Business & Tech

New Fitness Store Offers Personalized Shoe Fitting

Fitgeek Sports combines knowledge, experience and specialized customer service.

Here in Silicon Valley geek is good so it’s no surprise that a running and walking store called Fitgeek Sports found its way to geek magnet Cupertino where the owners hope to create a gathering place for those who are geeky about, you guessed it, fitness.

It starts with the chief geekess herself, Diana Keh, a Homestead High School graduate who went on to UC Berkeley where she got a Bachelor's degree in psychology and a Master's in education from City Univeristy of New York, Brooklyn. She’s a bona fide fitness geek who is a certified teacher of many things fitness related including triathlons. For starters she’s a certified USA Triathlon Coach, a mentor in Team in Training, involved in Roadrunners Club of America and has studied diet and nutrition.

But at Fitgeek it’s not just about Keh, or her fiancé and business partner Wing Liang, it’s about building a community of runners and walkers.

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Evidence of this convention is a running group started just a couple weeks ago that already has 100 members. The first run was Sunday at Rancho San Antonio followed by a bagels and juice gathering back at the Fitgeek store, which is located at 21000 Stevens Creek Blvd. at the corner of Stelling, next to Panda Express.

Keh and Liang deliberately selected a space that was large enough to host gatherings such as this, Keh says. More community gatherings and clinics will be held at the store, such as the Merrell Barefoot Clinic on Feb. 4, which will focus on the practice of barefoot and minimalist running.

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The free running group, playfully named Peeps Who Like to Work Out and Eat, combines two things Keh loves, she says.

The business, which opened Jan. 2, is also a combined love of two loves—fitness and teaching.

“I wanted to start a store where the point would be to help people in common circles,” she says.

In addition to running attire that includes everything from shoes and socks to bras and pants, Fitgeek offers a personalized shoe-fitting process that includes three measurements for proper shoe selection; arch, length and width, which Fitgeek run specialist Chris Tower says is the more important measurement because it focuses on where the foot bends.

Next comes the gait analysis that includes simply demonstrating a casual walk and jog across the room to determine how a foot lands and rolls across the surface. An additional analysis follows with a trot on a treadmill while a camera and state-of-the-art technology capture a runner’s stride.

Through the video playback and analysis a trained staff member, such as Tower, makes a recommendation of the best type of shoe and fit. Customers can test out the shoe in the store before purchasing.

It’s a useful process for those who are currently active and for those such as Liang who says he’s getting back into running. A patent attorney by trade, he and Keh met while living in New York where he is licensed. His full-time practice there kept him away from his usual workouts but now, while studying for the California State Bar, he’s getting back in shape while helping to get Fitgeek off to a good running start.

The Peeps’ next meeting will be for a “casual fun walk around the marshes of the Palo Alto Baylands” on Jan. 22 at 9 a.m.

Read Keh's Local Voices fitness blog here on Cupertino Patch.


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