Glasses on the run Newsletter #33

Hi,

I hope everyone's well and enjoying the restart of the marathon season and I hope you will enjoy this relatively short edition of the newsletter.

What was interesting in the business of running

Starting with the Berlin marathon, which was yesterday. The men's race was won by.... Eliud Kipchoge. It was his fifth win in Berlin and second in a row. While he didn't break his own world record set last year in Berlin, Kipchoge's win was a good recovery after his sixth place in Boston in April.

The big news however was in the women's race where Tigist Assefa smashed the world record by more than 2 minutes to 2:11:53. This was only her third marathon race and she won last year's Berlin as well. Very importantly, Assefa was wearing the new Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, which Adidas introduced officially just 10 days earlier.

The Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 is the newest super shoe, which breaks ground in a few different areas. First, the shoe weighs just 138g - the lightest for Adidas and perhaps on the market - with the biggest saving coming from the outsole, which is completely flat. Second, this is the most expensive pair of running shoes yet - with a retail price of €500/£400. As a reference, Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% - the shoes Kipchoge uses - retail for €250. And third, these new shoes are intended to be used for one race only! Adidas is currently selling 521 pairs only, so I guess there is an element of exclusivity in that.

While I admire the technological innovation and appreciate that there is a market (albeit I imagine relatively small) for this type of shoes, a price tag of €500 for a single pair of running shoes that you can use for one race only is unlikely to do much good to running's reputation as one of the most accessible sports. And that's disappointing and unfortunate.

Finally, among iPhone 15, new AirPods and Apple Watch 9, Apple introduced the second edition of the Apple Watch Ultra as well during its September event a couple of weeks ago. Here is a very, very thorough review from DC Rainmaker of all the incremental changes to the watch this year.

As always, thank you for reading,

Momchil