Best. Shoes. Ever.

If you’re not familiar with it, there’s a sensor that goes in your shoe, and a receiver that snaps on to your iPod. The iPod shows how far you’ve gone, how fast you’re going, how many calories you’re burning, and so on. While you’re walking or running, you get an occasional voiceover telling you similar information.

After about a half hour today, I decided my legs kind of hurt, and I was about done. Not a minute later, I get the voiceover… “One kilometer to go.” For you heathens who didn’t have to learn Metric and Imperial units in school, a kilometer is about… well… it isn’t very far. So I pushed further, because I didn’t want Ms. Nike to be ashamed of me. “One half kilometer to go.” Well, this is taking too long, so I’ll turn the speed up. A-ha! Motivation!

I got home, and let it sync with the Nike site. Yay, me. Faster than last time.

Fuck you, sporty whore who can run.

I’m actually working up to running. Right now, it’s more of a brisk walk that takes forever. But Nike has has convinced me that I need a wonderful array of things, conveniently located on their site that tracks all of my uploaded data. Like a wristband. And an armband. And a watch. And better shoes. And a new outfit. All of these things will make me a better runner, even though I’m not really a runner right now. I will be one, and I’ll finally understand the allure.

More importantly, I’ll look closer to the people my age at the gym. Right now, I tend to hang with the 60+ crowd, because most of them are walking pretty slow. So, I imagine I pass myself off in the “medical needs” section, rather than “Holy fuck, he’s huge” when I’m next to some 19 year-old pixie who has been running like a fucking gazelle 30 minutes prior to my arrival, and stays an hour later than I do. Not that I’m bitter about it. Realistically, I can’t be. She didn’t shove those pizzas down my throat.

Speaking of Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing this Friday. Had I known earlier, I might have wanted to go if there was an AmEx pre-sale. But I just checked and the whole floor is $92 General Admission, and anywhere else decent is like $103. Maybe if this was a farewell tour, but shit, that’s like a new pair of shoes and a Nike+ watch for two tickets. Sorry Bruce. I don’t think so.