"Do you always find a new reason to shop?"

That question was asked by my fiancee last week when I came home with new running shoes. And then was asked again when my new iPod and Nike+ arrived in the mail. And when I bought my new running skirt...well, you can see the pattern.

I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty fun buying all these cool running gadgets. I keep telling myself I'm investing in my health, but I know deep down that I'm not going to run better just because I have a snappy new lime green iPod strapped to my arm [oh yeah, I had to get a new armband, too...oops!].

But seriously, all of my new purchases DO serve a purpose. And I haven't spent BOATLOADS on all my new stuff. Justin's aunts graciously gave me a $100 gift card to Dick's for Christmas and it had been burning a hole in my wallet since then. Everyone says it's very important to make sure you have good shoes. I had been working out in a crappy pair of Avias I got on clearance at TJ Maxx and I realized they weren't going to cut it. I went to Dick's and, after watching me run, the guy realized my feet pronate inward and decided a particular pair of Asics would help with that. Though they didn't have the turbo rocket engines to propel me forward like I was hoping, they get the job done and feel great.

Now onto justifying explaining my reasoning for the iPod and Nike+....

I've been following a blog for sometime, Roni's Weigh about a super awesome woman who documented her weight loss journey and is now training for a marathon. [I followed her through her first 5K, 1/2 marathon and now she's going for the 26.2...definitely inspirational!] She trains with the Nike+ and raves about it.


It's a computer chip you put in your shoe and it transmits your distance, time, pace and a billion other things to your iPod and to you while you're running. I've been running the same 3-mile route for the past couple weeks but I wanted to explore some trails around the area and needed to know how far I had gone. [I figured the park rangers wouldn't be thrilled with me taking Rhonda Honda barreling through their serene trails and besides, the last experience I had with taking her 4-wheeling didn't go over so well...just kidding Dad!] I told the guy at Dick's I was looking for something to tell me how far I'd gone...he explained that the Nike+ was "more for pace" and then tried to upsell me the $300 Garmin Watch...yeah, no thanks. The $29.99 Nike+ will be just fine for me, thank you. Now, I'm not planning on going all Jackie Joyner-Kersey on anyone's ass at this 1/2 Marathon, but I'd still like to beat the group of 65-year old Red Hats who are walking the race.

The Nike+ is made for special Nike shoes that have a slot to slide the chip in. I wasn't going to drop even more cash on the shoes, besides I already had my cute Asics, so I had to figure something else out. After MacGyver-ing a pouch out of duct tape, I secured my Nike+ to my shoes and headed out for my first run with it on Friday night.

And about 3 minutes into my run, it got flung out of said MacGyver pouch and flew into a bush somewhere. Lovely. I did end up finding it but resorted to purchasing one of these bad boys from Amazon:
I really wanted to run with it for my 4-miler so I had to MacGyver-mixed-with-a-side-of-Chuck-Norris a new pouch on Saturday morning. Happy to say, we had success! It's so cool to run and hear a chick say, "Your time is ____. Your distance is ______. You are running at _______ pace." After the run, I came home, plugged the iPod into the computer, logged onto the Nike+ website and it showed me a graph of my first run. I think I can upload them on here but I just have to become unlazy enough to learn how to do it. Until then, live with the image in your mind of me being the fastest person on earth and my graph displaying: ERROR. UNABLE TO REPORT GRAPH BECAUSE RUNNER IS SO BADASS AND RAN TOO FAST FOR OUR SENSORS.

Right.

I've gotten a little too ahead of myself, but the reason for the new jazzy green iPod is because the Nike+ wasn't compatible with my old circa-1965 first generation iPod. Thanks to Sharon, the nice lady at Apple, I had a new iPod Nano on my doorstep two days after ordering, for only $102, including shipping!

Now onto the running skirt...okay, okay, I didn't REALLY need one...but if I feel cuter when I'm running, I'll run faster. At least that's what I told myself when I was at the cash register at Marshall's.

I don't plan on buying anything else for my hobby at the moment, but I'm sure I'll find reasons to buy new socks, sports bras, tank tops, visors, sweat bands, gooey energy crap and, I'm not gonna lie, I may or may not have been eyeing those Energy Jelly Beans at Dick's...