Fleet Feet Sports Celebrates 10 Years In Rochester

10 Year Anniversary Celebration
Tuesday, July 15, 2014

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A decade, a span of ten years, does not necessarily need to end in a zero; as this decade began in July 2004.  Two newlyweds who not only were trying to gain an as semblance of a brand new marriage, but were also going to be married in a business that they will learn to grow together, just like their union in life.  It is now 11 years later in their marriage and the 10 year anniversary for Fleet Feet Sports Rochester.  The tin/aluminum year, which in our case marked true with the brand new building at the Culver Road Armory after 9 ½ years in Brighton.

Recently we’ve been denoting points of Fleet Feet Sports Rochester’s 10 year history on facebook, from the early years of being broke and having to lay off the entire workforce within 3 months of opening to building a staff of 40 plus strong today.  The early years were really hard but if you want something bad enough with passion and drive you must work harder and harder to get to your goal.  Our mantra became “Be married to the goal not to the plan” because the plan can change anytime.  In addition, “One should never become complacent, because when you do you should stop what you are doing”.  Once upon a time the infancy of the training programs had just 35 people with very few offerings a year.  But through blood, sweat and tears we wanted a community of runners, walkers and fitness enthusiasts and worked to host half/full programs of 100 plus per season and over 300 for No Boundaries: Learn to Run program, plus various other training programs and free group workout offerings throughout the year.  Starting with just 11 races on the calendar to owning over 35 and providing services to another 140 plus across New York State through the help of YellowJacket Racing.  And we can’t forget our vendor relationships; where in the beginning we did not open with all the “big” name vendors.  We truly fought to try to prove that Fleet Feet Sports Rochester was worthy to host all vendors and today we could not be prouder of the relationships and friendships formed with all of them.

We must add this is not a tale of Boots and Ellen, this is a tale of the Rochester community opening their arms to what Fleet Feet Sports Rochester had to offer and participating in those offerings.  This is a tale of going from 3 employees to zero and scrounging our way back to employ over 40 people with similar passions to serve Rochester the way Fleet Feet Sports does.  Without the community and without employees, there would be no 10 year anniversary, there would be no Ridgeway location, there would be no Culver Road Armory location, no Flower City Challenge, no Dirt Cheap, no Snow Cheap, no 5800 people at Webster Turkey Trot…it can go on and on.  You our customers, our supporters are what made employment for the staff of Fleet Feet Sports possible, made programs possible, made events possible and made this celebratory 10 year anniversary possible.  We have a lot of blood, sweat and tears left; we are not complacent; and we have not met our goal yet.  Cheers to you and making this 10 year anniversary possible. 

With much gratitude and appreciation, we look forward to serving you for years to come,

Boots and Ellen