Think about your typical experience shopping for shoes. How were you treated?
Did the sales associate study your foot size and shape and your walking gate? Did she inquire about any foot/leg/knee/hip/back pain you may be feeling? Did he ask about the amount and type of exercise you do and/or how much time you spend on your feet in your job?
Did they make you feel like they were working with you to solve your specific shoe issues? And did they make it clear that they would not sell you any shoes that you weren’t absolutely satisfied with?
And finally, did they ultimately put you into the most comfortable shoes you’ve ever worn and give you tips on how to alleviate some of the pain you routinely experience?
If you answered “Yes” to these questions then you know what it is like to shop for running shoes at West Seattle Runner (WSR, http://westseattlerunner.com/ .) (By the way, I am certain that if this were the engagement process when people buy dress shoes there would be far fewer podiatrists in the world.)
WSR has been in business for 11 years now. Not only are the owners, Tim and Lori McConnell, passionate about running but they are also big believers in community engagement.
Besides hosting local races, they also coordinate courtesy group runs twice a week and a weekly track training session coached by Dave Steffens, a 4-time winner of the Seattle Marathon. They also run a free 6-month workshop designed to prepare beginners for their first half marathon. And they host a free injury clinic twice a month wherein anyone can come into the store and get evaluation and advice from sports medicine professionals.
So impressed I was with their positive approach to business and the community that when I saw a help-wanted sign outside the store I decided to apply and I’ve been working there part-time since October of 2019. Thanks to tutelage from Tim, Lori, and the store manager, Ferguson Mitchell, I can claim some expertise in the fitting of running shoes and in the art, science, and practice of running.
WSR has everything a runner needs including clothing, socks, water bottles and hydration vests, gels, electrolytes and other nutrition items, shoe inserts, sunglasses, etc. But the main reason to go there is for the shoes. WSR sells a lot of running shoes.
But runners aren’t the only ones who buy running shoes. To be sure, running shoes are the most comfortable shoes one can wear. Nonetheless, I have been amazed at the percentage of our customers who do not run (I think it is something like 20–30%). These folks just need something to wear on their feet so they can walk pain-free.
Every week I see people who have been sent to WSR by their sister or spouse or partner or podiatrist or whomever who told them that this is where you go to get properly fitted for shoes.
Most of the feet we see look, no doubt, a lot like yours. But the range of issues that people, runners and non-runners alike, deal with is astounding.
I’ve seen ankle bones calloused to double their normal size due to repeated sprains. I’ve worked with ballet dancers whose ankles were mangled from being en pointe starting at a very young age. We help elderly men and women suffering from diabetes neuropathy who need a cane to walk. Bunions, broken and reconstructed ankles and feet, hip and knee replacements, neuromas, wide feet, double wide feet, narrow feet, short feet, long feet are all commonplace.
The one thing all customers have in common is that they want shoes that allow them to move pain-free. And that is what we give them; I can recall scant few times when a customer was not fully satisfied with the shoe that we eventually put them in.
It’s fun to determine the best shoe for a given runner. But it is most gratifying to be able to help a customer to walk pain free after months or years of misery. This is the best part of the job and people often get effusive. I am certain that in the nearly 2 years that I have worked at WSR, customers have thanked me more than I had been thanked in the 3+ decades I had worked as an engineer in Silicon Valley.
The Foot: An engineer’s perspective
Human feet are mechanical marvels. There’s a lot going on in there: Of the 206 bones in the human body, more than one quarter of them (52) reside in the feet. These bones support 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
All these bones and soft tissue make for a most elegant shock absorber (cushioning upwards of three times the runner’s weight with each stride) and spring (propelling the runner forward into the next stride). Yet, for all this work that feet do, most runners don’t give them the full attention that they deserve. We’d think nothing of putting in untold hours for our run workouts but find it hard to endure the tedium of foot strengthening exercises.
WSR recently installed an optical scanning system for imaging feet. This scanner creates a 3D representation that can be rotated, panned and zoomed to get a detailed understanding to that particular foot’s shape and dimensions.
Just for grins I recently scanned my feet on the system to illustrate overpronation. Pronation refers to the way your foot rolls inward during walking and running and is the natural means by which the landing force is distributed. When a foot overpronates, however, this motion is exaggerated and can lead to injury and pain in the feet and elsewhere in the body.
I overpronate. Below are top-down views of my feet when I stand on the scanner platform. On the left side I am relaxed and in my normal pose. On the right side, without lifting my feet from the prior scan position, I have purposely rotated my ankles so as appear to undo the overpronation.
Below, I’ve repositioned the 3D images so as to view my right foot from the back, looking at the heel. Again, on the left is the relaxed pose and on the right is the one with the ankles repositioned.
Notice the difference? My normal stance shows clear overpronation: The ankle bones are shifted towards the middle thereby causing the arch to collapse somewhat. In turn the lower leg is misaligned so that upon walking there is more force exerted on the medial (inside) edge of the foot.
(I have considerable laxity in my ankles very likely caused by countless sprains endured over decades — a not uncommon situation among those who play sports. In other words, my ankles are really sloppy.)
Misalignment like this can ripple up the power train: to the legs, to the knees, to the hips, and the back. A badly aligned power train is a recipe for joint and muscle pain. We’ll confirm it with the gait analysis but by capturing this 3D image we get a compelling visual aid to review with the customer.
If a customer’s feet look like mine we’ll want to have them try stability shoes that correct for the overpronation thus addressing the misalignment. This is just one example of the issues that a pair of feet may exhibit. Usually, wearing the right shoes will address the hip/knee/back pain that the customer suffers.
Herein lies the reason to go to a proper running store to be fitted for shoes. You can’t get this type of analysis from an on-line purchase and many running shops don’t perform it well. Before going to WSR, I had never had anyone pay attention to such issues and I have been buying running shoes for over 40 years now.
And now that I have this skill, I’ve been milking it. Makes for a quirky and entertaining party conversation. I find that most people really do like talking about their own feet and shoes. It is quite literally where the rubber meets the road.
(You might be wondering about my own choice of running shoes. I’m reluctant to name brands here but let’s just say I like to have a lot of cushioning in my shoes. Cushioning is a godsend for managing leg muscle fatigue but I don’t think I get much overpronation correction. That may be why I need to ice my knees after each and every run to mitigate the pain I’d feel by the next morning.)
To dig a bit deeper: The muscle that serves to hold the arch up and stop the foot from rolling over is called the tibialis posterior which runs behind the tibia and inserts at the medial cuneiform bone in the foot. Weakness of this muscle caused by injury, excess weight, or other biomechanical distortions in the foot or ankle will lead to overpronation.
I’ve come across some lovely names for the condition. Among them are Tibialis Posterior Tendon Dysfunction, Tibialis Posterior Insufficiency, and my personal favorite and most visceral Acquired Adult Flat Foot Syndrome. Encouragingly, there are several simple exercises that if done diligently will strengthen the tibialis posterior and thus help to mitigate overpronation (calf raises, single leg balancing, and the combination of these two for example but a Google search will provide more details).
I’ll be posting more on the art and science of running over the next few weeks along with the training strategies that I intend to employ while preparing for the WMM 2021.
As you may already know I am a charity runner in the London, Boston, and New York marathons this year. If you share the passion that the Michael J Fox Foundation and I have for finding a Parkinson’s cure please consider contributing to any of the WMM I am running in as a member of Team Fox (links below). All donations are meaningful and greatly appreciated.
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/boston-marathon-2021/joesgottarun
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/londonmarathon2021/joesgottarun
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/tcs-nyc-marathon-2021/joesgottarun
