CURRENTLY STILL OFFERING CURBSIDE PICK UP AND DELIVERY!
- YES, you can buy shoes and gear still! Please email info@foottraffic.us to request your shoes or gear or upload an image of your old shoe or simply ask us for advice on what pair to get!
- See virtual gait analysis options below!
- Full e-commerce site for footwear coming next week! Stay tuned!
- RUN ON! and WALK ON! fundraising shirts (see below) are still available and will continue to be shipped directly to you. Thank you for your support!
Dear Foot Traffic Family,We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and our community in short order. And while I recognize that our perspective may be fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, perhaps the insight from one small business can augment our ability to relate with one another— to connect, to empathize–and be patient with the process.
The images of this health crisis can be stark and a scary. Seeing our Downtown shop boarded up and completely closed off is eerie and initially conjures some serious melancholy feelings. Talking to restaurant owners about how their business is barely hanging on brings frustration and sometimes even anger. Seeing the suffering and trials of those directly fighting this virus (both victims and healthcare professionals) is both heart wrenching and frustrating for those of us that want to help.
But like a frozen tundra, there is so much more life lying under that icy surface of reality. So here is my “ode to optimism” and also my “homage to abidance.”
1.) I tell my kids every day, closing Daddy’s shop is hard, but they should feel good about what that abidance and sacrifice represents: community, forfeiture for the greater good, and standing in unity with our other businesses that are making the difficult decision to close.
2.) The emails and orders from our community asking us to ship their shoes to them, helping them with a virtual gait analysis (see below for more info on this), and buying so many of our RUN ON! fundraising shirts is truly inspiring. I’ll never forget these gestures.
3.) The ability of our staff to work under duress and step up under pressure as well as sacrifice themselves to keep our community safe and their store secure is simply amazing. I can’t wait to hug them all in person.
4.) Virtual group runs and walks! As many of you know, we have two very large group training programs that typically meet on Saturday mornings. The last two Saturdays, without complaint, they have been checking in at 8am sharp, sending photos and morning salutations, and heading out on their workouts on their own. They encourage each other and they have not shown an ounce of quit. I’m floored by their ability to expect the unexpected and roll with the punches–great lessons that will serve them so well in their future endeavors.
There are so many more wonderful images and stories I can share, but given that we may be only communicating virtually for a while, I’ll leave some in the tank so I can still have something to talk about later. 😉
Until then, there ARE some things that you can do to support yourself, your favorite running store, and your community.
• Keep buying and (soon) wearing the RUN ON! and WALK ON! shirts below! Our first shipment will be printed this week and shipped out soon. We’ll send another batch to the printer as you send in your orders. THANK YOU for this display of solidarity.
• Email us or MESSAGE US on FB and order your shoes! We don’t have our footwear inventory up on our website yet (we are working on that and will hopefully be done in a week or two), but we ARE taking email orders and inquiries. It’s super easy for us to check your past orders and also recommend other shoes. We will either deliver the shoes ourselves or we will ship them ASAP.
• Speaking of recommendations… we are instituting that I really think we’re all going to enjoy. VIRTUAL GAIT ANALYSIS! Sure, coming into the store is the best way to do this, but we have built a really EASY tutorial on how to take a video of your foot-strike and send it to us so we can virtually provide our expertise and suggestions. I can’t wait to see your emails coming in and hopefully, get even more of our staff back operating and working virtually from the safety of their homes. We can ship any shoe and will accept returns on any shoe purchased, no questions asked, of course.Be well and RUN ON! and WALK ON!
Sean Rivers and the crew at Foot Traffic