For some local news, the Komen Florida Suncoast Race for the Cure will be held tomorrow at Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg, FL. Don't forget to stop by our New Balance Tampa booth, say hi to Ken and receive a coupon towards your next in store purchase. See you there!

Next week starting October 7-9 is the 3-Day Walk for the Tampa Bay area. Walkers will begin in Clearwater, FL and walk 60 miles through the Tampa area ending at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL.

For a walk or race near you visit:
The 3-Day
or the Race for the Cure series.

Just a quick update on the my past food pyamid blog called Food Pyramid Confusion.

To confuse us even more, yesterday, the government come out with a special food pyramid for children. You can view this pyramid at www.mypyramid.gov. On the website, your child can play, My Pyramid Blast Off Game, which is an interactive computer game. Also there is a coloring page, a worksheet and tips for families. Very good stuff to help your child learn to make good food choices.

Some other related blogs about children and their diet.

Let's go hiking kids. New Balance has come out with a kids only waterproof hiking boot, the KA865BKG. The boot has maximum duribility for off-road activities with a waterproof leather upper. Available in Grade school sizes, 3.5-7 in Medium width, Wide width and Extra Wide width.

KA865BKG

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Pink is the color used to represent breast cancer awareness.
According to this article New Balance and other companies are putting pink ribbons on their products to increase breast cancer awareness and raise funds for breast cancer research and foundations such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation

Show your support by purchasing a pink ribbon product this month.

Check out this list of pink ribbon products.

I blogged about Governor Huckabee in the past.

We added a bunch of New Balance shoes to our Clearance page.

All colors in the New Balance 991's for both Men and Women are $99.99, a savings of $25.00 per pair.
Load up, this model is being replaced by the 992 at the end of 2005.

Let your kids check out these games online this week-end when they say, “I’m so bored, what can I do?”

I’m sure they love to play games. New Balance has some games for kids which encourage sportsmanship and fun.

Ahh, remember the New Balance running shoe, the 879. What a good run that had! It was defined as having a "Cadillac ride" according to this Runner’s World review. It was wide and soft. Too wide for some runners even if you wore the narrow width. Then New Balance discontinued it.

Now what happens when New Balance discontinues a successful model, it updates it. So along came the 880. Many customers complained that the 880 just didn’t fit like the879. The toe box was not as wide. Great for someone who doesn’t need the extra room, but most 879 wearers wanted the cushioning and width back.

Well, now the 880 is being discontinued. And that’s right, it has been updated to the Men’s M881WG and the Women's W881WB . And the fit, it fits more like the 879 did, soft and wide. So to those of you who loved the 879, the 881 is the running shoe for you.

W881WB

M881WG

We received a shipment of the 895 which is a new model for New Balance. It is a running shoe. It features ABZORB EX, which is premium abzorb cushioning. This technology features energy displacement encapsulated engineered thermoplastic. This technology is designed to provide optimal cushioning, comfort and stability. The 895 will come in several different color combinations for both men and women. We'll keep you posted on how this new model is reviewed.

W895BL

M895SB

You may see New Balance expanding their outerwear line in the future.

Last week New Balance announced a license agreement for outerwear apparel with the Levy Group.

The Levy Group will bring out the New Balance Performance Outerwear collection in the 2006 Fall Collection.

I found this blog today in my search for New Balance news and I wanted to share it with you.

It is finally here, the long awaited return of the Men’s
New Balance trail recovery shoe that we have had so many requests for. Check them out, they will go fast.

They are available in black and gray. They are both on a gray sole.

M801SGR

M801SBK

Hey, it’s Vic again and I have more details about our Gift Card program that we'll be launching soon.

First I need to clear up some earlier business...

When I blogged about this program a couple of days ago the sample screen shot demonstrated a $50 gift certificate item. We actually have plans to offer the Gift Card in smaller denominations. In fact I believe we'll go with $10.

OK! Here's the latest screen shot. If it's a little fuzzy that's because I needed to shrink the image down just a bit so that it would fit on your monitor.



If you've previously purchased from our site then you'll immediately recognize this page as the final step of our checkout process. Note, that the basket contains some gift cards. Anytime our system recognizes a gift card in your basket then you'll be offered an opportunity to send a personalized message to the recipient of the gift card.

Tomorrow I should have details regarding the Account Balance System.

Hey guys, I received alot of emails from you looking for the Men's New Balance 801 slip on runningrecovery shoe. Well, it's on it's way to New Balance Tampa. I'll keep you posted when it arrives.

Awhile back I wrote a blog about Nike pulling their products out of Sears when Sears purchased Kmart. Many other brands such as New Balance, Reebok, Sketchers, Adidas are Sold in Department Stores but for some reason Nike wasn’t too confident about what the Sears/ Kmart marriage would mean. Well, maybe Nike had feared that their products would end up on Kmart shelves.

Needless to say, New Balance has ended up in the Sears Essentials shelves. The new name for the old Kmart. According to this article, The Sears Essentials store has opened in Noblesville, Minnesota which is among the first in the nation of a new hybrid in retailing. Sears Essentials features the popular product lines of discounter Kmart. But it will carry the clothing, home improvement and appliances of Sears.

I’m anxious for one to come to Tampa. The reviews seem to be good but darn, no more blue light specials, oh well!

Many out there know the meaning of a pink ribbon. Many companies are now involved with putting the pink ribbon on their merchandise. Many New Balance products bear the pink ribbon to bring about breast cancer awareness. New Balance continues to sponsor the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Komen Race for the Cure Seriesand the Breast Cancer 3 Day

The pink ribbon merchandise by New Balance is called the Pink Ribbon Collection.

New Balance continues to add new models to their Pink Ribbon Collection. The most recent is the Women's cross trainer, the WX700WB.


WX700WB

According to Boston.com, Sen. John Kerry will be boarding a plane today full of hurricane relief supplies for Hurricane Katrina victims.

He will be delivering 5,000 pairs of New Balance shoes and many other donations from Massachusetts businesses.

Next month when we upgrade our site you'll be able to purchase Gift Cards that can be redeemed online.


Our systems will automatically maintain available balances and send an email to a friend or loved one if the gift is for someone other then yourself.

Vic

I received an email from Dave Phillips this afternoon. Dave is the IT chair for the Komen Charlotte affiliate and he informed me that they have a new web site address so we wanted to share that with everyone.

The new website (which looks fantastic) is located at www.komencharlotte.org.

I'd be remiss if I didn't help out the Charlotte group with some links so here we go:

• Race Day Volunteers go here


• Registration


• Team Registration

We've just added the Sedona Marathon to our Race Calendar. You've got ample time to get ready because it's not kicking off until February. Too, they're having a 1/2 marathon and 5k.

• Official Sedona Marathon Website


• Registration


• Race Information

New Balance put out some new “For Love Or Money” commercials. You can see them here.

Hi it's Vic, I'm the developer for New Balance Tampa and I've been busy working on many upgrades to the New Balance Tampa site. So what I thought I'd do is tell you about a feature or two over the next few weeks.

Here are two that we've received many requests for:

Available Size to Width Relationships
In our current version of the site customers select their width and enter their own size and/or half size. Seems reasonable right? Well what happens if you enter a size that is out of stock? We've redesigned our systems so that customers can see available sizes with widths. We think you're gonna like it.



Sub Categorization
Take another look at the image snippet above. The left side is actually our improved navigation; more importantly we're introducing sub categories to the product mix to make it easier to locate the products. A great example is Apparel. Today we have it all lumped into a single category. The improvements will allow customers to only look at Running Shorts if that's all they have an interest in.

Why are we doing these things? Because we're listening to the feedback that our customers are providing. Expect to see these features and the others that I talk about in October.

I received an email today from the Team Captain for "The Legacy" Gerry's Colorado Charity Team. Kathy, let me know that the Denver Race for the Cure is actually scheduled to take place on 10/02/2005 and not in September as we previously posted on our Komen Race Calendar (which is now updated).

Here are some quick links for the Denver group:

• Official Denver Race for the Cure website


• Support Kathys Team


• Volunteer for the Denver event

So your confused about what to eat. Join the rest of us Americans.

If you watched Oprah last week when Dr. Mehmet Oz was a guest, you may have been introduced to this year’s USDA new set of Dietary Guidelines. Dr. Oz had a few suggestions of his own which I thought were very helpful.

However, if you’re a runner, you may need to make some adjustments to the new food pyramid. I suggest that you check out the October issue of Runner’s World. This month’s issue talks about the revamped food pyramid and 5 more must knows for runners.

Both are great resources to clarify the confusion.

This is cool! Play dress the runner with New Balance.

A customer told me today that her podiatrist informed her that the WW853WB is being discontinued.

After I checked into it, I found out that the 853 cross-trainer is going to be discontinued in 5 months. I am pretty sure that this shoe will be updated, which means it will take on some cosmetic changes or some other minor change. Most of the time New Balance tries to keep the technical aspects the same if the shoe is successful. Sometimes people feel that when a particular model is updated it doesn't feel the same. I don't know how this model update will be or what New Balance plans on doing to this particular model, I do know that the new model will be the WW854.

Did you ever wonder where you could get another pair of those New Balance that you had some time ago. Just a little hint when it comes to New Balance and how they update their models. New Balance starts a model series such as an 800 series in trail running. Starting at 801's then going up in number as the model is updated. They were 802's, 803's, 804's and 805's. Now they are 806's. This model continues to be built on the same last with cosmetic changes in colors or fabrics. Some technical changes may be made for the better. However, on the most part this shoe should fit and perform as well or better than the original model. To answer the question to the above email, I would tell this person to look at the W808NV

The New Balance running model, the 766 is available in a Water Resistant Synthetic/Mesh Upper version. The following 766 models are great for those rainy day runs.
For women, the model is the W766GR.

The men’s model is the M766NY.

The 766 has received great reviews. The best review it has received is the Runner’s World Editors Choice Winner.

W766GR

M766NY

New Balance 2005 Chicago Marathon gear is now available.

Back to school means backpacks and sore backs for some of our children. Here are some helpful tips on backpacksafety.

New Balance Backpacks
Back to School Fashion Buzz
Back to School Uniform Shoes

Here's a peek at one of the New Balance baseball cleats due out in December.