Running Supply Roundup #32
On going big at Boston, Lightspray for the people, Bandit's out of this world marketing, and thoughts on next-gen running stores
Boston is just a couple weeks away, which means you’ll be inundated with Instagram posts and stories for every brand, run crew, and influencer’s shakeout, pop-up, breath work session, and party. I’ll have a full list of every thing that’s going on posted to here soon, just like I did for the NYC Marathon.
Quick Hits
I’ll have a list of all the popups, shakeouts, and brand activations for the 2025 Boston Marathon soon!
Drew Hartman brought me on his podcast and substack, Small Brand Mentality to talk about the why behind Running Supply.
Super cool film from Nash Howe at Currently Running titled “Mariposa”
Grand Slam Track and Athlos were this weekend. GST didn’t get quite the attendance they’d hoped and hasn’t lived up to the hype yet. I don’t think there honestly was enough hype ahead of time. More on that below.
Massive marketing pushes last week from On and Bandit for their latest shoes made for a lot of noise
Tariffs will likely affect sneaker prices in the US in addition to apparel, as huge increases on countries like Vietnam (49%) go into place
I’m working on a Boston Marathon vintage popup where I’ll be selling a collection of vintage Boston Marathon tees, sweatshirts, and jackets from the 70s, 80s, and 90s the week before the marathon. If you’re subscribed, you’ll be the first to know!
Grand Slam Track and Next Gen Racing
This past week we had flashes of what could be the future of track and field with both the Grand Slam Track and Athlos meets. It’s far too early to tell if they’ll permanently change the sport, but for the athletes it is some career changing money to win. The Grand Slam Meet in Kingston wasn’t particularly well attended and maybe wasn’t the best starting place for the race and wasn’t marketed well locally. Given how little Grant Fisher needed to do to win $100,000 from 2 rather slow races, I bet we’ll start seeing hungrier racing. There’s a pretty good analysis here from Jonathan Gault at LetsRun. Next one is in Miami in about a month!
Recent Releases and Events
Adidas is Working Directly With Artists
Ante Berlin hosted a pop-up with Adidas on April 5-6 where people could customize adidas adizero EVO SL’s with artist JW Studios. I’m bummed I can’t be in 2 places at once as the custom dip-dyed shoes look really unique.
They also have an upcoming collab with Philéo in Paris at Dover Street Market April 9th, doing another customized EVO SL. Philéo is a young french footwear designer who has previously worked with Salomon and Comme Des Garçons. This collab is a grunged up of the shoe, smeared with boot polish used to stain the upper and achieve a unique look on every shoe.
On the design:
The idea was to kind of imagine how asphalt would stain. I love how shoes look after having suffered an ultra trail. I wanted to imagine how that’d look in a civilized way.
— Philéo
Bandit’s x Asics Novablast 5 and SS25 Capsule
Bandit’s production budget must be insane because they keep putting out feature films for their ads. Their Spring 2025 announcement was this beautiful Studio Ghibli esque video, and then their asics x Bandit Spring 2025 capsule marketing ad included both a minute long 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired launch sequence video and literally launching their shoe into orbit.
The capsule is available on their site (but largely sold out), online at asics, and at your local premium run shop. Regrettably, it is also on StockX at somewhat of a markup. The shoes themselves I dig. The overlays are subtle, the midsole speckle give it a bit of contrast, and the tongue has a ribbed fabric sewn onto it. The tags I found were external as opposed to attached, which is more convenient but I’m a bit bummed it wasn’t built into the shoe given how cool they look.
Critical thoughts
I loved all of the marketing for this visually. The shots look amazing, the 2001 Space Odyssey reference is cool, especially given the launch on the anniversary of the film premier. BUT, I don’t see how the story they’re pushing here ties together with the product. The product design itself was heavily influenced by asic’s Japanese roots, and yet the advertising lacks that same influence, which could have also been so cool! With no tie between the marketing and product, it’s just glitter. Which isn’t to say its not beautiful, or impressive, but its not purposeful.
SOAR Softens Up with Country Boy
I’ve been a fan of Alex Zono’s designs since I came across him back in July. He made the iconic “I Dig Running” hat and has designed a bunch of fun, whimsical apparel. SOAR worked with him initially on some shirts in July, and most recently shot a marketing campaign called “Country Boy” highlighting a carefree, run packing adventure.
SOAR is the last of several brands to lean into a more lax, participation focused marketing in lieu of performance to be more inclusive of the growing run club audience who did not grow up racing their high school rivals for blood every week.
Upcoming Releases and Events
On Cloudboom Strike LightSpray Coming April 10th
If you’re lucky enough to live near one of the handful of premium running stores (read, third/fourth wave), then you might be able to get your hands on the limited supply of Cloudboom Strike LS’s they have in stock. They’re being sold in store only in super limited quantities so you can get them at one of On’s flagship stores, or a running shop near you.
The one thing I noticed with it’s marketing announcement was that it was at nearly the same time as the Bandit release. For many of the next gen running stores which do their own content production (Mill City, Renegade, Runlimited, The Exchange) there was an overlap. The Exchange waited until Saturday, the day after their Asics x Bandit release, while others posted on Friday as soon as the embargo (a hold on sharing news) was lifted. As brands lean into this bigger footwear campaigns, I’m curious to see how stores will keep pace.
Indie Stores Lead Grassroots Marketing Campaigns
I love seeing how creative the individual shops get, and they can uniquely speak to and engage their local running community in a way that brands can’t. Nike SB leveraged skate shops with strong grassroots communities to the same effect starting in the early 2000s, and up until recently did it with running stores too. Since Nike’s withdrawal and focus on direct to consumer sales, these same stores have been increasingly less reliant on Nike, and focused on building their own brands and multiple relationships.
Other Releases
KA_YO drops part of their KA_Prototype line April 10th, focused primarily on running.
Looks like May 15th we’ll see a custom Nike collection made for world’s best Jakub Ingebrigtsen. The collection will be similar to the one offered for Kipchoge, but this time on spikes as well. Jakob will have his own colorway for a Pegasus 41, Next% 4, Zoom Fly 6, Dragonfly 2 Elite, and Zoom Victory 2.
Nike made some flavortown approved socks
New brand: EOU out of South Korea. They will start shipping to the US in May so take a gander.
Slow Sunday, a Korean running brand, made this beautiful cotton candy cropped singlet. Unfortunately very difficult to ship outside of SEA.
Closing with this.
Loved this! I work @NYRR (hosts of the TCS NYC Marathon) + running Boston in T-9 so this hit motivational 💪🏼 thanks for sharing!
This newsletter is always so good. Thanks Cole!