A few weekends ago now, I had the opportunity to go to Niketown in San Francisco with a new friend of mine I met at the gym. My wonderful new gym friend has a brother who works for Nike and she gets to use his discount! :)
We drove up to the city and parked in a nearby parking garage. We walked the approximately 2 blocks to the Nike store and hopped onto the escalator to take us to the first shopping floor of the store. As I caught a full view of the store I was slightly overwhelmed … it was HUGE!!
Thankfully, my gym friend was an old pro at navigating the store and we immediately to the escalator up another floor to the women’s section. She pointed here and there naming off things like tennis gear, golf attire, cross training, running etc. I took a lap around the floor just trying to absorb the scene. I was most interested in shoes so I decided to start there. First I looked at the wall of cross-training shoes and then I walked over to the probably twice as large wall of running shoes. I was way out of my league.
My friend came to the rescue and pulled one of the sales associates over to me. She helped me explain what I was looking for even though I didn’t seem to know what that was. I had worn the same Reebox Easy Tones for nearly 3 years (don’t get me wrong I loved those shoes, but 3 years took its toll on them!) and before than I wore LA Gears; yes, LA Gears. The associate picked out a couple pairs that might be best for me and told me why. Everything sounded great when he said it, but he was talking so fast and about so much that it practically went in one ear and out the other.
After spending a good 20 minutes being educated about the different Nike styles I was again left standing in front of the wall of shoes. What was a girl to do? Well, I just started trying them all on! I must have asked for at least 7 different pairs of cross training shoes to try on. Some were too soft, some were too light, and some just looked weird. Then I found a shoe that I wanted to try on but they did not have the color I wanted so I told them I would try on the other color “just for fit.” I slipped on the white and yellow shoe and that was it. I knew I had to have them; that very pair.
After having tackled the smaller wall of shoes I moved on to the running wall so find a second pair of shoes for my cardio only days. I picked out 4 pairs of shoes and asked for each of them to try on. The first pair I tried on was gray and yellow. I loved them. I knew I loved them from the moment I took a step in them, but I needed to be sure they were the pair I wanted, so I tried on the rest. None of the others even compared!
So there I had it after hearing all about the styles and trying on tons of different shoes in different sizes, I ended up with a cross training shoe (white and yellow) and a running shoe (gray and yellow).
I must admit I really had no idea there were so many different types of tennis shoes. There are shoes for different sports and then within the sports for who your particular foot is shaped, and then there are different weights and of course different colors. If you are a shoe person, it might be worth starting to work out just to justify expanding on a whole new section of your shoe wardrobe!
I had a lot of fun, learned a lot, and bought my first (and second) pair of Nikes. After nearly 2 months of wearing the shoes I can honestly say they make a huge difference. I love them!
It takes gumption to try a new brand of workout shoes!
No comments:
Post a Comment