Hitoshi Mimura is my kind of guy

June 11th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

So, the Beijing Olympics are right around the corner — what, you’re not excited to root on athletes you’ve never heard of before? — and the profile pieces are starting to trickle in. The New York Times drops one of note this fine June morning:  Hitoshi Mimura, who works for Asics, is an insane shoe craftsman. Dude uses rice husks for racing flats and compiles 13 different foot measurements for runners seeking his services.

At his office in Japan, Mimura uses a more high-tech method — three-dimensional computer models — to measure the feet of Noguchi, the reigning women’s Olympic marathon champion. Four or five times a year, he measures her feet at 13 various points. For Beijing, Mimura has made racing shoes for Noguchi that weigh a scant 3.85 ounces — compared with 11 or 12 ounces for an off-the-rack jogging shoe.

“The size of a small Japanese hamburger,” Mimura said of Noguchi’s shoes. “Not a big American hamburger.”

[ … ]

“Samurai cannot fight without their swords,” Mimura said. “It is the same for runners and their shoes.”

Did he just call out America for our heart attack inducing massive burger consumption? And was this a subtle attempt to comment on America’s tepid relationship with China? Also: he just compared a runnner’s shoe to a Samurai sword. Awe. Some. If me and E put this kind of work and detail into our blogging, maybe people would actually read our site.

Maybe.