Vancouver’s Run As You Are combines high tech with local service

Local, independent running stores are the backbone of Canada’s running community. From product knowledge to community involvement, our local run shops shape running culture across the country. Together, ASICS Canada and Canadian Running are going from coast to coast, exploring Canada’s top running shops and bringing you along for the ride.

Rob Smith wasn’t thinking of Nirvana’s Come As You Are when he named his running specialty store Run As You Are—but there are elements of Nirvana’s ethos that are alive and well with the brand, which Vancouver-based Smith says is all about championing running. The shop is about much more than sneakers; it’s a community hub for local runners, it’s a run studio where you can work with a coach to hone your stride and create a program that’s right for you–and, of course, a place to buy the gear you need for the style of running you love.

“I’ve always been a lifelong runner, but I never took it that seriously—it was always just a hobby,” Smith says. “I started running because of my dad. When I was a kid, my dad—who is still a paramedic in his late 70s—was getting called out to help guys who were having heart attacks in their 30s and 40s. And my dad thought, ‘I don’t want to be that person.’ So he just picked up running. I had three siblings—all sisters—and one of the only ways in which I could spend time away from my sisters was running around the block with my dad, so that’s basically how I started running. And then I just kind of continued to do it.”

Smith always knew that he wanted to open his own business, and eventually, he realized he could mesh his entrepreneurial spirit with his love of running. “My wife and I saw that there was a real gap in the evolution of run specialty back in 2014,” he says. “The run stores that existed felt like they were set up in the ’70s and ’90s and hadn’t evolved. It just sort of felt like everybody was doing the same thing, bringing in the exact same stuff. Nothing felt like it was my aesthetic. I would try to find the shoes I wanted locally, but I actually would end up ordering shoes online from specialty retailers overseas or in the U.S. I was ordering run apparel from a soccer shop in the U.K. So I had to, globally, curate what I felt was me.”

He opened his initial store, the Vancouver Running Company, to address those needs—and realized it was a lot harder than he expected. “It was super hard to get brands,” he recalls. “Our location was not accessible at all. On the regular, we would get phone calls with people saying, ‘I think I’m at your store, but I don’t know how to get in.’” But he didn’t quit; he just addressed each issue one at a time, slowly building brand relationships and making the store easier to find. Then, a physiotherapist friend looking for a run shop partner contacted him. The two started playing around with new concepts, bouncing around ideas and doing smaller activations with brands, marrying tech concepts to the running scene.

And then, lighting struck. “I vividly remember when Nick and I were sitting in the back office of Vancouver Running Company, and we knew our goal was to reach new people and introduce them to running through technology,” he says. “We wanted to get off the hamster wheel of catering to those more serious semi-elite runners. Honestly, I just wished everybody would run with us, and not in the sense that I wanted everybody to shop with us–I wanted people to understand that we were welcoming to everybody, and we were learning and evolving alongside them. That’s where the name Run As You Are came from. We would speak to the different archetypes of people that run: the parent runner pushing the stroller, the foodie runner who likes to end runs at a burger shop to try the latest burger, the fashionista who’s always sourcing the latest Stella McCartney. We came up with these 10 archetypes, and we developed events and projects with brands around them.”

The brand grew, and they integrated a more health-focused approach to running–again, using their tech strength while maintaining an IRL presence. “We added the Run Ready brand so we could take a health lens and inform your running,” he says. “We’ve created an entire system that’s based off three main points: how much your body can absorb, how much your body can bounce, and how stable it is. And so when you go through a running assessment with one of our physiotherapists, they’re going through a process of determining those three criterial. Once that info is inputted into our software, we can provide an assortment of footwear based on how much your body can absorb, how much it can bounce and how stable it is. When somebody is finished their assessment, they’re also given a prescription for exercises specific to them that can help address any issues, as well as the optimal footwear assortment, and off they go.”

In fact, while the run shop is still Smith’s HQ, the company is as much a tech company as it is a running one. They have five people in Toronto now who create the software and algorithms, then there’s the retail arm at Run As You Are in Vancouver.

Still, as the brands grow nationwide, Smith is careful to keep it local as well, continuing to show up with the Flight Crew and Run Club runs that leave from the shop on a weekly basis. “It’s really key for that we are being true to everybody in their running journey and having fun with it,” he adds. “We want to be approachable and fun, even while it’s very technical and health-forward.”

His real passion, though, lies in getting to escape the noise whenever possible: “These days, I don’t really care about qualifying for anything. My running has become very much about solitude,” he says. “When I can, I will just go disappear on the trail for a few hours, usually very early in the morning. And it’s the most special time for me.”