Saturday, April 18, 2009

I Like Nike

I'm sorry for the problems!  The picture should be up now.
(Of course the "Nike" in the title is meant to be read the way I pronounced it as a girl, with the silent "e".  Also, I don't actually like Nike (or at least not the ones I'll be writing about) so pretty much every single thing about that title is wrong, except for that you can take out the "N" out of it and have a rhyming political catch phrase from the 50's, which  I'm assuming you already knew.  And if you didn't then
everything about the title is wrong)

There was a time in my life when I did more than just sit on my lazy rear all day.  I ran cross country and track in tenth grade (yes, only tenth grade).  Since then I have loved running off and on.  Mostly off, though.  

My second year at Ricks College I started to notice that my pants weren't fitting me right (or at all) and also that I hadn't eaten a single vegetable in months.  I was getting up to clean the library every morning at 4am and my health wasn't the best anyway.  I decided to get it in gear.  

I started eating things like a bowlful of canned green beans (I used to believe that those were vegetables)  for a snack or meal.  I also decided to start exercising in the mornings after my shift at the library instead of going home and going back to sleep.

First I tried weight lifting.  With free weights.  Free weights are no good for people with spastic tendencies so I decided to try running.  It was winter (and you don't know winter till you've experienced one in Rexburg Idaho) so I had to use the indoor track, which was eight laps to the mile. 

Running around a tiny little circle in a dark room at seven in the morning after vacuuming and mopping floors and removing gum from carpets for three hours.  I was dedicated.

So much so, in fact that over the Christmas break while I was back home I decided to buy some new running shoes.  My old Saucony's that I just LOVED were dying and needed replacing.  I went shopping with Erin, my best friend from high school, who also attended Ricks and with whom I regularly swapped stories about the guys we had crushes on.

It came down to some UGLY-but-perfect-in-every-other-way Saucony's, or some cutest-shoes-on-planet-earth-but-much-more-like-not-very-comfortable-cross-trainers-than-running-shoes Nike's.  I ran laps in the mall a few times with each pair, and there was no question which pair I should get.  I already loved Saucony's as my runni
ng shoe of choice, and these ones felt GREAT.  But why did they have to be ugly and gray and bright orange (or what is yellow)?  (the Nike's were mostly white with a little bit of turquoise and dark purple.  Remember 1995?)

I hemmed and hawed over this forEVER, and finally Erin told me I should just go with the Nike's.  Her logic was too much for me to resist when she said, "What if you meet the man of your dreams while you're running?"  I'm not kidding when I say that that is why I bought the Nike's.  I'm also not kidding when I say "What on earth was I thinking?" and "Was I really ever that lame?"

So I wore those Nike's running early mornings on the indoor track.  I was looking awesome but running was seriously about 10% as enjoyable in my new shoes as it had been in my old Saucony's or would have been in my new ones, had I bought them.

I ran and I ran.  And I consistently didn't meet the man of my dreams.  In fact, the only person I do remember meeting was President Bennion, the President of Ricks College, who ran laps the same time I did every day, and who I wasn't particularly interested in making a good impression on with my footwear.

So you could say that the story has a sad ending, but I did end up running a lot with friends at BYU, one of whom  was the man of my dreams.  I just wasn't wearing those shoes when I met him.  And he is the last person that would ever care about what I had on my feet.

And here I am 14 years later having done so little exercise that I still have ONLY those same Nike's as my shoes to be active in (although even when walking across town I just wear my every day shoes and in the summer I only wear sandals or flip flops).  They're pretty worn, but WOW.  And they're even less comfortable today than they were then, as my feet have "grown".  

I still think they look pretty awesome, though.  

I'm not a fan of pictures of old shoes, but I had an afterthought to include one anyway, so here it is.
You can tell it was an afterthought because I would never say "I... think they look... awesome" if I knew I'd be including a picture, but I'm leaving it anyway.   And sorry they're lar
ger than life.


25 comments:

Leonard said...

hi!

I visited Mielec once.

How are you doing ?

greetings***

Rachel Cotterill said...

Great story :) Maybe if you'd bought the other shoes you'd still go running! But I can't see the picture...

Randi said...

Well, either way you met the man of your dreams!!

Saucony used to be the only thing I would run in. But about 5 years ago they changed the dimensions and now they don't fit me at all.
Next time you buy running shoes, I suggest trying the Asics. Well, try them all till you find the pair that fits.

(And if running is the goal, I guarantee you will have to buy the ugly ones!)

Elizabeth said...

I can't see the pic either, and after reading that funny post, I was dying to see what they looked like! I'll check again later. Go get you some new shoes! I'm sure you deserve it. :)

J. Baxter said...

Where's the shoes??? I can't see the picture. I too, bought running shoes in IF the winter of the 94-95 school year. They were Nike's. AND THEY WERE MOSTLY WHITE WITH PURPLE AND TURQUOISE!

I think we had the same shoes. I'm pretty positive, because mine weren't very comfortable either. CRAZY!

Melissa said...

I try to avoid running at all costs, so we're not twins there. But we ARE twins in that we both had jobs cleaning things at 4:00 in the morning! I cleaned at the MTC, though. I had to make sure to look as ugly as possible so as not to be attractive to the elders (I worked until 8:00 a.m., so I saw some missionaries on occasion). I believe I wore some type of running shoes to that job. They probably had pink on them, though. And no, I didn't meet the man of my dreams while I was wearing them :)

Andi Kate, Children's Author said...

I can't see the shoes either, sadly--I wanted to see if I would remember them. Probably not, since these days my memory consists of blurry and foggy...

Heather of the EO said...

It's true, the picture isn't there, but I'm picturing them anyway.

You were SOOO funny in this post. I love old stories. And shoes. My "running" shoes are also ancient. Maybe if I got new ones, I'd become a real runner? hmmmm...

Heidi said...

Are you thanking your lucky stars that you bought the good looking Nikes? Because, otherwise, you would be showing us a photo of the ugly shoes and you know how much less we would think of you then . . .

* said...

I just bought my first pair of Merrill cross-training shoes (did I type that right?). i'm not a runner anymore but was in track in hs and jog and walk plenty chasing after my 4 little kids.
btw, found you on Mormon Mommy blogs. Hope you're enjoying life in Poland...you lucky girl! (I'm fascinated w/all things foreign...)

Barbaloot said...

I had the BEST pair of Saucony's in jr. high...and haven't been able to find ones I loved ever since. Sad.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I still have my runners from grade TEN. And they're in great shape. Sad, yes?

Spastic tendencies...hee hee...that made me giggle!

Susan said...

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!
I've never forgotten what Joy taught me as we ran at BYU: Once when I said let's go jogging, she said jog?! we don't *jog*! When I told her I thought the difference between running and jogging was mostly your speed she said that no, to jog you must wear a cute matching jogging suit with matching shoes etc. Whereas to run is to where whatever you have, just to get out there and GO.
I've always been a runner by this definition. And as for you, you may run like lightning in those Nikes and still be a jogger! :P

Kazzy said...

I can see the pic! I remember how much the coolest looking shoes were what mattered on the high school basketball team. Little did I know that 25 years later I would need foot surgery for a fallen arch and bone spurs. But hey, even when we are exercising we are girls, huh?

Thora said...

I hate exercise. No really, I do. I prefer walking for physical activity. In college I walked probably 2 miles a day (longer when I was dating - my boyfriends and I would always go for miles long walks every evening we could). Now I don't walk anywhere...sigh.

(I love the shallowness of single young adults - to get cute running shoes. Like guys ever notice something like that!)

Mama Cher, Ok, fine, it's Sharon said...

Hmmm, would you mind if I just copied and pasted this post into my own blog? ;) You say it all way better than me and I have been thinking about this same topic! I just bought new running shoes to replace the ones I bought in 1998! We'll see if that motivates me to take up running again! :)

earlfam said...

No, they do not look awesome. They're ugly. (I'm sure they were awesome in 1995 though.)

And I feel your pain. I am a runner and I go through the same dilemma whenever I buy shoes. Why can't the cute ones be comfortable too? It's very frustrating.

Becky said...

I'm sad to say that I once had this dilemma as well. Comfy for running, or cute enough to meet a guy in? I went with cute. What was wrong with us?? :)

Alison Wonderland said...

I don't even run if I'm being chased. Your shoes are cute though.

Anne said...

So, I wore shoes I bought about 8 years ago with a dress that they match perfectly with. One strap broke in sacrament. Luckily it stayed taped for the rest of church until I walked out of the primary room to go home at which point the whole top of the shoe came off!!!!! Fortunately, most of the ward had left by then.

Cajoh said...

Kind of reminds me of Runaway bride where the female character hangs up her running shoes.

Great story!

Erin said...

My only pair of running shoes are over 10 years old and are neither cute nor comfortable. Which is a great excuse to not exercise!

charrette said...

I got my first Nikes when I was a junior in high school. I thought they were the cutest shoes ever! I still like Nikes. (and it doesn't hurt that a friend of ours is a higher-up there, so once in a while we get freebies. Yippee!) But for some reason I never met the man of my dreams doing laps at the field house either...

Lesley said...

I had a pair of Nikes that I loved...in 1984. I believe they were teal and purple and blue or some such. I thought they were adorable but they would probably make me gag if I saw them today. Never sacrifice comfort for looks. We all learn that the hard way!

Heather said...

i saw the picture before I read the story and I thought, "What cute shoes, I should get some like that." I guess it just goes to show that I am stuck in 1995.