HIGHEST FIVE VOL.61
Here's what's hot in running in early 2025!
Happy new year y’all,
took me a while to write the first newsletter of 2025 and as we speak, i’m sitting on the TGV from Annecy to Paris for Fashion Week. I spent an amazing long weekend with Hoka near Annecy, visited the OG Hoka office, got in some needed altitude and met some outstanding people. So now we’re off to PFW, changing the scenery a bit. But ffs the French Alps are mental, be it around Chamonix, Annecy or elsewhere.
Regarding PFW: i don’t have too much time to be honest but i already have some runs in the calendar. Lookin’ forward to check out Portal, Houdini, Norda, Unna, Tiempos, Hermanos Komouri, Kuta, the new Satisfy collection and what else Paris has got to offer. Hope to see some of you as well. So hit me up if you’re in town, maybe we can match calendars.
Also, again there’s a bit of (not so) shameless self marketing: from now on, Runners Highest is teaming up with the homies of APR Mag for the weekly Product Index. Love to work with those guys and hope to extend this collab in the future! First Index is coming early this week!
1: Hoka Heritage Trip:
Hoka invited me and a couple of other people from “the scene” to Annecy to find out more about the creation and heritage of Hoka with some insights from the OG office and even the laboratory. You probably knew that before but again: this is the stuff i’m very down with. It’s not always marketing stories, it’s people and ideas, innovation, momentum and developements. Gotta love that! What else did i love over the weekend? Good people energy, very good mountain running (600hm before breakfast ain’t never killed nobody :D), good food and more than just good scenery. Definitely would do a 50/50 split between city and summits… Let’s see what Paris has to offer now!
2: Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% 3 *rip Gyakusou*
Sorry, didn’t know how to name them otherwise. This pack is pretty nice and definitely reminds me of Nike Gyakusou around 2015. Good pack, also coming with the Zoom Fly and Peg 41.
3 New Balance More v5 Zalando SMU *On the Run* Pack
Again it’s about the colors. Zalando and NB makin’ this pack wearable on and off the running track, that’s a fact.
4 Knees Up at Pitti Uomo 107
Really love what you did here, fam! Knees Up presented their Running Space in Firenze last week and created a beautiful space for independent running. Amazing effort to build a space for some of the currently upcoming brands such as Raide, Portal, Kuta and more and also a possible glimpse into the future of trade shows for smaller niche brands.
5 Bad Habits Run Club // NYC Marathon
This one’s kinda personal but also not. I was involved in this project of Asphaltgold from the very beginning but the execution was already when i didn’t work for Asphaltgold anymore, so i can’t take the credit, haha. Still i would advise everyone of you to check out the different episodes of their trip to NYC to run the Marathon! Outstanding work, everyone!
6 Salehe Bembury x Puma Deviate Nitro
We all knew we’d continiously see collabs that try to bridge lifestyle and running in 2025 but i honestly didn’t expect Salehe Bemburgy go first and i also didn’t expect it to be Puma to be his partner. Didn’t know about this before. Solid colorway, not tooo much of that Salehe cray doing on imo. But it’s nice.
7 Hoka Tor Summit // new colorways
Don’t stop won’t stop. Hoka keeps pushing out the wildest color combinations on the Tor Summit. These are massive, that’s all i have to say here. Ok no, one more thing: that grey fuzzy suede one, BOOM!
8 Raide LF 2L Belt - it’s back!
Was talkin’ about the running belt in my 2024 wrap up few weeks ago and got some messages asking when it’ll be restocked. Well, here you go. It’s back available on their website! Let’s hope for a EU distribution soon. Get it here.
