Status symbol

In the running world, there is perhaps no status symbol as prestigious as the Boston Marathon jacket. It has always been a very nice looking jacket, with beautiful embroidery of their unicorn logo all over the back. I mean BEAUTIFUL embroidery. But manly. The embroidery was what made this jacket so authentic, and so elite. Runners wear these jackets when they want to get noticed. Not exactly subtle, and perhaps a bit in-your-face, but the Boston jacket is something to envy. If you see someone wearing it, it means that person is a faster runner than you are, or has achieved the unachievable by qualifying for the Boston Marathon. These jackets aren't free, typically $95 at the running expo. But almost everyone who runs Boston buys a jacket. You just have to buy one, even if you are a big, buff guy who doesn't typically wear unicorns on your apparel. It's just THAT cool to have one.

During the past 2 1/2 years as Mark and I have become runners, we would see someone at a race with a Boston jacket and stare. As Mark's BQ became more likely, he really started watching for people wearing their unicorn jackets--at stores, at airports, at races. They are all over when you start watching for them. When Mark qualified last summer, he couldn't wait to buy a jacket and wear it as a real Boston 2011 runner.

Well, Adidas is the official sponsor, and when their product line for Boston 2011 came online, Mark went to take a look. He noticed at first that the logo colors have changed from the historic blue and gold to black and bright green. Fine. Whatever. But then on closer look at the jacket back, it was OBVIOUS that the logo was screen printed. Yeah. Like that guy down the street can do in his garage. Not that there's anything wrong with screen printing. But for the Boston Marathon official jacket? What?

Upon reading the comments, everyone was complaining about a screen printed jacket. So many people complained that Adidas posted this lame-o excuse on their website:

We sincerely appreciate your feedback on the Official Boston Marathon Jacket. You helped us discover an error made in our supply chain that resulted in a screen printed logo instead of embroidered logo. As seen in previous images on shopadidas.com, we thought we were getting embroidered products too. We apologize for the confusion and thank you for alerting us. While not what was anticipated, the Official Boston Marathon Jacket for 2011 is screen printed.

"Helped us discover an error????" How dumb do they think runners are. Crazy, yes. Dumb, no. Nobody on their design team noticed? Nobody in manufacturing or shipping? Nobody? They had models wearing the jackets and photographers shooting pictures for the catalog and website, writers inspecting and handling the jackets to write their little blurb sales-pitch to go alongside the picture, other promotional materials made showing the screen printing, but it took some consumers purchasing these jackets to help them discover the error? What planet are they from?

To compensate the 20,000 runners who were so excited to buy and wear this jacket, Adidas slashed the price by-----$10. Are you kidding me? Lame, lame, lame, lame, LAME!!!!

Of course, Mark will buy one of these jackets, even though Adidas thought they pulled a fast one. Who knows if we will ever be back for the Boston marathon? And everyone knows I love a guy in a unicorn jacket.

Let's hope Adidas had no involvement in the medals.