Transcription of John Rogers for the show Running/Spring Feet #36
Dr. Lisa: As part of our Spring Feet running show, we have in the studio with us today John Rogers who is the owner of the Maine Running Company, a very well-known long-time running store here in the Portland area and actually, you have a store up in Brunswick as well.
John: Yes, that’s correct. We have 2 stores. We opened in 2005, opened up the Brunswick store 3 years ago and it’s doing very well.
Dr. Lisa: John, I understand that as part of the Maine Running Company, you have recently founded the Maine Running Academy. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
John: Well, actually the Maine Running Academy evolved out of our training programs, which we started in 2006 and we have a program that we call Reach to Beacon which is really centered around Beach to Beacon, the 10k and as the years have gone by, we’ve evolved it and added more programming and we now have a Maine Marathon Training Program. We support the Fit at 5k, which is a couch to 5k program. We offer 3, 4 couch to 5k running programs that are capped at 35. The Maine Running Academy really evolved out of trying to expand our programming to offer different entities for different types of training. We now offer triathlon training for anywhere from beginners to the Olympic distance. We offer couch to 5k. We offer the Maine Marathon Half Marathon training, which is beginning the Sunday after Memorial Day and we also offer fall and winter training. We actually have a winter training group called the Winter Warriors Training Group.
Recently, we have outsourced our training academy to a company called The Sustainable Athlete, which is owned and operated by Denise Good and Doug Wellen. They are both Level 2 triathlon coaches but they’re very approachable. They’re very inclusive and they’re very easy to work with and one of the things that we started to do is to cap our programming so that we have more of a one on one coaching attention to the people that participate or take part in our training programs. We are now offering core training as well as TRX training. We have what we refer to as a community room which we are thinking about expanding and that room allows us to also house spin training groups in the winter. We roughly have 5 training classes in the winter and it’s capped at 20 but it gets a multiple usage out of it in terms of the community. It’s also offered up for meetings, for lectures and for just the general public if they want to use it. If it’s available, we offer it to the running community.
The Maine Running Academy is a good way for people that really want to evolve their training or whether at the beginner or the intermediate trainer or somebody that’s advanced. They can come to the running academy and evolve and improve and reach their goals.
Genevieve: I love that idea of the sustainable athlete. Running is available to anyone who just wants to get out their door but it sometime intimidating for people who don’t run all the time. What about people who just want to get started running or run intermittently?
John: Well, one of the things that we recognize in our store is our core customer is really somebody that may be a walker. It may be somebody that’s only running 2 or 3 times a week and our biggest philosophy that we have it’s really our core values is anything that we do with our company or our store, we have these 3 values which is approachability, inclusivity and community and that is really the foundation and the cornerstone of Maine Running Company and Maine Running Academy is that it’s open to anybody. We try to make sure that people understand that they’re welcome, that it’s a non-threatening or non-intimidating environment and that anybody can join the academy or come into our store and feel truly comfortable and not intimidated and we work very hard on that from our employees to our instructors to even the products that we select, the merchandise within our store.
Dr. Lisa: Some of the things I’ve heard you offer as advice are people need the right shoe, fit the right way, which they can get at your store, yes?
John: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Dr. Lisa: They need to have the right training program and sometimes they need to be looking for coaching because if you’re starting from zero, that’s something that is important, perhaps the right running group if support is important to them. What are some other things that you can offer as suggestions to either first time or ongoing runners?
John: Well, I think the biggest mistake first-time runners make is really that they don’t allow their body to adapt to the training cycle that they’re about to embark on. I think what we do is we make sure that we understand what their goals are and then we try to fit that runner who is coming in and whether it’s somebody from a zero base or somebody that’s running 2 times a week to somebody that’s running 5 times a week. We find out what their goals are and then we try to adapt that training program around their goals and that’s one of the reasons that we have for example in our couch to 5k group, we have a race that they’re pointing towards because that person, their real goal is just to finish the 5k. somebody that maybe training for a half marathon or a marathon, we require that they have the ability to run from anywhere from a half hour to an hour so what we know that they can take on the type of training programs that’s necessary to run 26.2 miles or even 13.1 miles. In terms of footwear and how we fit people, one of the things I always stress is that we’re in the product knowledge transfer business. We’re not in the business of just selling footwear. It’s our job to be educated and know what’s going on within the footwear industry so that we can transfer that knowledge to our customers and that’s really the type of service that our customers are paying for is the fact that we have 10 full-time employees, most of them have been with us from anywhere from 2 to 3 years and that we will pay our employees more because we want them to retain the knowledge that’s going to be necessary to transfer to our customers get them into the right footwear.
Dr. Lisa: You brought up the book Born to Run which was a national bestseller last year and one of the things that struck me about that book was that we’re all meant to run and that running can be a joyful experience. A lot of people go out and kind of grind away. Have you seen anything at the Maine Running Company that shows you that once people start running, there is something that takes over a kind of emotional … If it’s something that they start to do regularly, there’s a buoyancy or something, an emotional lift that comes with starting a running regime.
John: In terms of running, I mean it can become addictive just like anything. Endorphins or that emotional stage of being able to complete a goal that … or an objective that somebody has can be very emotional. For example, we also do a lot of cause-related training groups that are centered around cancer, the Maine Cancer Foundation, Tri for a Cure, the Mother’s Day Seadogs Race, which is also a cause-related event to other events out there, no matter what it is. that emotional connection to that cause can be very, very emotional for most of the participants in that event. Yeah, it can be very emotional and it depends not he level of each individual in terms of how far they want to take their training and as you know, endorphins can get released and people can have what we refer to as a runner’s high where there’s nothing better than when you’re out there on a whatever distance it is that you’re out there for your long run and you’re just floating along feeling wonderful. It can be addictive and a release of that runner’s high can really relate to anybody at any distance.
Dr. Lisa: John, do you have any special events coming up this summer that you’d like to let our listeners know about?
John: I think the summer is at the height of our running season. We’re involved in a number of races and have been since we’ve opened. We’re a big believer in community outreach. We’re a big believer in giving back to the community. We give and access anywhere from 50 to $75,000 a year to cancer-related events. We have Tri for a Cure, which comes up in June. We have the Fit at 5k, which is at the end of June. Obviously, Beach to Beacon is probably the showcase race of the summer. We have the Maine Marathon, the Maine Half Marathon which is actually growing faster than the Marathon so there are a number of great events. We also offer what we refer to as the weekly Back Cove series, which is every Wednesday night at 6 PM beginning May 23rd and that would go 15 weeks through September 5th, with the exception of July 4th which is on a Wednesday. This year, we’re going to have to charge a $20 donation but all those proceeds go to Portland Trails and one of the years that we’ve had to do that versus offering it free is that we used to ask people to donate and now our participation has increased dramatically but our donations have gone down. we want to make sure that people are reinvesting in our trail system which is one of the major reasons that Portland, Maine is always noted as one of the fittest communities in the country so a number of events coming up this summer and we’re excited about being involved in most of them.
Genevieve: One excuse people give for not running or not getting back to running is injury. How would you prevent injury from running or come back from an injury?
John: Injuries are often the result of overuse because people tend to want to do more because they think their improvement is going to be a result of that when actually what they should be doing is adapting moderately. We always use the philosophy for example when we have our beginners start out we start them out on a walk to run program which helps them prevent from getting injured and we start them out with walking 4 minutes, running 1 minute and we do that for 2 weeks. Then we take another minute so it’s 2-3. Then we do another minute a week later and it’s 3-2 and 4-1. Some people don’t get beyond the running 4 minutes and walking 1 minute stage but that’s all right because they’re enjoying the sport and activity and they’re getting fit and healthy. Our main job is to try to communicate to people how to adapt properly whether it’s footwear or whether it’s training to help them not get injured and for the most part, we’re very successful at that, whether it’s with our footwear or whether it’s with our training groups. One of the things that I always tell our people is we have a personal fit guarantee, whether it’s involved in footwear. We want to make sure that our customers get the right footwear that’s going to best protect them from injury or whether it’s our training groups. We always say, “If you’re not getting what you expect out of this, we’ll give you a refund 100% if that’s the case.” For the most part, I think we’ve had maybe 5 to 10 refunds over the course of the last 6 years.
Dr. Lisa: John, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to be aware of with regard to the Maine Running Company or Maine Running Academy?
John: I think the main thing is, is that the running specialty channel is really unique in terms of what it offers for our customers. We’ve had growth every year. we don’t push for it but I believe that because of the service that we offer our customers, that a strong word of mouth about that service exists and that the running specialty channel is a community-based business and one of the things that we like to emphasize is that we are a community. We are not a running specialty chain. We are an independent community-based running specialty store and our real goal is to make sure that we are the center of the running community whether you’re just a beginner or whether you’re just wanting to improve on your 10k or your marathon and we want to offer those services to our community. For the most part, we’ve had a lot of success at that and we’re going to continue … we continue to strive everyday to try and improve on our customer service and our products that we offer.
Dr. Lisa: How can people learn more about the Maine Running Company and the Maine Running Academy?
John: Well, go to mainerunning.com or mainerunningacademy.com and both have separate websites. We also have a Facebook fan page that has over 5,000 fans. Also, just come into the store and see what it’s about. we feel like it’s a very welcome environment for our customers or anybody knew that has never been in the run specialty store so come on in.
Dr. Lisa: John, thank you for coming in and sharing your wisdom today and your background and your experience. People who are out there listening, whether they’re first time runners or long time runners I’m sure will find a wealth of information at your stores so I encourage them to look into the Maine Running Company.
John: Thank you very much.