Marathon Sports

After a protracted negotiation at Sam's Boston Marathon Fundraiser, I managed to swap my Wine Gift Basket for a Blue Moon, a new coil bike lock and a $100 Gift Certificate to Marathon Sports. So what if BSC was drunk, I was drunk too. Tell it to the judge. Drunken negotiations are the best kind of negotiations because the peaks and valleys of normal haggling become exponentially higher (and lower). Instead of honing on a compromise, things usually unravel into someone walking off after asking for something completely ridiculous. All is not lost, since drunk people don't hold grudges/remember things very well. The trick to bargaining with a drunk person is to distract and confuse. Know their weaknesses. In my case, I knew BSC was a serious oenophile. I parried her inquiries at first, pretending to be enthralled by the gift basket, but I was biding my time. 20 minutes later, she had bought me another Blue Moon, she had somehow finagled her friend's bike lock and the transaction was complete.

Today I went to Marathon Sports between Porter and Harvard Squares on my bike to get some new running shoes. Apparently you should only put 300-500 miles on a pair of shoes before sending them out to pasture. I put a cool 1,000 on my New Balance's, and the only reason I stopped using them is because my toe started falling out. Suffice to say I had a lot to learn from running professionals.

After locking up my bike (with my new lock), I sauntered into Marathon Sports and was greeted by a nice woman who told me about their 'Gait Analysis'. I don't think it was called gait analysis, probably something nicer like 'Stride', but I was a little disoriented from riding in traffic for the first time this year. She said I had a 'normal' walk, which I took as a compliment. If she had said anything else I probably would have felt like I had wasted 24 years of my life with insufficient footwear. Imagine what my life would have been like! That's like finding out you had superpowers on your deathbed. Sort of.    

She then brought my a pair of Asics (11.5) and then made me run awkwardly in them down Mass Ave. They felt nice, but kind of pinched my Achilles. She said that was because of the Memory Foam. I thought that was silly to have in a shoe and asked for another pair. She brought my 3 more pairs and generally left me to my own devices. I walked around outside and came back in and asked to try on the nifty Gray/Neon Green Nike's. She said they didn't have a lot of cushioning and were a 'lighter' shoe like that was a bad thing. I just thought they looked cool. Sure enough, I tried them on and they felt like I was running in Crocs (just kidding I've never worn Crocs). She was right, and I decided to defer to her expertise. I decided on a pair of Nike Moto 7's.

They conveniently have a nice little compartment in the insole for a Nike+ chip. Marathon Sports conveniently  have Nike+ Chip accessories right next to the register. I don't own in iPod (ugh), so I bought this:

It tracks your mileage, pace and calories burned and is '95%' accurate. Since any distance I foresee myself running will not be dramatically affected by being off by 5%, I couldn't resist. AND the Sportband plugs into your computer to track all of this FOR you! All of this came to $34 after the gift certificate and a 15% coupon (thanks SS). I can't wait to run tomorrow.