for granted

In college all we had to do was take a trip down to the equipment room. That’s where Tom, our equipment manager, would happily hand out our shoes and equipment. Actually, Tom seemed quite stingy with some people, as if the shoes were bought with his own money, but with me he was quite the giver. I could always score an extra shirt or two if need be, and if I thought I could use another pair of spikes, Tom always assured me it wasn’t a problem. Then once I graduated, I really struck gold. My contract with Adidas assured that I could go months without doing laundry as long as I continued to just purchase more underwear. I had so many pairs of shoes, some I would never even bother to look at, I’d just pass them off to whoever was lucky enough to wear 7.5. On top of this, I had my equipment allowance…basically a chance to get whatever else I might want that didn’t come in the shipments already sent to me. Thousands of dollars to blow meant that each and every friend and family member could bet that every Christmas gift and Birthday gift would contain 3 stripes. I had everyone I knew looking fly at the gym – or just lounging around the house if the gym wasn’t really their cup of tea. After my contract with Adidas ended and I switched to wearing the swoosh, I rid my closet of every item I had accumulated. Most of it went to my friends, and the remaining items ended up at the goodwill. Sad as it was to part with clothes with the tags still attached and shoes never taken out of their boxes, I did what I needed to do to make room for a whole new brand.

Then the shipments stopped coming. For a while it was no big deal. If you’ve been a track athlete for long enough you accumulate enough workout clothes and shoes that will sustain you for quite some time. So maybe I have to wear last seasons sports bra to practice where in year’s past that would have been the first thing in the giveaway bag. No big deal. At the end of the day spandex is spandex. I’m not even afraid to cross-brand if I have to. (ok…it still bothers me a little). But the thing that you can’t get away with as easily, are shoes. I’ve always gone through running shoes and competition spikes quickly, knowing that there was always a pile in the closet to replace them. But there is no pile anymore and I’ve just about exhausted my current supply.

If I had to go back and do it over again, perhaps I would have hoarded a bit more. I never thought there would come a time when I might actually have to purchase shoes, but for the immediate future that seems to be the case. In my line of work, top of the line shoes are not a luxury, they’re a necessity. I use about four different kinds of training shoes in any given week. It’s times like these where I wish I could just go see Tom. I wish it were that simple.