And so, I’ve resolved to start running again. It’s a sort of mini-epiphany, the kind I curiously only have when the weather gets crappy and the number of nice days in a month starts thinning to a handful. But it’s nothing new. My athletic ambition is bi-polar, it seems, and without a working calendar.
But how I came to realize my lapse in running could easily be a case study in Advertising. A book review for Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run,” which first caught my attention on a library shelf almost a month ago, led me to order the book online this afternoon. A link to an interview with McDougall turned my interest to long-distance running, and from there I linked to an article on the benefits of running barefoot. I remembered my own tattered running shoes, and rationalized that I should probably buy a new pair if I want to run in earnest. A trip to the shoe store tonight yielded not just a pair of shoes but also two pairs of running shorts (on sale) and some padded Dri-fit socks for good measure. In all, one advertisement on the sidebar of a website netted $84.36 of economic activity, from me alone. Every ad rep in the country is trying to figure out what it takes to make a lot of people do often what one person does occasionally: Read an advertisement -> spend money.
