COLORADO SPRINGS — People wearing poorly made or ill-fitting shoes or wearing the wrong shoes for the occasion is so common that shoe store owner Linda Staines merely chuckled when asked how many people are wearing the wrong shoe size.
“You have to try them on,” she said, emphasizing the word “have.”
For nearly 20 years, Staines and her husband, Gary, have measured feet and watched people walk and run in the Runners Roost shop downtown to get them into the right shoes.
The store, which opened in 1977 about a block away from the current location on North Tejon Street, works with high school and college runners, recreational runners and plenty of people who simply want to get around comfortably on foot.
They estimate that at least 40% of their customers are not runners, and about 90% come in because they heard about the store from someone else.
While their efforts might not be as dire as the Shoe Poet in the novel “Salt to the Sea” warned refugees fleeing violence and death in wartime — “Poorly made shoes will torture your feet, inhibit your progress. Then you will stop. And then you will die.” — the nearly $4 billion global foot-care industry attests to the relationship between foot health and overall health.
“Once you lose your mobility in your feet your health will decline,” said Linda Hendrickson, a master pedicurist who runs a home-based business in Cañon City.
“The foot supports the body, and I believe, the soul,” she said. “If your feet are not healthy, you lose quality of life.”
And shoes are an essential part of foot health.
Americans are expected to spend an estimated $95 billion on footwear this year, according to statista.com.
Runners Roost
Since its inception in Colorado Springs, Runners Roost has been operated by people who run. Its mission to support the running, walking and fitness community hasn’t changed in its nearly 50 years in business, license owner Kent Wories said in an email.
Of the 10 Runners Roost stores, Wories owns seven in the Denver area. The three others, including the original Colorado Springs store, are independently owned and licensed to use the name. Wories took over the license in 2016.
“We do share a common brand and set of values,” he said. “We all believe in the ‘sit and fit’ experience, community engagement, along with some other shared practices.”
The Denver-area stores sponsor the state high school track and field championships, among other events, and the Colorado Springs store sponsors the state cross country championships.
Each of the owners has more operational latitude than under a typical franchise agreement, he explained.
Like those before him, Wories is a runner. He started competing in track and field in fifth grade and continued running in high school and college. Now, he’s a recreational runner.
“After graduating from college, I wanted to find a way to merge my love for business and for running, so I decided to jump in at Runners Roost,” he said.
The owners and employees of the Fort Collins and Lakewood stores also are deeply connected to their running communities, whether they’re measuring runners’ gaits, hosting events or posting informational articles.
In Colorado Springs — the OG store — former Olympians Gary and Linda Staines, who immigrated from Great Britain when they bought the store, are thrilled to remain connected to the running community.
“We were runners in our past life,” Linda Staines said. “It was our passion and our living.
“It was a fun life. We were latecomers to the real world. We were fortunate to be in position to get green cards, and we wanted to stay in the running world.”
Selling shoes
The transition meant learning a lot about shoes. The brands, the sizing, the trends. And even more about retail sales and customers.
But in many ways, the integration of the two Brits into the Runners Roost story was a natural fit.
Gary Staines and Linda Keough were on Great Britain’s Olympic team in the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. He ran the 5,000-meter race, and she ran the 400 meter and the 4-by-400-meter relay.
As a distance runner, Gary Staines came to Colorado in the late 1980s to train at high altitude and made connections in the local running community, including at Runners Roost.
He also took a job at a running store in London to see if retail sales might be a good second career.
When the previous owner of the Colorado Springs store was ready to retire in 2005, Linda and Gary were ready to take over. It was none too soon, as a few years later Gary sustained a knee injury that has largely sidelined him from running.
Recently, Linda shattered one of her feet in a “silly accident” when she tripped while wearing sandals.
Their son Thomas is now the runner in the family — and a picture from his recent induction into the Athletics Hall of Fame for Colorado State University Pueblo looks uncannily like one of his father taken at the 1988 Olympics. Both posters are on the wall behind the counter at the shoe store.
“Look at the way they’re holding their hands,” Linda commented as the comparison was noted.
You won’t find a photo of her running there. She shrugged. “I don’t really care about that.”
She turned to help a customer who was looking at the sale rack, as Gary helped a new customer who came to check out the store. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and a handful of customers trickled in.
The Staineses were attentive, but not overbearing. The conversations came easily, whether the customer was new to the store or a regular.
Dana Hoffman of Denver was happy she stopped in and found a bargain with a pair of Brooks shoes — and some lacing tips from Linda.
As a recreational runner and long-distance hiker, she appreciates that Runners Roost checks her gait whenever she tries a new pair of shoes.
That was new for Josue Chaidez. He moved to Colorado Springs from California about a year ago and had seen the downtown store several times.
“I’ve had my eye on it for awhile but this is my first time to come in,” he said, noting that he ran cross-country in high school. He tried on four pairs of shoes, with Gary highlighting the benefits of different brands.
He jogged down the “runway” in the middle of the store several times while he and Gary chatted.
“It was a really good experience,” Chaidez said as he paid for his New Balance shoes, a brand he hadn’t tried previously. “There was no pressure at all. I’ll be back — and I’ll bring my wife, too.”
Satisfaction factor
Whether they are high school athletes, casual runners or walkers, nurses or elderly people with aching feet, the Staineses work to get them into the best shoe for their lifestyle — and in the right size.
“When they are coming for the first time, they definitely get the sizing wrong,” Linda said. Usually, their shoes are too small.
Even within the same brand someone might wear a size larger or smaller with a different style, Gary said.
Considering that each foot has 26 bones and 33 complex joints, a well-fitting shoe is essential, said Hendrickson, the pedicurist.
“Especially as we get older our ligaments and tendons stretch,” she said. “Our feet just spread and they relax.”
The toe box of a shoe should be wide enough for the toes to wiggle and the feet to splay naturally, she said. The heel should provide support.
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Hendrickson, who owns Lincoln Park Footcare, will repeat a class on foot care she taught last year at the Senior Mini College at the Fremont campus of Pueblo Community College. The sessions are held in March.
There are plenty of online guides to measuring your feet, and a number of runners’ stores, such as the Colorado Running Company, that help with sizing and observing your gait.
So why are so many people wearing the wrong size shoe? Hendrickson said some people just think they’ll wear the same size forever, or they don’t want to admit they need a larger size. But there’s nothing like a good fitting to ensure foot health.
That’s the mission at Runners Roost.
“The mission is still the same, and that’s to get good shoes on as many people as we can,” said Linda, who squats down to check how close a person’s big toe is to the end of a shoe and shakes her head. “Too small.”