So I'm not exactly new to running (track...in high school, cross country...in junior high) but it's been a little while since I've been in the habit. I thought it'd be a good idea to get rid of the gym and start actually doing some real cardio out in the real world. So, with credit card in hand and a mindset to spend whatever it took to get the *right* shoes for my feet, I took myself straight over to where all the cool kids get their running shoes....
Frontrunners, in Brentwood. Of course!
I spent a total of about 20 minutes debating between a pair of Sauconys and a pair of NIkes, and eventually went with the Nikes. Most expensive pair in the store. The kid that helped me out couldn't have been nicer. All was well and right and good.
Until I actually started running some distances. After about a month of running and after my 4 mile "long run" one Saturday (I told you I'm a beginner!), I became the proud owner of 2 wrecked Achilles tendons. 24 miles TOTAL and I'd met my match. I haven't run in 2 weeks.
Over the course of the last few months, however, I've been talking to a marathoning co-worker who asked me (just after I'd bought my now-idle Nikes) if I'd gone to Phidippides. Phidippi-what? Go there, he says, and you'll never go back to Frontrunners again.
So this morning I take him up on it. I sit down with Dave, and I explain what's going on with my now-healed ankles. He says, "Oh, yeah, we've seen that a couple of times with that shoe. Actually, I was at an athletic shoe convention a few months back and I had a chance to talk with the German-born designer of that shoe (my Nikes). I asked him why they've canted the heel so much, and he explained that in Europe, the biggest problem is too pronation upon heel impact. So his way of fixing that was to bevel the heel to the outside, but while that works for people in Europe, since they're smaller than us, it really wreaks havoc on the Achilles in people in North America..." and then proceeds to go into a technical dissection of why my shiny $130 Nikes sucked. "Oh, and that Zoom Air thing they do is crap. We sell them here, but not really that many people buy them."
I think I'd found the right place.
Anyway, long story longer, I tried on and ran in about 10 different pair of shoes from a number of different brands. Dave watched my running ("You tend to pronate and twist as you move through your mechanic, and your right foot tends to move around more than your left...you need something with more stability control in the heel than the Nikes are providing...") After an hour of trying on and running and watching, Dave hooked me up with a brand new pair of Brooks running shoes that fit every bit as well as the Nikes, but without the weird flexy mechanic-and-Achilles wrecking whatchamacalit that the Nikes had.
Suffice to say I was impressed. Get there when they open at 10 am, because if you don't I can imagine that the wait to get that kind of personalized service from someone that knowledgeable is probably a 2 hour + proposition. They actually have one of those number-pull things and they don't hesitate to use it.
Big huge respect to Frontrunners, for their awesome return policy. They took my Nikes back for a refund after a month of use with a deep apology for the pain they caused me and absolutely no questions asked.
But if you're looking for the Ollivander's Wands of running shoes, go to Phidippides. 5 big ones for these guys. read more