Amphibian King - Expert running shoe recommendations

OK, I'm no athlete but I do a bit of running, mostly 5 mile road running. I even went as far as considering doing the Dublin City marathon in 2005 but after doing my 1st 13 mile half marathon (in just over 2 hours) it soon called a halt to those ideas.

Anyway I'm getting back into a bit of training and was looking for new training runners and came across some boards.ie entries recommending Amphibian King in Bray.

I went there on Sunday and was talking to the owner Damian (who replies to the posts on boards.ie if you have any questions). They were busy enough so I made an appointment and came back in an hour. He measured my feet exactly and got me to run down his test track in my bare feet. He has a video camera recording your run and then plays back on a Apple iMac each step to see if you stride is an Under Pronator, Neutral Pronation, or Over pronator (also called supination which is only 3% of population). He shows you video examples of each type and compares your run to each. You can clearly see the different types as he shows frame by frame video of how your foot arches may be collapsing or rolling too much.

I had a fairly neutral run thank god so he recommended 3 different types of shoe (Asics, Brooks and N) each of which I tried on and ran down the track and viewed the correction of my gait afterwards using the video footage. There was very little difference between them when correcting my run but the asics came in a slightly wider fitting so felt more comfortable.

Its a great service and Damian is very knowledgeable and gave great advice. He spent over a half an hour with me and there was no sense of being rushed. It cost nothing for the advice, €130 for the pair of Asics Numbus trainers which is no more expensive than I would have paid in any major high street store in Dublin. If I had not heard his advice I would have bought the Asics Gel Kyano which I previously owned and are even more expensive but would be the wrong shoe for me.

With a 30 day return policy and €10 off any next purchase he seems to have all the bases covered.