A Sound Mind in a Sound Body

As you may have read a few weeks ago (sorry for the late post!), I won a trip to Irvine, California to visit the ASICS America headquarters,  meet some fancy people and design my very own pair of Gel-Nimbus 13′s. I had no idea what to expect but I can certainly say now, it was the trip of a life time.

Our first night in, we didn’t have any thing scheduled, and being new to town, decided to stop by The District. For dinner we indulged at In n Out, a local favorite. I was particularly excited about this place because I had actually watched a documentary about it last year, and the filmmaker’s enthusiasm was infectious.

And for good reason. After filling up on burgers and fries, we wandered around the shopping center until Happy Feet 2 started. In Alaska, you go see movies, because there’s not much else to do. In California, apparently they do other stuff because we were literally the only two people in the theater.

The next day we woke up early and headed anxiously awaited Tracy, one of the marketing coordinators, to take us to the ASICS Headquarters.

Might I just take a moment to thank California for being stunning, and keeping their ridiculous flaws to themselves while we visited? The weather was mild, but quite warm for my icy Alaskan blood, and sunny. So beautifully sunny all the time. Even that pesky Santa Ana Wind thing didn’t bother us a bit while we were down there.

Rachel and I were introduced to the ASICS family, which I got the very distinct impression they very much were a family.  Even with the overwhelming sense of intimidation I felt, I still felt very welcomed, and at home. Some of the employees have been working there for over 20 years, and considering it was a relatively small office, that’s pretty impressive.

Tracy put on a couple of video’s to help get us up to speed with the history of ASICS, and I’m not going to lie. I was very distracted by  all the cool origami and creation of the video I wasn’t really listening to the voice over.

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

 

I could not get over all the shoes! Quite literally thousands of them, in buckets, on walls and shelves, in the early design process, getting ready for next season and beyond, just hanging out all over the place.

Every time I looked up, I saw something new and sparkly to take a look at. I wondered how I could make something unique and original when so many of the “good ideas” had already been made? Where do you start? How do they do this? Its nuts!

The Fitting of Shoes

Apparently the making of the shoes takes place on the other side of the country, and the ASICS team didn’t want Rachel and I to leave empty handed, so we got fitted for our own pair to take home immediately!

First things first they made fun of me walking in there with Minuzo’s on, which I argued fiercely were actually Saucony’s. I was wrong. I really ought to pay better attention to these things. I was going to buy a pair of ASICS before I left for California but talked myself out of it at the last second. Lesson learned.

Bryce and Chad fitted me in several pairs of shoes, making sure my gait and what not was appropriate. They didn’t want it to be too snug in the toe, or on the sides, cause you know… Blisters suck. I tried on several pairs and while any of them probably would have worked well enough, I’m definitely happy with my final choice.

We each picked out a pair of Kayano 18′s- mine are white with blue, and her’s are grey/black and pink.

After picking out my shoes, they packed up my old Minuzo’s for me. How sweet!

And then it was time for lunch!

We had lunch at Javier’s, a neat restaurant somewhere in Irvine (lets be honest, I had no idea where I was the whole time) that made delicious Mexican food and presented all kinds of pretty. We took up this U shaped cabana that made it very difficult to sneak out of. Not that I wanted to of course. I’m just very thankful that I also didn’t need to use the restroom during the meal.

Of course, there were all the usual questions:

How long have you been in Alaska?
           Is it really cold there? Like, how cold?
And its dark all the time, right?
          Do you have a pet Polar Bear?

 

Okay, so they didn’t ask that last one. Thought you might be surprised how often that does get asked in earnest.

It was a really great opportunity to ask questions, and Tracy and had a nice conversation about Social Media and the differences in popularity between Twitter and Facebook. I spend more time on twitter than Facebook in regards to my alterego Lily Fluffbottom, so I tend to have bias toward it. I think its easier to get to know people on Twitter, and more communicative. Whether I communicated that clearly or not is another matter. Talking isn’t really my strong point.

It seemed more or less everyone was from California, or if they came from far away, leaving was an idea of the past. I was very quickly understanding that concept. It was beautiful everyday we were there.

Another huge but reduced subplot to this trip; when Rachel and I were in Seattle, I realized I had lost my ID. I was going crazy looking for it, and was scared (and kind of hopeful) I wasn’t going to be able to fly back to Anchorage with out it. I took every single item out of my purse, and couldn’t find it. Rachel dug through my purse and didn’t find it.

Luckily, as we were leaving Javier’s, the waiter followed us out and handed me my ID and a baggage reciept which had fallen out of the abyss which is my purse. I am seriously the luckiest person in the world. I could have legitmately lost my ID at that point but it was returned by the greatest waiter in the world. It was like magic.

Soon enough it was time to design shoes!

While we were waiting for our fabulous assistants to arrive (read: the actual designers of the ASICS brand) this question was posed to us:

“Do you know about your surprise for tomorrow?” asked Bryce.

Yes, we solemnly nodded back. As if the day couldn’t be more unreal, Tracy had earlier informed us that the following day, we would be doing a “fun run” with Sara Hall. You know, the winner of the NYC Dash to the Finish 5k, last month? The Co-Founder of The Steps Foundation, a non-profit organization to fight global poverty through better health? The cute little wife of Ryan Hall? Yeah. That one.

Rachel nearly squealed when we found out. I didn’t know exactly who she was, but all you really need to know is that she’s pretty damn fast.

During lunch Nancy asked me what colors I was thinking of picking for my shoes, and I jokingly replied, “I’m thinking about a nice terracotta.” (it was funny because the Mexican restaurant we were at had terracotta walls.) Once we got back to the studio, I realized that suddenly seemed like a good idea. I love the light pink/dark pink/brown/tan/splash of blue-or-sea-green color scheme. My bed is made up of those colors. Its pretty damn girly, but very rich, like chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream. Sounds delicious, right?

Rachel went kind of the opposite direction. She wanted lots of color, as many neons as she could get. And while she was looking for her palate, she happened across a light terracotta pink with silver glitter sparkling throughout.

Score!

The next part was pretty easy. We decided the meshy parts would be a deep magenta-ish pink, the side panel would be silver with blue on the inside, and the sole would combine them all. Kind of. Shoes are complicated.

Seriously.

Go look at your running shoes right now. There are a dozen different parts and each of them could theoretically be a different color. It blows my mind. I told the designers I’ll never look at a shoe the same way again. There is just so much going on there, and they make it look easy! They are truly complex works of art. Simply amazing.

After the designing of the shoes, the staff handed us some swag bags. I regret to inform you while this was just yet another fantastic bonus, I never did get around to taking pictures of what was inside.

We each got a shirt, pair of shorts, sweat pants, zip up hoodie, winter running gloves, a fleece lined hat and matching stretchy gloves, ear warmer band, head bands, ear-bud headphones and a sweet gym bag to stow it all in.

I’ve been using that gym bag since I’ve returned to Alaska, and I just have to say it is amazing. It has twice the space my other one did, but still fits in the locker nicely.

 

Are you exhausted? I’m exhausted. It only took me over a week to write this post. But still, there’s more. That evening Rachel and I went to South Coast Plaza, the largest shopping center in Southern California. It has 250 stores. I think we visited about 15 of them, in total. Each corner had a three story Christmas tree, each one elaborately decorated and stunning. Again, I am truly impressed by all the commerce we miss out on by living in Alaska. I can definitely see my future, running along side a sandy beach, watching the kids play by the water.

Actually, I think that was a day in my past. More to come, to stay tuned!