Member Profile: Melody Karpinski, Fleet Feet Sports

Our member spotlight this month comes from Melody Karpinski, who hosted the BASH this month at Fleet Feet Sports!

Tell us about what you do? I am the marketing and events manager for Fleet Feet Sports, a local run specialty shop downtown in Railroad Square. I work with our vendors/brands to create new events, facilitate race sponsorships and support some of our community programs like Workplace Fit. A Workplace Fit event is where we bring a mobile store to your office for the day. We scan your foot with our 3D scanner, provide gait analysis, fit you for athletic shoes, arch supports, work shoes and provide you with injury prevention tools/information. We have been locally owned in Santa Rosa for 21 years, and our goal is to support and contribute to a happy, healthier community in Sonoma County.

What do you bring to YPN? If you were to be a go to person for a fellow YPN member what would they go to you for? Shoes would probably be the most recognized thing, but we also do sports bra fittings, arch support fittings and host a variety of clinics on proper nutrition, sports medicine, running safety and good form running. The Workplace Fit program mentioned above would be another good option if you have an office of 10 or more you’re looking to schedule fittings for. If you’re looking to train for a race, we provide coaching and training groups from the 5K distance to the marathon. I also am the head coach for cross-country and track & field at Montgomery during the school year, but during the summer I coach a youth track club for ages 6-12 if you want your kiddos to run off some energy 😊.

Whether it is “Hakuna Matata” “Carpe Diem” or “Just Do IT” - Do you have a motto in life? My motto is a Shakespeare quote because I’m a complete BritLit nerd and majored in English/writing/journalism in college. It’s a line from “Julius Caesar” and reads: “Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant face death but once.” For me personally, it speaks to making less decisions out of fear and more decisions out of love. For my professional life, it means being unafraid to take risks (something all of us can continually grow in) and never putting myself in a box of “I’m just a writer” or “I’m just an events manager.” I used to view my diverse career background as a bit of a weakness and now I view it as more of a strength.

What is your proudest accomplishment thus far? I’m a pretty new, young XC coach, but I’ve had the privilege of getting two of my athletes to state in cross-country in 2016 and 2017. One of them was signed and is now running at the college level, and another one of my varsity xc athletes was just signed a few months ago. We also had two athletes qualify for state in track & field in 2017 as well, for the first time in 10 years from our program. Aside from my more well-known athletes, seeing the slowest kid on my team get faster is what makes me the happiest. I was the slowest person on my team most of high school and into college, so I can relate to them quite a bit more than my speedy sub-4:30 miler! My athletes light up my life, so working with every single one of them will always be one of my greatest accomplishments in life.

If you were to play “hooky” from work for a day, what would your ideal day look like? A strong, spicy margarita, an interesting book, a warm beach, a good companion and a long playlist of country music.