Welcome to the brand-new Believe in the Run experience

We love our website. In many ways, it's our home on the internet. Everything we do finds its way here, whether it starts on Instagram, YouTube, or in our podcast studio. And, like any home, it was time for some renovation.

So, we did what anyone would do: We went out, found the smartest guy we could, and asked him to make our website even better. We asked him to upgrade our Shoe Finder, make it easier for us to publish content, and find new ways for us to interact with you, our readers.

And now, we get to experience the results together. This is the powered-up, polished, and perfected Believe in the Run website, and we hope you'll stay a while.

Let's get into what's new and what it means for you. 

Everything is for the birds

You know him, you love him, you can't quite tell whether he's real or a government construct. He's the BiTR Pigeon, and he's pretty much everywhere. Well, he's not watching you while you sleep, but he's here for you the entire time you're on our site.

What exactly does that mean? Well, for starters, you can now treat the Pigeon like your personal shoe assistant, here to give you the full run specialty experience. Feel free to open the chat menu while you read through one of our recent reviews and pepper the Pigeon with anything you want to know. He may not be able to give you the secrets of the universe, but he can help you out with running shoe comparisons and buying advice, which is nearly the same thing.

Our Pigeon assistant is here to guide your running research via the Shoe Finder and an interactive chat.

We've also given the Pigeon access to our Shoe Finder, and he's been hard at work. You can now sort, filter, and search more thoroughly than before using a series of selections to find your perfect match. If you have questions beyond that, you can hop right back into your chat with the Pigeon to cover the specifics.

Of course, if you want to save your chats with the Pigeon and train him to know your personal preferences over time, you'll have to create a free Believe in the Run account, so let's run through how to do that.

Join us, you know you want to

We know, we know, simply hearing about the Pigeon's new capabilities is enough to get you chomping at the bit. Even if he is a government construct, we have to say he knows his stuff. So, it's time to create your Believe in the Run account and get up and running — get it?

Watch this short video to see how to get started.

In case you missed anything, here are those same steps in writing:

1. Select the Account button from our menu.
2. Tap the green "New here? Create an account" button.
3. Choose a display name and set your email address and password.
4. Agree to the terms and conditions (important) and sign up for The Drop newsletter (very important).
5. Check your email for a confirmation.

And that's it! Easy as can be, and now it's time to explore the rest of what your account has to offer.

We have a Shoe Wall, now you do too

One of the first things you'll see as you enter your new account is your Shoe Wall. If you've seen any of our reviews on YouTube, you'll know we have a big old wall of shoes in the office, which has been carefully designed to help us remember just how many shoes we've run in. Think of this feature as your digital version of that wall.

Overall, the process of adding to your Shoe Wall is pretty simple. You can review shoes you've run in, save shoes you're interested in, and even decide who can view your shoe wall. You can keep it to yourself, show it off to the whole running world with your username attached (you better have good taste), or make it anonymous so everyone knows someone out there has a lot of shoes; they just don't know who it is.

As above, we've boiled the Shoe Wall down into a quick video, so here's how to get started:

Once again, those same steps in writing:

1. Open your Account from the menu at the top of the page.
2. Locate your Shoe Wall.
3. Select Add A Shoe.
4. Search for your shoe in our database and rate it.
5. Decide whether you want a public, private, or anonymous Shoe Wall (you can change this later).

And now that you have a few shoes on your wall, it's time to find even more shoes with the rebuilt Shoe Finder.

Feed your shoe-buying addiction

Of all the things that keep us coming back to running, buying more shoes is probably the most fun. Each purchase is so full of potential and, if done right, won't make you sweat. But before you can buy a new shoe, you have to know what you're looking for. In our case, that means consulting the Shoe Finder.

I mean, if you're brave, you can order a half-dozen shoes, wait for them to arrive, run a few miles in them, and return what you don't like, but where's the fun in that? Yeah, we didn't think so.

So, back to the Shoe Finder it is. In the past, the process was pretty linear: Answer some questions, filter some products, get a recommendation. You can still do that (with several new filters at your disposal), but you can also engage directly with our Pigeon for more specific guidance. He'll be able to steer you in the right direction; just don't ask for medical help. He's a bird, not a doctor.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of the Shoe Finder:

Like before, the steps are pretty straightforward; just don't blame us when you spend hours fine-tuning your perfect search criteria. We can save you some time; the Adidas Evo SL rocks, the Alphafly really is that good, and Wide-Foot Jarrett's foot isn't actually that wide (don't tell him, though). Oh, you wanted trail shoes? Yeah, you'll have to ask the Pigeon. Taylor is off on a mountain somewhere.

That pretty much sums up the brand-new Believe in the Run experience. We hope you have as much fun exploring as we did building. One last thing, if you find anything on the site that doesn't seem quite right, let us know in the comments! This is very much a living, breathing (maybe not breathing) platform, and we want to make the experience as smooth as it can be.