adidas Was One Of The Biggest Winners From This Year's London Marathon
adidas is celebrating its wins. Last week, to coincide with the London Marathon, the brand presented its Adizero: For The Fast activation hub—an all-out celebration of speed and community featuring panel talks, performances, pace tests, and exclusive giveaways.
If there was one key takeaway from the weekend, it was the power of community. Over the course of three days, diverse running groups came together, broadening their horizons and connecting with the wider communities around them. Nestled in the heart of London—just off Trafalgar Square—the event drew runners from all corners of the capital.
Co-hosted by Highsnobiety, the first day of activations played host to particular highlights. Among them was a panel talk, hosted by Joelah Noble and by Foday Dumbuya of Labrum London, Nick Hammond of Runner Alerts, Mo Hoelmueller from adidas Global Running, as well as Highsnobiety’s Nina Kong.
On the agenda was the merging of fashion and function in the running world, how the sport is meaningful to all athletes (even those who wouldn’t consider themselves ‘runners’), and the immense power of running to bring people together.
Foday, for example, has made some of his closest friends through running, having been in the sport for 16 years. He speaks on his experience of running the Speed Project recently, supported by adidas, and how over the course of the 340-mile race across California he learnt that respecting the pace of others, as well as looking out for every individual in your group, is crucial when tackling such challenges. Community running shows you who you are.
Foday also has thoughts about the increasing intersection of sporting and sartorial worlds. “There’s always been this connection between running and fashion,” he says. “But it’s only now that the mainstream media has picked it up, deciding,‘this is a trend’. But for those of us who’ve been running for years and years, it’s not a trend. It’s day-to-day life.”
For Foday, as it seems for adidas, running often means creativity. “It gives you this freedom, it gives you this joy of experimenting,” he says, and encourages the audience to “find freedom to run and to get ideas.”
But the weekend wasn’t all conceptual—there was plenty of action too. In the morning, speed tests invited athletic creators to test out the Adizero collection, taking to treadmills to find how fast they really were compared to world record pace. This was followed by the panel talk, as well as two community shakeout runs led by adidas’ community runners.
One of the most notable events was the speedy evening 5K, accompanied by a DJ set from JORDSS. Bringing London vibes through and through, JORDSS warmed up the crowd before attendees donned a pair of headphones and took the vibes with them for a lap around central London. Talk about motivation.
Nor was there a let-up upon their return—the 5K run seamlessly transitioned into an afterparty hosted by Highsnobiety, and, with a surprise performance from rap icon Giggs, the evening carried into the night.
Across the weekend, there were many stars of the show. Kemarr, host of the festivities, was one; another was the building that turned from silver to gold on Sunday to celebrate adidas’ wins.
But the unsung hero of the week was what was on everyone’s feet. The Adizero Evo SL is an evolution of previous Adizero shoes, taking all the performance benefits of the Evo Pro and transposing them onto a training shoe. With its Lightstrike Pro midsole and engineered mesh upper, it’s the lightest trainer in adidas’ entire line.
The Adizero franchise was built for speed, and adidas’ marathon weekend event certainly lived up to its ‘For The Fast’ messaging. To top off the weekend, two adidas athletes took home some serious silverware from the race: adidas athletes Sebastian Sawe won gold in his debut marathon attempt wearing the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 2, and Tigst Assefa not only took home gold but smashed the women's world record in the Pro Evo 1. Across both activations and the race itself, this was a big win for the brand. As Nina Kong pointed out during the panel talk, this is a brand that’s merging style and performance effortlessly. Catch them if you can.
Feel the need for speed? Shop the Adizero Evo SL here.
