Kara Goucher Agonistes: Why Oiselle? from KaraGoucher.com, comments by Larry Eder

(Editor’s note: The journey that Kara Goucher has taken, from good, but injured college runner, to packing up and moving to Portland, Oregon, to a bronze medal in 2007 Osaka 10,000 meters, to half marathons, marathons, a son, and now, a new journey, is fascinating. Her honesty and emotion is unique as well.

Like you, I am fascinated with Kara Goucher’s journey back to Colorado, and her conscious decisions to take some chances and find a real fit for her talents. Kara Goucher is not only a fine athlete, but an athlete with the charisma to have a career long past her elite running career. Sally Bergeson, the CEO of Oiselle is a very smart marketer: she let Kara Goucher pick Oiselle, and that is why the relationship could work. )

Why Oiselle?

“I am so excited to finally be able to share some exciting news with everyone. Today

it was announced that I will be teaming up with Oiselle! How did this happen?

Well, Oiselle is the French word for bird and this is the story of how

I ended up in her nest.

I have been with Nike for 12.5 years. Twice during that time my contract has come up

for renewal and both times I was with a Nike coach. So I chose to only negotiate

new contracts with Nike and not speak with other companies. This past December 31st,

my contract was up again. Once again, Nike wanted to renew, but I had just left my

Nike-funded coach to return to Boulder and be coached by my college coaches. This

meant I could explore other companies and options. After all, since Nike would no longer

be funding my coach, I no longer had to be with them. I wanted to see what else was out

there and see how other companies operated.”

To read the whole blog entry by Kara Goucher, please go to:

http://www.karagoucher.com/why-oiselle/

“

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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