VISTA MAGAZINE: Oct. 96: Mixing business, family and success

Mixing business, family and success: "Alvaro Gallegos is up and running before the sun rises in Santa Fe. He is a dynamo who raised eight children single-handedly after his wife died, a former fighter pilot, a businessman who has owned restaurants and department stores, dabbling in real estate along the way. Now at 65, he is an inventor whose unusual Z-Coil Recoil running shoes are found on the feet of New Mexico's governor, marathon runners and people with bad backs and knees.

One look at his bright yellow, electric blue, orange and white shoes will probably make you laugh, or at least chuckle. Heavy-duty metal springs sit where the heel should be, giving the impression one is riding on shock absorbers. In fact, that is exactly the idea. The Recoil shoe is meant to lessen the impact every time a runner's foot slams into the ground with the force of three to three-and-a -half times his or her body weight. That pounding and its effect on the heels, knees and back were what got Gallegos thinking. Always an athletic type, he took up running just as he was about to turn 40. Pleasure soon turned into competitiveness. But after 20 years of nearly daily six-mile runs, his body began to talk back, sometimes in a nasty tone. 'I thought to myself, 'There should be a shoe around somewhere to kill all that impact' I thought, 'Wouldn't it be neat if I had a spring in my shoe that would propel me forward and once I got up to speed I could just keep going and going.'" (more)


Al shows off the NM Mexico MainStreet™ Community Award. February 12, 2003