Why Brooks Running Should Have You Believing The Hype
I have Jeff Staple (and Brooks Running) to thank for my first trip to Tokyo and first time watching Worlds.
20 hours is an extremely long time to be on a plane, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I was lucky enough to go with Brooks Running to watch Worlds in Tokyo last week. As a lifelong competitive runner, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. In Boston, I’m lucky enough to see elite races at BU, and share strides with professionals on the Charles River, but never have I been able to watch the best in the world compete for 5 days straight. What didn’t register with me was who I was attending with. Most of them wouldn’t start by describing themselves as runners; they are foremost fashion, fitness, and lifestyle influencers where running is part of their life.
Why was a no-nonsense, above-the-hype, performance-focused brand like Brooks sending influencers to Tokyo? They certainly didn’t need to market to lifestyle—the brand is the reigning top seller in run specialty stores. It took me a little longer than I’d like to admit to connect the dots, or even realize why lifestyle influencers mattered to the brand and why Tokyo was part of their brand strategy.
Brooks setting up in Tokyo wasn’t just about watching Josh Kerr defend his title or sending all 3 women for the US Marathon team. World Champs represents the pinnacle of performance, and Tokyo is home to some of the best streetwear in the world. This event was a celebration of everything the brand accomplished this past year: sending 4 of their pros in the marathon, getting a new US Champion in the 10k, releasing the Hyperion Max 3 and Hyperion Elite 5, and relaunching their lifestyle footwear line. Tokyo was the embodiment of this new brand strategy, where Brooks was expanding to lifestyle while still maintaining dominance on their true focus, performance running.
Above The Hype
While much of my commentary focuses on what’s hot, new, and hype, that rarely reflects the reality of sales data or what the majority of runners actually wear. Here’s something that might surprise you if you don’t work in the running industry: Brooks Running claimed three of the six top-selling performance running shoes in the U.S. last quarter. They achieved the top spot in adult performance running footwear at U.S. national retail, and hold seven of the top 25 styles—more than any other brand. They recently reported that they delivered 19% year-over-year growth1.
They’re not usually behind the stuff that’s getting featured on Complex, GQ, or the numerous “hypebeast” running Instagram accounts. As of this past year, that’s no longer true.
Thank You, Mr. Staple
Lifestyle footwear is a $9 billion market in the U.S that, until now, Brooks hadn’t yet tapped. They’d been leaving money on the table for years while competitors jumped on the sportstyle and dad-shoe trend. They admit they could have chased lifestyle five years ago. Matt Weiss, Brooks Running head of lifestyle, told Fast Company they waited on purpose: “The entire company and product engine is aligned to doing this the right way. We’re not necessarily chasing a volume target.” The risky thing was that they didn’t have a playbook for that yet.
The playbook for lifestyle shoes is very different from a running shoe. Brooks couldn’t rely on their decades of goodwill with runners, consistent fit and designs, and relatively conservative changes—which runners appreciate2. The best way to move lifestyle shoes is making sure people know about them—they aren’t selling themselves, nor is a collegiate runner selling them to you at Runner’s Roost.
The Sneaker Hype Playbook
Earlier this year Brooks Running brought back the the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 4 with the help of streetwear legend and Brooks Running fan, Jeff Staple. For those of you not dialed into the sneaker and streetwear world, Staple has been running his own streetwear brand since 1997, and the release of his Pigeon Dunk shoe in 2005 caused a riot at his store in NYC. When Staple collabs on a a shoe, people pay attention. The Brooks Running x Jeff Staple Adrenaline GTS 4 sold out within an hour even with ample stock unlike some incredibly limited edition shoes, like the Tokyo Hyperion House pairs that were limited to just 200 pairs! You can still get the Staple edition at a significant markup on secondary resale sites.
But you can’t rely solely on collabs. Brooks has been building out the Brooks Running Collective program this year, tapping NIL runners and influencers who are either new to their running journey, or expanding their fitness routine to include running.
Influencers are now an integrated part of Brooks’ storytelling, ensuring that the brand is meeting runners where they are—whether that’s on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or beyond. — Brooks Influencer Team
When you’re launching a lifestyle line, those are the very people you need to have wearing them.
Unsurprisingly, the lifestyle shoes were basically all we wore while exploring Tokyo. The first day, everyone showed up to the airport in the Cascadia 1 or the Adrenaline GTS 4, and they rarely left our feet.
A sneaky feature of all these lifestyle shoes
Brooks stayed true to performance on all of these; the throwback shoes aren’t using the same foam from 2002. While they have the old school look in fresh colorways, Brooks updated the midsole to make them comfortable enough for the 15,000 steps a day we were each putting on them.
We also had a super fun photoshoot with these, which was namely for the other folks to post on their TikTok and Instagram channels. It was fun to cosplay as a model!
What’s Next For Brooks
A Focus on Apparel
I’ve already been told the brand is rethinking their apparel line, which was never their focus. Very few footwear-lead brands have truly exceptional apparel lines. When Brooks does choose to focus on something, they tend to nail it, so I’m optimistic.
A nod to trail
The trail stuff that I wore bopping around Tokyo was some of the best I’ve used–highly recommend the High Point shorts with built in belt. What I’m most excited for though is their upcoming Kevlar reinforced trail shoe.
More Lifestyle Silhouettes and Collabs
Jeff Staple already teased that there’s more to come in his lifestyle work with Brooks, and we’ve recently seen Brooks work with collaborators like RSVP Gallery on the RSVP x Caldera 8, Extra Butter on the Cascadia 18, and the just-launched collab with Boston-based running brand PYNRS on the new Hyperion Max 3.
Tokyo Highlights
The Tokyo video team did an amazing job pulling together a snapshot of our trip. Below the video, I picked out some of my personal highlights.
Everyone Rallied As A Team
The Brooks Running section in the stadium was cheering for everyone. They love running. 99% of the people working there, from the folks that are extremely online with Tiktok (Ariella), Youtube (Casey), or luckily for me Substack ( 👋 Emily), to the Head of Sports Marketing, Garrett Heath, are running nerds. The cheers were loud for all competitors, Brooks sponsored or not, American or not. Plus I got to sit and cheer next to my two newest best friends and teammates,
3 and Des Liden.
Live Action “Nobody Asked Us”
On the second day in Tokyo, we were able to sit in on a live recording of Des and Kara’s podcast “Nobody Asked Us”. There were some incredible quotes in there, and my favorite were from Erika Kemp. Erika had a really tough race in the heat. Despite it being her third ever marathon, she had such wise, eloquent responses.
The Secret Behind the Glycerin Max
We had the opportunity to talk with Carson Caprara, Brooks Senior Vice President of Footwear and Apparel, about the new Brooks Running shoes, what’s coming next, and ask questions about existing shoes.
One of the things I have been most curious about was how successful the Glycerin Max launch was. It was the first time I recall seeing a Brooks shoe on my “Explore” feed of Instagram and on the feet of many running influencers.
The shoe looks awesome and has all the cutting edge features that you’d want in a high cushion trainer: super critical foam, simple graphics, and it looks fast. The colorways leaned more lifestyle than the traditional bright hues used in trainers. Plus the midsole has this intriguing translucent layer over the top, hinting at the high cushion DNA foam within.
The Glycerin Max launch signaled a shift in how Brooks operates. Normally, they extensively test their products, materials, and foams and only make changes based on proven research after market signals. On a staggeringly quick timeline, the Brooks product team led development of a new shoe with market and demand data and then reverse engineered the biomechanic technology.
This conservative strategy has kept the brand consistent, reliable, and high performing for it’s 111 year history. But backfilling some of the research, and getting the shoe to market proved Brooks can hop on the trends. The shoe broke their prediction forecasting, outpacing sales estimates by 4x and was their leading model soon after release.
Brooks Embraced the Culture
While Brooks Running isn’t a Japanese company, they had a lot of thoughtful touches at their Tokyo activation. The Hyperion House in Harajuku had cute keychains, a custom gashapon, which is a vending machine for toys, and took over a run station.
The run station is a core part of running culture in Japan, which you can read about in my Substack note below.
A special thanks to the entire Brooks Running team, especially Casey, Ariella, Emily, and Emma as well as the Bibrave team – Shae and Jess. They made the trip so fun while keeping it very organized—incredibly important for someone that is as disorganized as myself, in a foreign country.
This trip left me feeling inspired, happy that we have a brand like Brooks, and reignited my passion for track and field. For all the talk about what’s cool in running – here’s what is actually cool: showing up consistently, meeting the running community where they are, supporting professionals, and making running fun.
Let’s run there.
https://www.brooksrunning.com/en_us/08-13-2025/?srsltid=AfmBOopRbB845BB4BY88dY-2gT-B5Wpl_Jq-VVqJzt20Wjgw0Fe_wMrP
The number of times a flagship shoe has changed, or beloved model has been axed by a brand has affected me many too times in my 15 years of running
We had the best photoshoot and a lot of people thought we were related. Thanks, twin!
