November 21st proved a humbling day for Ray and Cathy Pugsley, the husband-and-wife duo behind Virginia-based =PR= Run & Walk. There, at The Running Event’s annual Industry Awards Dinner, =PR= Run & Walk was named the Best Running Store of 2024, a lofty honor factoring in a range of criteria from secret shopper evaluations and community engagement initiatives to employee benefits and sustainability efforts.

“Winning this award means you have to be good all the way around,” Cathy Pugsley tells Running Insight. “It’s all about the ‘we’ and every single piece of our business.”

Receiving the industry’s highest retail honor also sparked the Pugsleys to reflect on their 21-year adventure in the run specialty world, which began as Potomac River Running in 2003 and now includes and recent name change for the 10 =PR= Run & Walk retail locations and nearly 90 employees.

“I think about how grateful we’ve been, from our customers to our hard-working staff and the lives they touch everyday,” Cathy says. “It’s been a wonderful ride.”

Though both Pugsleys were accomplished collegiate runners – Ray at Dartmouth and Cathy at Duke followed by William & Mary – neither had a background forecasting a career in running retail. Cathy holds a Master’s degree in public policy and economics and was working in strategy and business consulting before entering the running store game. Ray, meanwhile, earned a graduate degree in hydrology and served as an environmental consultant before slinging shoes.

“We were both doing good things, but we couldn’t necessarily see the impact on people,” Cathy says.

Eager for a career capable of feeding their souls and their stomachs, the Pugsleys continued circling back to their shared passion for running. Opening a run specialty shop seemed a worthy and accessible endeavor.

Leveraging her business background, Cathy crafted an uber-thorough business plan detailing everything from sales forecasts to market competition. In an interesting twist, the Pugsleys along with their business partners – Cathy’s sister, Margie, and her husband, Brendan Shapiro – decided to open two stores off the bat. (Integral to Potomac River Running’s first dozen years, the Shapiros both exited the business in 2015 to pursue careers in education.)

“With two families, the math simply didn’t make sense to start with one door,” Cathy says.

“Plus,” Ray adds, “we were confident we weren’t going to crash and burn.”

Picking Up the Pace

The first Potomac River Running opened in Ashburn, VA, in March 2003. Three months later and about a 30-minute drive from Ashburn, the partners opened a second Potomac River Running store in Burke, VA.

Despite meticulous planning and unfettered optimism, Cathy recalls a rough start, particularly during the stores’ first winter. One day, she remembers the day’s total sales consisting of a single gel packet.

“People didn’t know who we were and what they were going to get,” Cathy says.

Yet, the Pugsleys remained persistent and determined. They reached out to contacts from their running days to drum up business and put the Potomac River Running name in front of youth and high school coaches. When they learned of a vacancy at Reston Town Center, the area’s premier lifestyle center, they beat others to the punch and landed a coveted retail spot in the high-trafficked district. Launched in September 2006, the Reston location started fast and validated Potomac River Running in the Northern Viriginia market.

“That was the turning point,” Ray says. “Our phone started ringing like never before.” 

Over the next four years, the Pugsleys opened three additional stores and acquired two Metro Run & Walk locations, which arrived with capable teams, including Scott Raczko. Though best known in running circles as Alan Webb’s high school coach (and later Keira D’Amato’s professional coach), Raczko understood the ins and outs of the run specialty landscape after holding leadership positions at Footsteps and Metro Run & Walk.

“He knew the run specialty landscape better than we did,” Ray says of Raczko, who became a trusted ally for the Pugsleys and their fast-growing operation.   

Ahead of the Curve’

Over subsequent years, Potomac River Running evolved its marketing strategies, embraced technology and data sharing, trialed new products, sharpened its operations and strengthened its collaboration with brands and other run specialty retailers, including regional peers like Pacers and Baltimore-based Charm City Run.

“To stay relevant, we learned we always needed to be thinking about innovating and staying ahead of the curve in every aspect of our business,” Ray says.

While true for any run specialty store, it rings especially so in the Northern Virginia market, where rent and labor costs stand among the highest in the nation. Out of necessity, the Pugsleys had to be creative about profitability and as operationally sound as possible, from efficient ordering to maximize freight costs to reviewing internal data to determine staffing levels.

“The pressure of needing to do better is how we got better,” Cathy says. “We had to be best in class to get enough people to shop in our stores to make the numbers work.”

Recognizing they couldn’t do it all themselves, the Pugsleys also committed to constructing a strong management team and, then, empowering those individuals to make decisions and create impact. Today, senior leaders like Raczko (chief operating officer), Elise Gebauer (creative director), Annie Lutz (director of purchasing and analytics) and Lauren Haislip (marketing director) oversee areas such as branding, buying and brand partnerships, which frees Cathy to focus on big-picture issues and Ray – the self-described “fixer” – to put out daily fires and devote his time to community outreach.

On the operations side, the Pugsleys established their warehouse as a “centralized hub” for inventory, marketing and collaboration. The move put a sharper eye on inventory, an enhanced focused on the company’s go-to-market strategy and liberated store leaders to focus on delivering a premium front-of-the-house experience to customers.

Refusing To Rest

In conjunction with Potomac River Running’s 20th anniversary in 2023, the Pugsleys initiated a rebrand, dropping the Potomac River Running name in favor of =PR= Run & Walk. Cathy says the new name cultivates a more welcoming and inclusive image, which is important given the high number of customers who do not identify as runners. 

In a highly transient market like Northern Virginia, Ray says =PR= must continuously 

educate new residents “about who we are and what we do” and “reach out to anyone and everyone who might benefit from a good pair of athletic shoes.” That understanding spurred the name change and also aggressive advertising in 2024, including billboards. The Pugsleys, after all, understand much work remains.

To that point, Ray recently attended a health fair at a 100-employee company located at Reston Town Center. Roughly half of the people he spoke with were not familiar with his 18-year-old store, even though it was Reston Town Center neighbor. 

“It was discouraging, of course, but also exciting at the same time because we see the opportunity out there,” Rays says.

Indeed, the Best Running Store of 2024 believes it can be even better moving forward.

In 2025, the Pugsleys want to rededicate themselves to grassroots marketing, specifically efforts targeting the youth and high school market, the medical community and anyone else encouraging people to move. The couple has also added to its management team, hiring a new leader to oversee outreach and events, including initiatives to engage Northern Virginia’s swelling Hispanic population, as well as a director of strategic partnerships charged to forge relationships with local companies.

“The future is bright and we’re not resting,” Ray says.