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."

But it was a brother's challenge that really got him going. As his 

brothers bragged about their Nikes and Reeboks, Gallegos shot back 

that he could make a better shoe. "My brother said, "if you're so 

smart, why don't you do it?" Every time I ran I could hear his voice."

Finding someone to make the special springs took almost a year. Then 

he spent $1,000 for 300 springs, betting he could come up with a 

workable shoe. The neighborhood butcher was his first spring 

manufacturer, Gallegos quips. He used band and crosscut saws to slice 

through running -shoes soles so the springs could be attached. Soon 

Gallegos had his own band saw, cutting soles and inserting springs to 

create by hand more that 100 pairs of prototypes.

Now he has a Korean manufacturer who also distributes the shoes 

throughout Southeast Asia. His advertising is primarily by word of 

mouth and the stare of strangers.

"If you can bear the snickers, it's worth the comfort," says 

marathoner Marian Fuller of Littleton, Colo. The 5-foot-5-inch, 

107-pounder knows what it feels like at the end of a grueling

 26.2-mile run, when everything hurts. That's why she doesn't mind the 

whispered comments and the head-turning stares. "They are a 

considerable investment, they're not cheapos" but they're not out of 

line with other high-end shoes," she says, referring to the $139.95 

price tag. Fuller has spent up to $200 for orthotics, special inserts to 

make her other running shoes more comfortable. No need with Z-Coils. 

The 14-year running veteran averages 2 marathons a year. This year, 

she used Z-Coils in training for Duluth's Grandma's half-marathon, 

where she placed in the top five, and the San Francisco International 

Marathon, where she came in third in the 45-49-year-olds women's 

division "Overall, the most positive thing about these shoes is that they 

allow people, especially those prone to injuries due to heel pounding, to 

walk away uninjured and to recover after a long run without the 

normal muscle breakdown." Though the shoes heavier weight cost her a 

little time in the marathon, the shortened recovery time was worth it.  

Lower-back pain is no longer a problem. Fuller, however, does not 

recommend it as a walking shoe.

But don't tell that to Randall Gauss, who pulled on and laced up his 

first pair of Z-Coils about a year-and-a-half ago. Now he rarely wears 

any other shoes. When his son recently spattered paint on his precious 

pair, "I got another pair to wear to church. " At age 77, the Santa Fe 

resident is a believer and so are the 25 percent of customers who buy 

Z-Coils for walking, not running. When Gauss first met Gallegos at the 

local track, he was struggling with a bad back. "I was having a hard 

time walking. I got tired out real quick." When he saw Gallegos' 

odd-looking shoes and heard that at 64 he was running six miles a day, 

he was impressed. But since the shoes were still experimental, he had 

to wait a year before he could buy a pair.

"I put them on and he had me walking outdoors a little bit. I told him, 

"I can't walk too far, "so we went inside and sat down for 10 minutes. 

The pain in my back was gone, like it had never happened," he says, 

still with wonderment. He and Gallegos headed back outside for 

another walk. Since using Z-Coils, trips to the chiropractor are down 

and his spirits are up. He, too, gets lots of looks and curious questions. 

A women he met in the neighborhood cafeteria bought a pair and sold 

a friend on them. "Women are getting more interested in them here," 

Gauss says. "They are just as enthusiastic as the men."

Z-Coil is working with a leading shoe designer on an extensive line of 

dress and walking shoes. The line will be available in March 2001. But 

Tony Vanella, 48, got hooked on the current model after shooting some 

product photographs for Gallegos. "I wound up getting a pair for 

myself and I've bought nine pairs with my own money and given them 

to my friends" The shoes "feel like you're walking on two big shock 

absorbers. You can feel the energy coming back into your legs. Mr. 

Gallegos is a genius."

But to his eight children, he is Dad. He is the man who has changed 

their diapers, packed their lunches, listened to their tales of woe and 

whooped with joy at their triumphs. He is the man who still inspires 

them. When Marcella Gallegos died in 1980, the youngest was 2, the 

oldest was 18. Now they are ages 19 to 34, three of whom work for 

the Albuquerque-based company. 

"He's almost like a ball of energy," says Andres Gallegos, Z-Coil 

Footwear's executive vice president. "Mother died when I was 12 and 

he raised eight kids all by himself. That was a tremendous feat. But 

he's also got an entrepreneurial spirit that is unbreakable. Who would 

have thought of a spring shoe, it was such a wild idea. But he has 

1,000 percent confidence in this, and that passion is very powerful. It

helps him go through the barriers faced in any new business. He 

wouldn't be running today without that passion."

Alvaro Gallegos' passion for business and life has taken him from the 

first department store he opened at age 27, no one would give the 

"unskilled" fighter pilot a job, to sharing his experiences with 

University of New Mexico business students. He chuckles at the irony. 

The university's business school once told him the chances of getting 

Z-Coil off the ground were less than 1 percent. "I walked out of there 

so disappointed. Then I thought about it and it energized me."After 

beginning his quest in 1989, Gallegos finally received a patent for his 

spring design in 1994.

Now in 2001, Z-CoiL shoes have over 15,000 loyal customers and are 

sold all over America and Asia.

2007  Z-CoiL® Pain Relief Footwear™