Snazzy Kicks

Over the past few years, I've been lucky to be involved with a running club in New York called Run NYC. It was sponsored by Nike, and 3 runs a week were hosted out of the Niketown store. Through this, I accumulated a hefty collection of Nike socks, gloves, and other giveaways, and discovered my obsession with Nike Tempo running shorts. Please don't ask me how many I own... let's just say I don't need to do laundry weekly.

Anyway, at one point I became involved in an ongoing focus group, called Nike Pack, where we did various running activities. I tested products, completed surveys, and merged two of my passions- writing and running. One assignment was to give my running shoes a job review, as if they were a company employee, or to write a personal ad to meet "the ones." Another particularly fun task was to design a pair of Nike ID shoes (and then complete a survey about the ease of the online design tool).

Either my design, my survey answers, or my general enthusiasm impressed the marketing gurus enough to send me the shoes I designed. The unfortunate thing is that they are too cool to actually wear running (I blow through 4-5 pairs a year, so I wouldn't want to wear these out so quickly!).

You can design your own shoes here

These are Nike Lunarlites.