Tag Archives: New Balance

10-10-10 Minus 3: Dress for Success

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New Balance Heathered Short Sleeve

Was supposed to rest today but couldn’t resist a little 5K. This weather is borrowed sunshine.

The weather forecast for Sunday is solidifying: Low 58/High 80 as of this writing. Gorgeous! I can pretty much finalize the wardrobe at this point, and it won’t be much. Shorts, short-sleeve shirt, shoes and socks.

Runners have more shirts than they can wear. It’s usually the giveaway for most races; it’s often the easy Christmas gift for a runner. The shirt is where the runner asserts personality. The race t-shirt exerts experience and sometimes exoticism if the race is off-the-beaten path (even metaphorically; I get the best comments when I wear my turquoise finisher’s shirt for the SF Women’s Half Marathon). Though most races know to give out wicking shirts rather than killer cotton, the fit and cut can be all over the map. And the graphic design, well, in some cases, embarrassing. Fortunately, most bigger races give out pretty good shirts. I’m partial to the old Chicago Distance Classic and new Rock N Roll Chicago editions, in addition the SF shirt mentioned above and the 2009 Chicago Marathon shirt. Continue reading →

10-10-10 Minus 4 It’s the Shoes

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From this year's Nike Chicago Marathon line

Four miles this morning. Glorious weather. I’m getting giddy with excitement; I don’t think I felt this way last year. It might be the cold weather then (I hate cold weather!), but it also might have been some nervousness about my first marathon. No butterflies this time.

Jan and I went over to the Nike showroom this afternoon to see the line of gear designed for this year’s race. Since Nike’s a major sponsor, they design a full line of shorts, shirts, jackets, etc. and it’s different every year. It sells out, some even at the pre-race expo, I’m told. I found out the hard way last year, when I wanted to get a Chicago Marathon running shirt as a Christmas gift for my Seattle-based daughter, Erica, who’s taken up the sport on her own volition. Not a sign of such at Niketown, a mere two months after the race.

The first year Nike sponsored the Chicago Marathon, 2008, they sent me over a bunch of the shirts and I loved them. They still remain among my favorite running shirts—design, fit and comfort—in fact, I wore the long-sleeve version in last year’s marathon. (Ironically, the only marathon shirt I have to commemorate the marathon I actually ran is the official shirt. But there’s some poetry in that, I think.) Continue reading →