Trends and Takeaways from The Running Event (Part 1)
Trail had a big presence, was a key focus for Nike. Plenty of new shoe updates, and an increase in the hiking-adjacent niche brands like ROA and Kaleg. Here are my key takeaways from The Running Event
I said I’d get this out Monday, but I am human and I am exhausted from travel. This is a very long one of mostly high level observations, I barely am brushing the surface on the product side today. I am also realizing I need more photos next year to help me tell this story…I am a certified chatty cathy and spent far more time focusing on the people and ideas than diving into the details of foam techs.
Technical announcements and stuff that I was particularly interested will be in Part II coming later this week. This email is already incredibly long.
Dear reader, you will need to click the “view entire message” link at the bottom of your email to get all the goodies.
Quick (Racing) Hits
CIM was huge for the program, and by program I mean Americans qualifying for the US Olympic Marathon Trials. Shout out to Buffalo-local hero Joey Whelan running a PR of 2:09:41 in his 5th marathon of the year.
Valencia Marathon produced a Japanese marathon record from distance star Suguru Osako, and the 2nd fastest ever British Marathon.
Nike Cross Nationals continues to be sick as hell, and thankfully is not the only high school race. Brooks XC Champs is in 5 days. Professional cross was exciting, and TRE panelist Allie Ostrander had an insane close to finish 7th. World XC Champs will be in the United States for the first time in 30 years and I cannot WAIT to go.
Scene Report from TRE
The convention center in San Antonio is pretty easy to get to, and near most of downtown…walking distance from my room at the historic (haunted) Menger Hotel and the Alamo. It is not dissimilar to the marathon major expos – enormous floor area with brand booths on the floor and an impossible to navigate number system.
TRE Has Flourished Under Christina’s Direction
You don’t need to even know who Christina Henderson is, but she took what was sort of a dull and not-very-diverse trade show and actually made it fit its namesake. This is bigger for the industry than any marathon I’ve gone to. It’s THE event. It still fulfills it’s purpose of trade, helping vendors discover new stores and vice versa. But it also does way more than that. She’s brought in new media (hello), the TRE Live stream with commentary from Tommie Runz, relevant educational talks and panels about diversity in running, the power of collaborations, building a brand as a store s/o The Loop, AND set up fun evening events that everyone is invited to.
In other industries trade shows are struggling, TRE isn’t. ISPO has empty booths. Eurobike has major sponsors (SRAM) dropping out. At marathon expos, brands opt to popup outside and many racers skip the official events in favor of brand owned parties. At TRE that was anything but the case. The programming was relevant and exciting. The events afterwards were super fun, inclusive, and well attended. The TRE app is actually good: it had built in scheduling, networking, and a map of the convention floor which I discovered far too late. Whoever developed that should design a better race tracker.
The energy at the event was palpable. It felt like such a breath of fresh air after marathon season to be around people excited about new products, learning about what everyone else is doing. I talked to probably a hundred people and my heart is so full from hearing about what they do and why they were at TRE.
Where other sports feel like they’re selling out or over commercializing, this didn’t feel that way despite it being a trade show focused on merchandising. It’s not dominated by any one brand. It’s about getting vendors in front of retailers, yes, but it felt like a celebration of the industry at the same time.
More People Need to Get Offline
This is just as much advice for me as for the handful of other Substackers and really anyone out there reading this. Thankful to my friends in the industry who interact with run specialty stores more for giving me a grounded perspective.
I waxed poetic on the ‘sletter Friday morning after I left. I thrive at in-person events like these, but both my day job and this newsletter require me to be extremely online. I got a lot of very heartwarming replies to this post and appreciate everyone that reached out. If you haven’t yet, give it a read. It’s quite short.
I also had this note attract a lot of attention across the half a dozen places I posted it. S/O Brooks.
Terroir, Reclaimed Vintage, Dinner with New Friends
I had a great time taking a beat before the bustle (I had no idea what was coming). Drew Hartman from Salomon’s team pulled together an intimate dinner at a wonderful Mediterranean restaurant with (Drew’s) friend and guest host and renowned restauranteur Bobby Stuckey. For the dinner I curated a set of vintage running tees somehow meaningful to each guest, guided by notes from Drew. It was amazing to see everyone’s reaction to their selected tees. This was one of my favorite individual experiences of the weekend.
Any Attempt at “Cool” Stands Out
This is a lot easier for smaller brands to execute since the larger brands user have larger booths to display more stuff and beef up presentation. Courier (socks) was a team of 3 part time people and had a super cute booth they hand built. Tantrums (trail vests) branded the sh*t out of their booth that they styled like a bodega—the vest is your race day “bodega.” Love the connection there.
Overall TRE is cool though, just not vibey1.
If you’re looking for a PFW or Art Basel type experience, or the stuff you’re used to on running TikTok or IG, you will be sorely disappointed. I love what Mental Athletic is trying to do, but Lee Glandorf’s panel about women’s running apparel had far more people there in attendance than at the run MA cohosted with On and The Loop. That’s simply the vibe of TRE though and both have their place. If TRE started looking like NYC Marathon Week, retailers would stop showing up and the event would die out. There’s room for both, but TRE isn’t the place for it.
Buzzy Brands Focused On Biz Dev
If you’re this interested in TRE, you can write this one off to your marketing budget or grab a sub below.
