I held history today...

...in the form of a pair of Prefontaine's track flats!! A fellow runner I met through work ran with Pre at Oregon. We met for lunch and he brought a bunch of programs from Oregan track meets, as well as a photo album full of pictures of himself at practice and meets with Prefontaine and the other great runners from that team. He had a ton of stories to share that were absolutely incredible.

As we finished lunch he reached into his bag of memorablia and pulled out a pair of waffles. Apparently Bowerman had made this shoes in his kitchen with his wife's waffle iron!! These shoes were the beginning of a new era in racing. They were given to Prefontaine to try during a few runs, he didn't really like them, so he gave a few suggestions to Bowerman, then offered them up to Jim Ferris (who I met for lunch). Jim took them and ran some races in them. The shoes even had "PRE'S" written on the back of the heel!

There are only a few pairs around, some of which are in glass cases at the Nike Headquarters. It really was an inspirational meeting, and gave me some more motivation to get out there an run.