Pre did wear the swoosh!!

OK, I watched Without Limits, the story of Steve Prefontaine. It was awesome. A new favorite sports movie. A few more things that I did not know about the man...

• His Oregon college coach Bill Bowerman was one of the co-founders of Nike - you may have heard of them. Bill made shoes for all of his runners. That made Pre, one of the original testers of Nike prototypes. That pretty darned cool. There's a part in the movie where Bill makes the swoosh for the first time but didn't get to wear it he died before he could compete in the Montreal Olympics. As you can see from the image below, that is not true - a nice dramatization though!
• He was also one of the key people who drew attention to the unfair practices of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). After his death, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 removed the organization's governance role.

OK, I'm going to swing this conversation back around from Nike to my old friends at New Balance. This new series of zero drop shoes are coming out in 2012 and I for one am excited. There were some videos up a while back and then New Balance pulled them. All of a sudden, there are new videos up from Running Warehouse on YouTube.

Here's the Minimus Trail (MT00) coming March 2012. See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J8DMZro1hU&feature=relmfu

Here's the Minimus Road (MR00) coming March 2012. See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-QoNQo2qPQ

Not sure about shocking pink but I do like the look of the MR00. I have been looking for a zero drop road shoe with enough padding to protect from the beating of distance and this could be it. I'd like to try the MT00's but I may like the MT110's better. I love my MT10's but I am not sure I'd like to run over very rough ground with them. The MT00's will be similar to the minimal padding of the MT10's. Pete Larson (RunBlogger) had a picture of the new MT110's. The pair he tested were not attractive but he loved them. Everyone has great things to say about them.

Runners World had a better picture but I'm not sure about the metallic look. I'd be interested to see what colors they end up coming in. I think they are due in February 2012? It could be the MR00 and MT110 for me if my wife doesn't kill me.

Hey New Balance! If anyone ever starts reading this blog and you notice me, can you hook me up? I really want to be a tester. Then, we can discuss sponsorship. Baby steps.