The Independent on Sunday

The Independent
29 October 2000

Footsoldiers of the Soul
By Julie Welch

At 4.15 on Tuesday afternoon the Indian peace advocate and guru Sri Chinmoy will appear at the house of Commons at the invitation of MPs Jenny Tonge and Piara Khabra, and Baroness Flather. He will share his vision of world peace and he may play his flute. So far, so run of the mill as far as visiting gurus go. However, where Sri Chinmoy differs from your average mystic is that he also happens to be a hero for the running community.
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Time Out Magazine

Time Out Magazine
London's best sports and technology shops
20 May 2008

“Knowledge and impartial advice are the watchwords at Run and Become; the expert staff will ask you about your running programme and any injuries you’ve had, then, as part of the custom fitting service, give you various shoes to pad around in in the passageway outside. The comprehensive website is a generous resource for runners of all standards.”
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The London Evening Standard

London Evening Standard
7 April 2003

If the shoe fits...
A day in the life of a running shop owner
by Emma Rigby

It is 8:48, Wednesday morning, and Tony Smith, 64, is outside his shop, Run and Become. It is on the corner of a quiet alley, near St James’s Park tube station and huge windows neatly display row after row of trainers.

We step inside: Smith turns the alarm off and plays soothing flute music performed by his meditation teacher, Sri Chinmoy. “It helps calm the customers,” he says. “On Saturdays the queues can be an hour long.”

Smith has run 27 marathons and meditated for 30 years, so when he started the business 21 years ago it seemed natural to combine his hobbies. “The name is a short aphorism, ” says Smith. ““Run to succeed in the outer world, ‘become’ to proceed in the inner world: I think of meditation as inner running.”
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The Financial Times

The Financial Times
20 December 2003

Puritan Pleasure
Feet first
by Jackie Shorey
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The Observer Magazine

The Observer Magazine
28 March 2004

Soft shoe shuffle
With 1,800 miles on the clock, it’s time for a new pair of running shoes. Marathon man Martin Love puts his feet in the hands of specialists.

Reaching into my sports bag I gingerly pull out a pair of dirty grey, battered running shoes. There’s a large hole on the top of one of them where the nail of my big toe has torn through the fabric. The heels and soles are badly worn and the arch support on both has collapsed. The left shoe has a lace which has broken twice and been retied. There is an air of decay about them both.

The shop assistant gasps and visibly rocks backwards. She’s never seen a worse example of shoe abuse. ‘How long have you had these?’ she asks, incredulously.
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Runners World

Runners World
July 2006

In memoriam
Even if you didn’t know Tony Smith personally, there’s a good chance he touched your running life.

These days, when we need running kit or advice to improve our performance, we head to a specialist running shop. We know that we can enter almost any race, no matter what our capabilities, and feel included. Twenty-five years ago, though, that wasn’t the case: anyone who ran marathons was at best considered slightly eccentric, at worst foolish.
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Sports Retail magazine

Sports Retail Magazine
April 2006

Trade Talk
Jack Lynes, Former retailer and SGB’s man about the sports trade, gets down to commercially and spiritually uplifting business with London running specialist Run and Become

My research prior to arriving at ‘Run & Become’ made it very clear that this was to be no ordinary visit and that I was likely to find customers testing footwear on the pavement outside the shop with a short run. Situated just a short walk (or even a shorter run if you are that way inclined) from Victoria Station, I did indeed witness several runners who confirmed the legend that in my cynicism I had largely discounted — that the treadmill is no substitute for the punishing pavement, and so far, only once has a ‘runner’ run away, leaving behind a pair of battered trainers!
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The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph
16 June 2001

Streetwise
The shops we can’t do without
by Alice Hart-Davis

There are often people running up and down the south end of Palmer Street, near Victoria Station in London. The runners are often incongruously dressed: in a suit, perhaps, or even a hiked-up skirt, with pristine trainers on their feet. Shopkeepers nearby are used to the sight. For first-time visitors, it is a sign that they are getting warmer; Run and Become, the specialist running-shoe shop, is close at hand.
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Athletics Weekly

Athletics Weekly
18 October 2007

Tribute to Sri Chinmoy

SRI CHINMOY, an Indian philosopher and keen runner, died on October 11 at the age of 76.

His influence in the fields of philosophy, spiritualism, poetry and religion was immense, but so was his impact in athletics and running.
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