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The folks at Philadelphia Magazine included me in their recent article titled, “Running Coaches Around Philadelphia Who Can Help You Cross Your Next Finish Line.” This is the story of how I became a running coach.   1996 Atlanta Games   After having some achievements in high school and more in college, I was invited…

The great majority of our customers wore the wrong size before they came to Run Shoe Store. When they had shopped for shoes, they would pick something that looked cool and then would try it on in different sizes until it didn’t hurt. They would typically start with the size that corresponded to their non-athletic…

Weight on the midsole causes a shoe to die, whether the forefoot or the heel strikes the ground first. Midsoles are thin and pliable. They are commonly made from about 2/3 of an inch of a material called ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), which is soft enough to be completely rolled up. Standing on a midsole…

There are two ways to increase width in a technical running shoe. Go oversize!     The first way is to buy a shoe that’s a little longer than usual. As the shoe gets longer it also gets proportionately wider. In our store, there have been many customers who were wearing shoes longer than necessary.…

Comfort is the best reason to buy technical running shoes. Wearers find different things comfortable. For many, a comfortable sneaker has plenty of room to accommodate the length, width, and height of the foot. Others find relatively large amounts of cushioning to be comfortable. Some think that sneakers that allow the wearer to feel the…

For more than 100 years, shoe manufacturers have been giving their customers ways to modify the way that shoes are laced. Just about all shoes come with a standard crisscross pattern. Additional loops, hooks, and related features allow us to modify that standard lacing, as necessary.     The eyelets at the very top of…

We currently sell shoes by Asics, Brooks, Saucony, Mizuno, New Balance, Under Armour, Hoka, and Adidas. Not one of those manufacturers claims that any of their shoes will make you run faster—or slow you down. But that doesn’t stop consumers, especially track racers, for making the claim that the lighter the shoe, the faster you…

Just about every shoe that we sell carries the same name in both men’s and women’s running shoes. The Saucony Guide ISO is called by that same name in both men’s and women’s, for example. But the same name does not mean the same shoe. Here are some obvious, but nonetheless very important differences.  …

Gait is a technical term. But different professionals mean different things when using it. If there is something common to all of them, it is that gait is observed locomotion. In this post, it means what happens in the foot and ankle, between foot strike and toe-off. When you land, which is equal to hitting…

On our wall, just about every shoe is made with some kind of etheylne vinyl acetate (EVA). During the history of the technical running shoe, EVA has become the preferred material for midsoles and sockliners. EVA is the prominent material in most technical running shoes. It’s a foam that can compress without flattening under large…