Brilliant: I won a pair of $150 Mizunos

Look what just came in the mail today! Sincerest thanks to my friends at @MizunoRunning and their Mezamashii Run Project for the new Wave Creation 13 running shoes. "Mezamashii" is the Japanese word for "brilliant" or "eye-opening," and I entered their contest by posting a story early this summer about my "most brilliant run" -- running through rain all day and proposing to Lisa at the finish line of the 2009 New Jersey Marathon. Mizuno informed me last Friday that I had won shoes, so I was able to pick out a pair on their site, choose the color, call their customer service with my winning code and say which pair I wanted, and voila, they are here 16 days before I run the New York City Marathon. Think I have time to break them in enough to use them in that race? I am going to give it a shot. Read my winning post >

I am one of at least a couple of thousand winners of shoes in the Mezamashii Run Project, and unfortunately I was not emailed in time to have a chance to beat the Sept. 15 deadline to win a trip to run in the 2012 Osaka Marathon on Nov. 25. That would be brilliant! Thanks to my friend Michelle (@nycrunningmama, follow her) for telling me about the contest! Part of me wonders if this is karma, because last December I donated eight of the 11 pairs of my used running shoes to Soles 4 Souls, so that they could be worn by needy people around the world. Read that post here and see how you can do the same. Here is a look at the new Wave Creation 13s -- my first Mizunos. Even King Bingley gave them his immediate sniff of approval: