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5 2 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.14 re CHOICE CRITIC´S CHOICE Whoever named PRP's Riverview Park wasn't too creative. It's a park. With a view of the river. But what a view it is! Across the Ohio, as I stand here, the southern Indiana knobs seem to rise from the water like a giant wall of trees. And for some reason the water just doesn't seem as brown as it does downtown. This view keeps me coming back. Before I put in my earbuds I hear a bunch of kids playing in the sprayground and a Jet Ski whiz by on the river. I head up the hill to the paved trail that runs along the levee. It's all fat from here, a nice break from the Cherokee and Iroquois hills. If I'd started at the Big Four Bridge, the begin- ning of the Louisville Loop, I'd be at mile 19 right now. But tonight I'm just doing a four-miler. (By the way, Riverview Park earns bonus points for its bathrooms. Runners aren't really known to be fnicky about bathrooms — port-a-potties at races? Ewww! — but these facilities are all clean stainless-steel. Good ventilation too.) I pass a couple with a baby in a stroller and a woman with two big dogs. A man and woman who look to be in their 50s pass me on their bikes. A runner who looks like an Ironman breezes right past me. Another thing I like about this trail: mark- ers every quarter-mile. What's that I smell near the two-mile mark? Fried fsh? It's Mike Linnig's, my turnaround point. I glance for a minute at people chowing down on fried alligator bites and drinking beer. If I wanted to go another 1.8 miles on the levee trail, I'd come across the historic house and farm known as Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing — and another spectacular view of the river. The sun is dipping a little more as I run back to- ward Riverview Park. When I get there, I sit down on one of the swings overlooking the river. Steam rises off the water. A barge moseys past, loaded with boxes and barrels. As the sun sets, a family releases Chinese lanterns into the sky. — AT PLACE TO RUN (that's not an Olmsted Park) Riverview Park 8202 Greenwood Road Swags Sport Shoes owner Swag Hartel should be at his store on Westport Road about now. It's a little past 11:30 on a Wednesday morning. With neither a cell phone number nor an email address, one must rely on patterns to ballpark Hartel's location, sort of like a migrating bird. He tends to stop at his fagship in South Louisville at 11, so he should be here at the Westport Plaza location by now . . . "Hello, Anne," Hartel says, walking through the door while balancing three boxes of running shoes on one arm. His voice is soft and still clings to a British accent, though he hasn't lived in England in four decades. An avid runner, I've somehow never been to Swags before now. But I've heard about Hartel's skills. He picks up my current run- ning shoe, a hint of despair on his face. "Walk for me," he instructs. His pale-blue eyes watch me take maybe a dozen steps. "You have a fat foot, low arch," he says. Hartel (pictured) disappears to a back room and returns with a size 7 Brooks-brand running shoe. "No, I wear a size eight." "No, you buy your shoes way too big. Now, Anne, you don't want your toe at the end of the shoe, but you want it as close as you can without being jammed. All these running stores say buy your running shoe a half-inch big. Big mistake!" he says, pulling out a gray-and-pink shoe. "Put this little baby on." I suspiciously slip on the size 7 and lace up. Perfect. The cush- ioning feels sturdy but not heavy. My low arch feels supported — a needed boost to the sole. "I've never worn Brooks," I tell Hartel. "Twenty-nine percent of runners wear Brooks. Twenty-one per- cent Asics," he begins, dictating shoe facts Google might edit out of a search. Hartel's passionate about his 34-year-old business, as well as his sport. A few stats on this guy: 1) Hartel logged 53,000 miles during 30 years of elite-level running; 2) at 17 years old he was the fastest half-miler in the world for that age; 3) at 40 years old (40!) he ran a 4:12 mile. That's BLAZING! Hartel, who's in his 60s, stopped competitively running at 44, but a ft frame endures. Once runners fnd Swags, they rarely stray. "See that woman over there?" Hartel asks, pointing to a tan, blond pixie of a woman. "She moved to Arizona and still ordered from me." He appreciates the loyalty. "Little independent stores like these are disappearing," he says, crossing his bare, sinewy stems. As I get ready to leave with my new shoes, Hartel offers to let me take them for free. Tempting, but I want to do my part to make sure this place sticks around. — Anne Marshall ATHLETIC SHOES Swags Sport Shoes 7415 Old Third Street Road, 9407 Westport Road 46-57 BOL.indd 52 6/17/14 2:12 PM