Monday, May 25, 2009

2009 Marathon Training Begins

Training for the 2009 San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon has begun. This year I have joined a training group that is hosted by Run Gear Run (RGR). I had been debating whether to join the RGR training group or the Fleet Feet training group, but after my negative experience on Facebook with Fleet Feet I am boycotting their store and will make referrals only to RGR.

My negative experience with Fleet Feet has to do with posting on their facebook page and having the posts deleted. Earlier this month REI.com had an awesome deal on the Garmin 405 HR monitor. With tax and shipping it was $291 and with a $50 rebate being offered by Garmin the price was $241. This is over $100 less that the normal price of $350, which is not including tax (add another $28) I was very excited about this and posted on all of the running related sites I could. Fleet Feet took the delete approach, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I can blame them for not wanting competitor advertising on their site, but they should have handled this in a much different way. The first choice would have been to contact me and ask me to remove it siting the above reason. I probably would have complied as this is a reasonable request, but I would have challenged them to meet this price or leave the post up on their Facebook page as it should be a site for runners. They should want what is best for runners, and if the runner chooses to buy from the cheaper online store then they would have at least built the goodwill for the store. I contend that most that are making the purchase, because it was $241 would not purchase this in their store as the $350 price point it too high. So what have they really lost by leaving the post on their page???

By deleting my posts they have ticked me off and have missed out at least on my membership in their training group and I will definitely point people away from Fleet Feet in the future.

I will make it a point to begin making regular posts again as I progress through training.

May the Force Be with You!

Chad