“Look! I got new shoes!”

By Les Tan/Red Sports

“But I like it in RED!” I tell Katherine Kee (right) of Fulford PR. But she says it’s the previous season model. Wasted. Anyway, they didn’t have it anymore in my size. (Photo 1 © Joseph Lee/Red Sports)

Orchard Central, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 — “Would you like to collect a running badge? All you have to do is run 500m in less than four minutes,” said Katherine Kee of Fulford PR at the Nike We Run SG 10K race pack collection.

And before I could help myself, I said: “Sure!”

I’m such a sucker for badges.

So I get on this treadmill and, ignoring the advice that the treadmill would gradually pick up speed, I happily proceeded to increase the speed way past the recommended mark. Before I knew it, it was going way, way, way too fast, and with the added stress of Katherine and the two Nike staffers in attendance looking on, I dialed down the speed before the treadmill sent me flying across the first floor of Orchard Central.

I did my 500m in just over two minutes, and got my ‘Super Runner’ badge. With dignity intact.

On to the next station — getting my customised Nike race tee.

Happily, I got to meet Loy Liang Xun, a St Joseph’s Institution old boy whom we had interviewed for a rugby story some years back on REDSPORTS.SG.

Liang Xun walked me through the process, I choose my design, and then it was on to the next station — hot stamping it onto my race tee, which is what everyone has to wear on race day on October 21st, or else you can’t run.

At the hot stamping station, Jo Teng did her magic with the pressing machine. 15 seconds at 141 degrees centigrade, and the hot stamping was done. Jo told me only 300 runners would get this personalised service.

In the back room, I stumbled upon Vijay, the country marketing manager for Singapore, doing his part to help with the hot stamping.

“Hey, let me take a picture of you working,” I asked, but he modestly said no and chased me out.

Looking for something else to do, I thought I would give the guys at the foot scan station some work, even though I knew I had flat feet.

Whitley Bong made me walk twice barefoot on a sensor, once for each foot strike, and then took one look at my scan. He was silent for awhile, probably thinking how to break it to me. I was waiting for him to exclaim something but Whitley was totally professional about it. He laughed when I said to him, “Very flat, huh?”

I then took my foot scan to Corey Chan who then pointed out three pairs of shoes that I could wear for my flat feet — the Lunarglide+ 4 Shield, the Lunareclipse+ 2 Shield, and Zoom Structure+ 16 Shield.

For 10 years now, I have only ever worn one Nike model — Air Structure Triax — given my flat feet. I still remember the revelation it was — for the first time, my soles and shins didn’t hurt from running, and I could go on and on for as long as I could or liked, as long as I was fit enough. Before then, I had grown up thinking I just wasn’t cut out for running. My feet would hurt like crazy after playing football or short runs.

So I am one of those guys who, when finding one thing that works, repeats my behaviour. So every time I buy a new Nike pair, I look for the same model.

“But why not try a new model?” I thought to myself. So I finally got my hands on a new ride — the Lunarglide+ 4 Shield.

When I got home, I said: “Look! I got new shoes!”

The Wife’s eyes start to glaze over as I chattered on about the shoes, the race tee.

Sigh. Only runners will know what I mean.

N.B. This post is part of a sponsored collaboration with Nike Singapore for the We Run SG 10K event.