Bill Bowerman, the Oregon track coach and co-founder of Nike, was famous for forging shoes from waffle-irons. His experimentation, guidance and wealth of knowledge sparked innovations that help athletes to this day. At Nike specialty running stores, we are all told to "Remember the Man," in our pursuit to aid the common runner. I paid homage to Bowerman by:

-Running in every Nike shoe we carried-- and learning how to describe their features and benefits in English, French and Spanish.

-Leading group runs every Thursday and introducing a dynamic stretching routine, complete with form drills. On the longer runs, participants would be regaled with Nike legends of old.

MKTG is an international production firm that handles events for Nike in the Northeast. As Fall settled in, they hired me and three other runners to live across the street from Van Cortlandt Park-- home to New York's biggest cross-country races-- and act as Nike-apostles to high school runners. My tasks included:

-Driving the Nike Van to high schools across New York City. Once there, we'd showcase four different shoes for everyone to trial, then practice with the team. We weren't allowed to get passed.

-Manning the Nike Event space. Every day we'd open our gates to the hundreds of high-schoolers practicing or racing in the park. They would flock to the Spike Bus, an orange behemoth of a vehicle that slept next to our house, where they could customize t-shirts, trial Nike gear, learn about Nike tech or even get their gait analyzed.

-Designing posters, postcards and on one memorable, chilly occasion, an enormous interactive mural.

-Managed the "Nike East High School Running" Facebook page, and created content-- videos, photos, artwork-- to document our exploits

Jackrabbit is running store in the middle of Manhattan, staffed entirely by passionate athletes. It offers apparel, gear, and training programs, but it specializes in "gait-analysis," where customers can find the perfect shoe for their foot. While working there:

-I analyzed thousands of customers, fitting them for one of fifty different running shoes. I helped treat their ailments and injuries, offering advice from personal experience. After two years, I could guess their shoe-size just by looking.

-I started a weekly group run, fostering it from a close-knit group of four, to a wild gathering of over thirty runners charging through the streets along a winding chalk-trail.

-I started the Group-Runs Email, which started as a simple reminder and grew into a weekly newsletter.

-I designed dozens of posters and postcards for in-store events.

-I designed and composed dioramas for our storefront window--sometimes simply a landscape, other times an intricate narrative scene featuring space-explorers clad in Jackrabbit apparel.