meanwhile he had been training for the Chicago Marathon and and ran his first 26.2 in 2 hours 16 minutes. (That is wicked fast.  To put that into perspective, the fastest American at the recent NYC marathon ran only four minutes better.)

So the other day I had some rare time to kill before my next class so I skimmed the running sites and found Jared Ward popping up everywhere I looked.  It turns out the NCAA had reinstated his eligibility the day before the Mountain West Conference Regional Qualifier!  He jumped on the bus with his estranged team and was their number one runner, placing 4th in the conference.  Apparently whatever magic he had last season was still in him.  In fact, in an interview his coach Ed Eyestone mentioned that Jared could still run fast even without going all out, slyly implying that he had even more in the tank.

I did some quick math and realized that BYU was already ranked 5th in the nation without Ward, so if they replaced their 5th scorer with their 1st scorer, that could put them within arm's reach of the national title.  The race was starting at 9:55 AM the following Saturday and even though I had to be at work until after 1 AM the night before, I would set a rare weekend alarm for this.

Going into the Championships Colorado and Oklahoma were the clear favorites, but BYU, an already strong team, just had the fastest returning runner from last year miraculously reappear on their squad.  They had never won a national title so this good fortune seemed like their best shot at ultimate victory.  As the runners milled around the start line it was clear that the conditions were brutal: it had rained on the course for the last several days so it was mud and water everywhere.  Add to that temperatures in the mid thirties and a gusts of wind pushing 30 miles an hour and this college cross country meet started to look more like the opening scene from Gladiator.  The top men like Andrew Colley and Kennedy Kithuka had been talking big in the week leading up to the race, but I have to imagine that as they looked at the course in front of them they felt just a little bit smaller.

The gun sounded and the herd thundered across the weather-scarred field.  The cameras stayed mostly on the individual leaders but as the the splits came in at 3,000 meters Brigham Young was narrowly in first in the team category.  My hope swelled.  Gradually the times and places of the top 50 runners scrolled across the bottom of the screen and at one point Jared Ward and his teammate Tyler Thatcher were in 18th and 19th place- strong positions for their first two runners.  If their next three weren't too far behind maybe they could hold on.  The men fought on and at 7,000 meters BYU fell to second- still a great position and still with with a lot of race left to go.  "Could this be it?  Could this finally be our year?"  The feed indicated that Ward had pulled ahead but Thatcher had fallen back a few places, so maybe now that the full brunt of the race and the season and the weather was bearing down on them their weaker runners were starting to falter.

Soon the race was over and when everyone had finished their 10,000 meters it was impossible to tell the exact team places.  Ward came in 17th but where the rest?  The commentators nervously speculated as the officials tabulated the team scores.  "Probably not" I said to myself.  "But maybe.  Just maybe."

After what seemed like an unusually long wait the results came through:  Colorado, Northern Arizona, Oklahoma State, BYU. "Oh well, I guess this wasn't our year."  I was a little disappointed but I'm glad I had gotten my hopes up, because the great thing about sports is that even if the final score doesn't turn out in your favor you still get all the same thrills along the way- the maybes, the what-ifs, the couldn't-it-happens.  As long as the odds against you may be, that inherent uncertainty keeps the possibility of greatness always in front of you just waiting for you to chase after it.

A long run after a long week

I realized this week that working two jobs, going to school, and running, and yoga, and lifting, and swimming, and not getting enough sleep probably wasn't the best idea.  So I took three days off from my training to get caught up on some school work and let my body recover and even that short of a break made a huge difference.

So after sleeping in today and having a big breakfast I felt like I had some extra nervous energy to burn so I went for a genuine long run which I hadn't done in a while.  It was one of those golden autumn days when the sun is warm but the air is just barely crisp and a smooth nine miles in the rolling Provo foothills was exactly what I needed.

P.S.  A great thing about having a Garmin is the notifications it gives you at the end of the run; today was both the longest distance I've logged since I got the watch (9.1 miles) and the fastest 10k (51:37).

P.P.S.  My magazine cover is finally up on the Utah Running website.  Check it out!

Magazine Cover!

Here it is!  My friend Derrick was asked to shoot the cover of Run Utah magazine at the same time we had started working together on my blog, so this just sort of happened.  We went to some trails up in American Fork Canyon about a month ago right as the fall colors were starting to show up and got some great pics including this one.  The experience was really fun because I got to see the pictures on his camera as we took them so I could see the shoot develop.  When I posted this on Facebook I got some pretty great reactions-most people who know me know that I run, but I guess they weren't aware of my extracurricular activities.

Utah Running is an online magazine that highlights the local running community and is a pretty interesting read for anyone who is from the area.  This must be an advanced copy because the latest issue hasn't shown up on the site yet, but keep an eye out it and it should post any day now.