Respect

Tell you what, every now and then you find a product that is just so good you gotta respect the people who put it together. Sometimes it is a timeless classic like velox rim strips or the original shrink-to-fit Levis 501 jean (I like to kickstart the shrinking process by boiling them for an hour in a big pot of water to bleed out the excess dye and the starch). Other times it is a new product.

Today I went down to the running store to get some new shoes. Not different ones; just new, not-worn-out versions of the shoes I bought last year. Trouble is, they were out of my size in that particular brand and model. Now, for the past decade or so I have been buying shoes in the the 76_ series, made by a brand with a 2-letter logo (the 14th and 2nd letters of the alphabet). But I really needed some new shoes, so sort of half to myself I said to the helpful shoe guy, says I: do you have anything similar from some other brand? And helpful shoe guy says (and this is a direct quote) Oh, shit yeah -- just hang on a minute and check this out. So he disappears into the stock room and comes out with two different models of the swoosh brand.

At first I was skeptical. I don't give a rip about shoe brands. I want something that works, and I don't want to pay extra just 'cause it has a logo or someone famous endorses them or its a hip color. No, I want a shoe that will work, that won't make my feet ache or throb mid-run, and that will last a decent amount of time. So I was ready to flat out reject the swoosh shoes on principle alone. But I figure that helpful shoe guy and I go way back, and I known he is not just trying to make a quick sale or dump some old stock. I gave the swoosh shoes a try.

The first model was a nonstarter -- too narrow, even for my euro-like size 43 paws; but the second pair, well, the second pair was something else.

You know when you get the driver's seat adjusted just right? You know when the jeans fit just perfect? You know that feeling when your new cleats are in the sweet spot and your saddle height and bars and brake hoods all line up exactly where you want them? You know the feeling of putting on a brand new pair of well-made bike shorts with a big comfy Italian pad? That's the feeling I got when I put those babies on and stood up. Bada bing, bada boom: my feet were instantly super happy.

I laced them up and trotted outside for the obligatory test jog up and down the street. Only these shoes felt SO GOOD that I just kept going and went all the way around the block. Twice. It took all my will power to stop and go back into the store. Man, I just wanted to RUN. I haven't felt like that in years. Maybe not since childhood.

I had forgotten how much I like running. It's been a few months (OK, more than a few), and starting up again had begun to seem like a chore. It never occurred to me that my perfectly decent old shoes might have been as much a part of the problem as part of the solution. How amazing that something as simple as a well-designed, well-made, slightly different shoe can have such an effect.

Props to the swoosh people. Whatever their failings may be, whatever sort of saturation advertising-plus-outsourcing business model they may have, whatever sort of cheap hockery and gotta-have-it gimmicks they may daily shill to the masses on an unsustainable global scale, I will give them this: they make at least one damn fine pair of running shoes. I wish I had bought them sooner.

I can't wait to go running tomorrow morning.