26.2 Running Company’s finishes long run
Dalan Lees, right, helps Aaron Kahle and Cassidy Kahle find some good running shoes on Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 26.2 Running in American Fork. The store is offering a variety of promotions to help clear out stock before it closes it goes out of business at the end of the month. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
Owner Adam Murphy poses for a photo on Thursday, July 9, 2015 outside his shop, 26.2 Running in American Fork. The store is offering a variety of promotions to help clear out stock before it closes it goes out of business at the end of the month. SPENSER HEAPS, Daily Herald
The business closed at the end of July, according to a Daily Herald article. The 26.2 store has been a staple at the corner of 100 East and 100 North in American Fork for more than 20 years and served thousands of runners.
The race is over for 26.2 Running Company. Store owner Adam Murphy announced last week that the store will close its doors at the end of this month. The 26.2 store has been a staple at the corner of 100 East and 100 North in American Fork for more than 20 years and served thousands of runners.
It also was the place new runners were born. The original owner was the late Carl Bell, an American Fork family doctor and marathon runner. He opened the store in 1992 and was instrumental in the community as a running coach, and in supplying local high school runners with solid running shoes and accessories.
“We’d get a lot of the high school groups in here, and get them outfitted with good shoes. Now that we’re closing, the other running stores need to step up and fill that hole,” Murphy said. “I’m worried these parents will go to Walmart and buy their kids $20 running shoes, and their kids will get hurt.”
For Murphy, getting runners into good shoes has been the most important part of his experience. The 29-year-old Provo resident has been with the store since 2008, first consulting on sales and marketing, then moving in store as a top shoe salesman, ending up as a manager before purchasing the American Fork store and its partner Provo store in 2013. During all of those years, his focus was on fitting the right shoe to every foot.
One of the things he is most proud of is 26.2’s unique gait analysis testing. Using video capture and an iPad app, the company has been doing gait analyses on customers for most of its existence. The testing records and breaks down the angles of a customer’s foot impact, mid-foot cycle and toe-off as they run in real time. Murphy and his employees then recommend a specific shoe type for that type of gait.
“I’ve personally done thousands of gait analyses, and the app we use is extremely scientific. It shows the exact angle at each point. It’s completely inaccurate for a running store employee to just watch a customer run by, and judge if they are pronating,” Murphy said. “There are so many categories of shoes, and the difference of a five degree angle can mean a totally different shoe.”
Murphy has more than an hour worth of stories where the gait analysis has bettered customers’ health. He always recommended a gait analysis, even to seasoned runners before they bought new shoes, because he has countless instances of long time runners’ gaits changing over time due to multiple factors.
“It really changes lives, and it really keeps people running better, longer. You have people who think they won’t ever race again, but then we get them into the right shoe, and they can,” he said.
That passion has earned 26.2 loyal customers over the years, but not enough, and in the past few years, Murphy has seen a decline in in-store purchases. Customers still want the expertise running specialty stores offer, but then many are going elsewhere for their actual purchase. In the past two years specifically, Murphy has seen an upswing of customers having the complicated gait analysis done in store, and getting shoe recommendations, but then purchasing their shoes online.
That consumer shift, and diminishing profit margins of shoe sales spelled doom for the store. According to a 2014 report by Statista.com, while sales of running shoes has increased slightly over the years, more and more consumers are buying their shoes online or at big box or outlet retailers.
“Quality running shoes used to be sold only in running specialty stores. But now you can buy our six year No. 1 best seller, the Asics Nimbus, at Costco. And Costco can sell it for $20 less than I can because they have lower profit margins, but higher buying power,” Murphy said.
Trying to compete with large retailers in this arena is virtually impossible, Murphy said. Shoe manufacturers have been consistently raising the wholesale prices of their shoes, in turn shrinking the profit margins specialty stores can reasonably expect. A shoe that he could get for $50 just a few years ago, and sell for almost $100, now costs $100, and he can expect to only get $120 to $150 from it.
Murphy’s biggest worry is that running specialty stores won’t be able to weather this, and in 10 years running shoes will only be available in big box stores.
“The big box stores are only trying to sell shoes, the employees won’t have the knowledge we have. People will get into the wrong shoe and get injured,” Murphy said.
Still, as strongly as he feels about this, passion does not pay the bills, and he no longer feels he can “float” the store hoping for his money to come back to him. The American Fork store even has sentimental value, as it was where he and his wife first decided to start dating seriously. So the decision to close was not a frivolous one.
He is moving on, but staying in the business of running. He’ll continue Qualify, the successful race management supply company he started a couple of years ago. He’ll also pursue a few more revenue streams as well.
When he closes the doors for the last time in a few weeks, it will be with heavy heart for runners he can’t service any longer and for employees he felt were some of the best in the valley.
“Nobody has the expertise employees at 26.2 have. They didn’t just train once and then were done. They had to keep up on new technologies and new styles. We required it, because it benefitted the customer,” Murphy said.
The Provo store has already closed, and all of its inventory is at the American Fork store. All stock is heavily discounted. Chalking it up to a solid learning experience, Murphy said, “I’m not going to earn anything from closing. In fact, I’m going to have to pay to get out if it.”
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