Running Cobbler Crafts Shoes, Passion Remains for Marathons

OCEAN CITY – Frank Longo is a very fortunate man and his appreciation of his good fortune radiates from within and throughout his shop, Frank’s Shoe Repair Clinic. He has been able to combine his love, no, passion for running, with his craft both of which he has honed to the highest levels of accomplishment over nearly 70 years.
Frank’s Clinic is a landmark, tradition-rich style cobbler shop in Ocean City that attracts patrons not just from the city, county, and region but from Philadelphia and throughout the country for its Old World craftsmanship and service.
Longo, 74, but looking decades younger, learned his trade from his father, Joe, who had immigrated to this city in the 1920s from Calabria, Italy. His father learned the shoe repair business from another Italian, already in his 80s, in Ocean City who made shoes by hand and 8-year old Frank spent his time when not in school watching and absorbing. Longo’s real desire however was to run, run and run some more and this in the days when jogging, let alone racing were totally unknown.
“My father was very old-fashioned, he didn’t want me to be a bum and do sports, but as my mother would always say, I was born a race horse. There were no track teams in those days at Ocean City High School so I developed my own training. We didn’t even have running shoes. One day my father was furious I was out running and told the police his son had run away. They caught up with me on the Boardwalk and wanted to drive me home. But I told them, does it look like I’m running away wearing shorts? And so they just followed me home as I finished my run,” remembered Longo.
Most people, and Frank’s Clinic does work for upwards of 300 clients a week, would never imagine that beyond his shoe repair shop, Longo has run with the best of American elite track athletes and finished 50 marathons throughout the nation including Boston. 
Longo has lived and worked his entire life in Ocean City, except for his Army service in Germany where he met President John F. Kennedy who visited his base near Frankfurt early in his presidency. His seven siblings made their mark on the area too. His brother, Dominick, served as police chief.
Upon his return from Germany in 1963, Longo decided to take a bet and the challenge and run with two service buddies – in combat boots that Longo customized with padding – from Cape May to Ocean City, a distance of 48 miles per their route.
He won the $100 bet that they wouldn’t make it albeit with “slightly” bleeding feet. And, thus, a highly specialized area of shoe-making was added to Longo’s repertoire.
Nike, just starting up in the early 1960s and hearing about his feat/feet started using Longo to test their prototype running shoes since he knew shoes and was a runner.
Since those early days, Longo has intensively studied orthopedics and has won numerous awards, including the Silver Cup which, in the world of shoes, is the gold medal coupled with the World Series of cobblers, for his work in fitting tens of thousands of people in shoes that they can comfortably run in and including for the disabled.
Longo has worked and run with the greats of his sport including Jim Ryun, who in 1964 was the first high school runner to break the four-minute mile. 
He no longer runs marathons but has fitted out his home with top-level work-out equipment as well as a trampoline. “I use the trampoline to run now,” said Frank. “I usually go about 30 minutes and will do one hour when I have the time. Throughout all the marathons I’ve done and all the other running, even standing on my feet 14 hours and more every day at the shop, I’ve never been injured.
“My advice is to listen to your body and do what it’s telling you to do, forget about what the magazines and blogs are saying. The most important thing is to stretch, which I’ve always done, for 30 minutes before running and 30 minutes after.”
With the Ocean Drive Marathon March 20 and its hundreds of runners going the distance along the coast from Cape May City to Sea Isle City Longo’s advice, and inspiration, could be very timely.
To contact Camille Sailer, email csailer@cmcherald.com.