Good running shoes prevent the hard shock of reality from traveling up the feet to the brain, which believes it exists inside a velvet-curtained palanquin fording marshmallow rivers. Preserve your brain’s blissful ignorance with today’s Groupon: for $20, you get $40 toward apparel, running shoes, and accessories at Run With Us in Pasadena.

Voted among the best L.A. running stores by Los Angeles magazine, Run With Us owes its reputation to its legendarily helpful staff of runners—including several coaches—and the panoply of well-fitting shoes and apparel it proffers to its windborne customers. The store’s longtime runners possess uncanny powers of bipedal prognostication, allowing them to match you with your solemates after nothing more than a free gait analysis and a polygraph test. Put your feet in their capable hands as the staff appraises arch structure and ankle flexibility, zeroing in on the shoe of your toes’ dreams.

Browsing tenderfoots can eyeball a wide selection of arch-embracers from the biggest names in running, such as New Balance ($99.99+) and Brooks ($84.99+), then take their kicks for a brief test jog on the asphalt outside the store. Run With Us also offers a wide array of accessories for the aspiring fast-paced ambulator, such as an Ultimate Direction Hydration Belt ($25.99), a pair of Spenco insoles ($19.99), and a variety of Timex pedometers ($19.99–$24.99). Moisture-wicking socks allow for a more comfortable running experience ($7+ individually, $10 for a three-pack), while an Asics running hat reroutes excessive ear sweat from dripping into headphones during the denouement of your Ethan Frome audio book ($24.99).

Take advantage of the store’s expert guidance to seek out the comfortable, durable shoes that will ensure a prime position for your next race or for when the aliens demand the slowest runners be sacrificed first. This Groupon is only valid for in-store items.

Reviews

CityVoters named Run With Us one of the top six places for running gear in 2009. More than 60 Yelpers give it an average of 4.5 stars and 11 Insider Pagers reviewers and six Yahoo! Locals give the store five stars.

• GREAT customer service. And they help fix your feet problems with REAL PROFESSIONAL and KNOWLEDGEABLE help? I'm all over that! – Leila D., Yelp, 11/21/10
• I bought 2 pairs of shoes (1 for trails, 1 for road). Both were brands that I never would have picked out on my own and they are the best running shoes I have ever owned. – John B., Insider Pages