Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed that if people got out and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place, and I believed these shoes were better to run in. People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves.

As ever, the accountant in me saw the risk, the entrepreneur saw the possibility. So I split the difference and kept moving forward.

you run because the alternative, stopping, scares you to death.

Greece, I thought. No question. Greece.

blotto.

Because mothers are our first coaches.

There was the performance of his runners, and there was the performance of their shoes. Bowerman would note how the arches held up, how the soles gripped the cinders, how the toes pinched and the instep flexed. Then he’d airmail his notes and findings to Japan.

sinewy.

amanuensis,

For want of a better word,