Glasses on the run Newsletter #61
Hi,
I hope you are all well and getting ready for a break around the holidays.
What was interesting in the business of running
Valencia marathon - let's start with the last major marathon race of the year. Following Kelvin Kiptum's record debut in 2022, this year's men race was won by another marathon debutant - the Kenyan runner Sebastian Sawe - who won the race with 2:02:05, just 12 seconds slower than Kiptum's record time. Sawe's time was the world's fifth fastest marathon time. He is just 28 years old and it will be interesting to watch his races in the coming years. As a comparison, the legendary Elide Kipchoge also made his marathon debut at the age of 28 after a career in shorter distances before that. The women's race was won by Ethiopia’s Megertu Alemu with a time of 2:16:49 (World Athletics, Runner's World).
Strava changed its API terms of use, impacting the use cases that data can be shared for. Strava claims that the change affects only 0.1% of the applications on the Strava platform, but the impact is likely higher than that and it caused a stir (The Verge).
Talking about Strava and data - the company revealed its annual year in sports report. As far as datasets go, this one is pretty solid - Strava has combined billions data points from its 135 million users and has run a randomised global survey of more than 5,000 active people. Some of the more interesting trends for 2024 include: a big increase in running club participation, a rise in shorter workouts, and a significant new sport uptake both for women - e.g. weight lifting, cycling, and for men - e.g. yoga and pilates (Strava, Runner's World).
Puma is trying to position itself as an innovative brand for runners. It has been releasing some high performing and interesting looking shoes like the Nitro Elite or the Rule Breaker. Here is a video interview with Puma's Product Lead Todd Falker on the topic (FloTrack on YouTube).
And this is an interesting view into the business of Salomon and its parent company - Amer Sports. Salomon has a new CEO - Guillaume Meyzenq, who has been the company's Chief Product Officer so far. This is a change that is initiated to help take Salomon through a period of growth, which has already started. Amer Sports' latest quarter revenue increase by 8% has been driven by "double-digit top-line performance in Salomon footwear and apparel" and the company expects Salomon's business, particularly softgoods, to keep growing double digits annually. Impressively, Salomon is expected to end the year with "404 stores, including owned and partner stores, doubling the count from last year" (SGB Online).
And finally, we are at the end of the year - a time for retrospects, rankings, and forecasts - so, here are the 70 best running shoes coming in 2025, according to Runner's World.
As always, thank you for reading,
Momchil
