About : Potomac River Running is a family-owned, locally based running specialty store with locations in Arlington, Ashburn, Cleveland Park, Falls Church, Leesburg, Reston, Rockville, and Burke. We opened in the Spring of 2003 in Loudoun County with the goal of sharing our passion for an active lifestyle with the community. Since opening our doors in Ashburn nearly a decade ago, we have worked to extend our commitment to the running and walking community throughout the Washington DC Metro area. Come see us and find the perfect running shoes for you!
All in the Family : All four Potomac River Running owners are related by blood or marriage. Cathy and Margie are sisters who grew up in Fairfax County. Brendan (Margie’s high school sweetheart) is especially proud of his local roots. Though Ray (Cathy’s husband) is originally from New Jersey, we give him a pass because he has lived in the DC area for nearly 20 years and is known to cheer for the Redskins from time to time.
Prior to opening the stores, the owners were each heavily involved in the local running community in one way or another. All four ran track and cross country through high school, while Cathy, Ray and Margie enjoyed successful running careers in college. Cathy and Ray met while running for the same professional post-collegiate racing team. Margie continues to race triathlons professionally. Never the fleetest of foot, Brendan still aims to solidify his place in the middle of the pack.
I have been coming to this store for a couple of years now for my running shoes, but I recently had the best experience yet. I have been having trouble with my knee lately, so I was interested in sole support in addition to new shoes. I was given personalized attention and left with all of my concerns addressed. Keep up the good work!
PRR is a wonderful place to shop and get running shoes and apparel. Never Once do you feel obligated to buy a pair of shoes. The staff is there for one reason only; to be the best judge as to what kind of a runner you are and how certain shoes with various arch supports provide necessary stability based on your personalized running style. They are always conscious of price and quality together, and overall have you feeling comfortable with the purchase you have made. I would recommend this store to runners of all levels. Do the diagnostic on the treadmill if you have never done it. You will find out what kind of runner you are then. Keep it up PRR
Sporting goods, if you're a follower of my reviews you might know I have a problem. Compound this addiction of buying sporting goods with a running addiction and well I'm just begging to be admitted to a clinic somewhere. I was in the DC area for work and really wanted to stop by a Potomac River Running Co store to pickup one of their funny "Virginia is for Runners" shirts. I was in the Falls Church area so I stopped by the Arlington store. The store is located in a old warehouse strip right near downtown Arlington. There's a good size parking lot which seems to be rare for stores in the area. As I mentioned before, I went in for a USD 20 t-shirt and left with a USD 130 in equipment. They had me at "would you like to try that shoe on" and I did. I really like buying running shoes and they let me try on 5 or 6 different pairs. We talked about running shoes and my experiences in some previous models. We talked my likes, dislikes, pains, successes and all sorts of other things. I ran in a few of them on the treadmill. They even kept me from buying another pair of Mizuno Wave Riders even though the 15's were "better" than the cursed 14's. Like I said, they had me at trying on the shoes, it was a give in that I was going to buy a pair. The final decision was to put me a new pair of Brooks Ghost 4's to replace my Ghost 3's. I'm excited to run my next marathon in them. The prices are all full price and I didn't see a sale rack in sight. But really if you're going to a specialty running store you should expect that. If there was anything that saddened me it was that 75 percent of the store was actually a bike shop. There's so much awesome running gear out there and you need all of it to run comfortably. They had it compressed the running gear into maybe a third or less of the store. Road cyclists secretly (or often publicly) hate runners, why must we celebrate them by letting them take up all the floor space? Anyways, its a great running store with knowledgeable people. If you go in, get ready to want to buy fun running equipment!
