See Diva Run

You may find yourself at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon having lunch with Alberto Salazar and Adam and Kara Gaucher, and you may ask yourself — well, how did I get here?

Back from left to right - 714OnTheRun, Snowcrash, DatabaseDiva, 1Miletgo, Edens, Alberto Salazar, Abelisle, JenW, TeeW, LeoRNR, Mighty Weezie, Pmag, Adam Goucher.
Front - Munckee, Monk_Monkey, Kara Goucher, Swoosh Diva, Kynafork.

It all started last September when I bought an iPod Nano and a Nike+ Sport Kit. It sat around in the box for a couple of weeks, but once I started using it, I was hooked! By November I was running 150 miles/month, which was probably a bit much. Eight months, one grandchild, 200 runs and 1250 miles later, I had made it to the number 3 spot on the world wide leader board for women 45-49. That was when I saw a post on the Nike challenge forum that Nike was inviting a dozen of the most “active and intriguing nikeplus.com users” to Beaverton to get product feedback. When I saw the post, I immediately checked my e-mail, and there was my invitation. It pays to be colorful!

I arrived at PDX at 10:20 p.m., picked up my bag and started to head for the door. That was when it occurred to me I didn’t know where to find my ride. I turned and started walking toward the information counter, and that is when I saw the man holding the “swoosh” card. I asked if he was there for me, and he asked if I was Ms. Kelley. He walked me out to the parking garage, where my town car and driver were waiting for me. Darrell drove me into town, and dropped me off at The Westin. When I got to my room, there was a running bag and a shoe box waiting for me. There were actually two pairs of shoes, a pair of Air Zoom/RS that are super light. I put them on and ran laps around my room. There was also a pair of Air Vomeros, an awesome, lightweight running jacket, shorts, socks, a shirt and a running bra. There was also a new Sport Kit, a storage case and an armband, which had been personalized with my Nike+ screen name, DatabaseDiva. I put my treasure away, and crawled into my “Heavenly Bed”, to get some rest for the next day.

We met in the lobby at 7:30. The other members of the group were “Edens”, “Mighty Weezie”, “Monk_Monkey, “JenW”, her husband, “TeeW”, “LeoRNR”, “Snowcrash”, “1miletogo”, “munckee”, “714OnTheRun”, “Pmag” and “abelisle”. Our hostesses, Kyna and Elyse greeted us and led us out to the bus. This was not your everyday bus. It was more like a limousine on the inside, with 2 big screen televisions.

When we arrived at Nike headquarters, the first thing we were told was “no photos”, which is why I don’t have any to share. I’m hoping they will send us the photos they took. The original plan called for a tour, but it was later moved to Thursday, so I missed it. They took us to a conference room behind the library, and served us breakfast. The morning was dedicated to discussion about the Nikeplus.com web site. They showed us the changes that had been released that day, and got our feedback about other issues related to the web site. We also saw “previews of coming attractions”. Believe me, things are just going to keep getting better. Their enthusiasm for the product was really exciting, as we “super users” are also very enthused about the product, and want to see it to continue to develop. Nike is excited about the “super users” as well. They treated us like we were visiting celebrities!

We took a break for lunch, and headed to another building. When we arrived, Alberto Salazar was waiting for us. The “serious” runners in the group were pretty excited about that. He seemed like a very nice man, and I was surprised to see him because of his recent heart attack. He said that he was feeling much better. We were also joined by Adam and Kara Gaucher, who answered questions from the group. Everyone was very nice, but to be honest, I was probably more excited about meeting the people behind Nike+ than about meeting running celebrities. On the other hand, meeting celebrities makes a better story

We spent the afternoon talking about hardware and other upcoming products. The highlight of the afternoon, possibly the entire event was the Amp+ preview. The Amp+ is a remote control for the iPod and sport kit that is built into a wristband. News of this product first leaked last fall, and we’ve been anxiously waiting for it to be available. The product is still in test, but it should be available in the fall, unless you are a super user! We were invited to participate in the test phase. I’m so excited, I can hardly wait to start testing! Our last discussion was about running music, then it was time to head to the Lance Armstrong building and change into our running clothes for a lap around the campus, with a pause to run a lap around the Bowerman track.

I’ve been hurting since Seafair, and running on a very limited basis, but I wanted to join in on the group run. I put on my new, super light Zoom RS’s for luck, and was able to keep up with the front of the pack for most of the trip out. My calf and shin were stiff, and hurting, and I was starting to slow down when I stepped in a hole. It was like someone had shot be in the back of the leg with an arrow. I would have stopped right there but I heard someone say we were at the track. I hobbled to the track and watched while some of the group had a little race. TeeW is a smokin’ fast runner. It was fun to watch him go. Michael had driven out to watch the race, and he gave me a ride back to the Armstrong building. We grabbed our gear and headed to the bus. We were running late, and would have about 30 minutes to shower and get back to the bus to go to dinner.

They took us to a great local restaurant, where we had dinner and drinks with our Nike hosts. It was a great finish to a really great day. It was over much too soon. A town car picked me up at 7:30 this morning and took me to the airport. Those of us who didn’t go home this morning were invited to shop at the Nike employee store, where all of the merchandise is half price. Since I came home with a bag full of free shoes and merchandise, I’m not going to pout.

It was such a fantastic experience meeting all of the great people from the Nike+ design and marketing teams. I’m thrilled to know that we will remain in touch, as they want to continue to get feedback from us. Now I just need to get my leg to heal so I can start running again!

Additional photos available here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 8:41 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.