Review - Lloyd Clarke Sports

Located at 1504 NW 13th Street in Gainesville, FL, Lloyd Clarke Sports is a fixture in the local running community.  Despite larger stores such as Sports Authority, Dick's Sporting Goods and various Foot Lockers, Champs Sports, etc scattered around Gainesville and Ocala, LCS has the largest variety of running shoes for all running styles from minimalist to extreme cushioning in the area.  In addition to running shoes, they also have a wide variety of running and cycling apparel, hydration equipment from vendors such as CamelBak and Nathan, compression clothing from Zoot, Under Armour and 2XU, and an excellent inventory of baseball, softball, disc golf, volleyball and football equipment and apparel.

I realize that that sounds like anything you'd typically read in a newspaper review, but I had to get that out of the way first.  I will admit that I'm extremely biased, but I have an excellent reason.  As any man who has a shoe size over 12 or 13 will tell you, finding their size is nearly impossible.  We all understand that those sizes aren't a great seller and in the past larger sizes have collected dust for months only to be thrown on the clearance table and sold at a loss. We get that. However, because our sizes are so hard to find in anything other than basketball shoes, we as a group tend to not be the most discriminating buyers when it comes to running shoes.  I spent years wandering into a Payless and walking out with the most comfortable size 14 running shoe out of the few that I found.  While some were a great bargain, few ever fit right.

A year or so ago we walked in and were immediately greeted by a few different employees.  Seeing as how I'm not the biggest fan of being hounded by a salesperson (who is?) I was a little apprehensive.  As we made our way around the store nobody stayed on top of us or got in our way, but they were always close enough to answer any questions we may have had.  When we made our way back to the shoes, one of the girls who was working at the time asked several questions regarding our running styles, brands we've worn in the past, type of foot strike, etc and made her recomendation based on the information we gave her.  The shoes she picked out would not have been our first choice, but after walking around the store and especially after the first few runs at home, her picks turned out to be exactly right.  Yesterday was the third pair of shoes I've purchased from there, in addition to headbands, socks, 13.1 stickers and various other things over the past year, and the experience has been identical every time with every employee I've dealt with.

Recently, Lloyd Clarke Sports has installed two treadmills which allow them to examine your foot strike, gait and other key aspects of your style in order to be as accurate as possible in reccomending a shoe that fits your needs.  Despite having shoes ranging from $50 to $150+, their reccomendations are never based on price.  I don't have a rating system yet, seeing as how this is the first review for Fairways and Pavement, but if you're in the Gainesville area and you're a runner, jogger or walker, it's definitely a place to check out!