Hi and welcome to the latest edition of “Highest Five”, what’s hot in running right now!? I’m heading to Gran Canaria later this week to run 47km at 20+ degrees what is a very fine perspective for the weekend. Have trained hard for the last months, gained as much elevation as rarely ever before, ran a consistent 60+ km per week for the last months. That’s been quite some good weeks.
General newsroom: Other than that, I read some interesting things this week. The Outdoor Wall reflects on Stian Angermund’s doping allegations but imho their take is just a bit off. It’s pretty one-sided to just hear out one side. But tbh i’m not as deep into the topic as well. Satisfy Running hit 11 millions in revenue last year, what is pretty massive. But in five years they want to hit the 100.000.000 $ what is quite a bidding. Read the linked article for some more numbers. We also talked about how Zara is ripping of indie running (again) as they’re blatantly copied SOAR’s styles lately. I also read much about Willem Dafoe wearing District Vision in a Super Bowl ad. Absolut legend. And actually CNN re-published the BOF article I was quoted next to some industry legends. I like that. Last but not least I had the chance to send the fast homie Romain Wyndaele to Boston two weeks ago to witness “The Track” by New Balance live. Check out the very cute tour guide video via Instagram! On a very short notice, i’ve seen this interesting case study today - take look into a deep dive into ON!
Bonus: UTMB has just released numbers of registrations for 2025’ iterations of the UTMB Chamonix races. Let ‘em sack, this is pretty busy!
1 ON *Soft Wins* with ELMO
On starts off the year with a rather funny collab partner. It’s Elmo. They’re presenting their “softest” running shoe ever as part of the new “Soft Wins” campaign that’s targeting the small & softer wins, not just pure performance.
2 Norda SS25 comes in hot!
New year, new colors, “old” quality”. Norda is back with a sack of good color ways of the 001, 002 and 004. BUT I am desperately waiting for the 005 - schedules for Spring 25 as well!
3 HAVENSHOP x ASICS
Pew, Pew! Havenshop has been growing better and better over the last years and a new peak has been reached with their Asics collab. The shoes are clean but hell yeah, the capsule is a banger! Need that suit and cap!
4 PORTAL Launch
A long-awaited release is coming soon. Portal is launching very soon and as we’ve seen some of the collection already, i’m excited for it!
5 Normal Tomir 2
Can’t tell much, don’t have experiences but I think we can expect another more than solid trail runner, when Nnormal releases the Tomir 2!
6 Currently Running Apparel // Coming Soon
A new brand, you might ask? Yeah, but this one looks pretty good. The first Mile 1 collection will be coming in March 25. More news about it soon!
7 New Balance *Peach Pack*
Peaches for Spring. NB releases their whole arsenal in a clean *peachy* color scheme and that looks pretty good! Spring has sprung.
8 The Loop Running *Austin Marathon*
Gotta love a good Marathon tee!
9 New Balance FF Hierro v9
The newest version of NB’s trail flagship will be out late February and it’s looking mighty fine. Good color way as well! Really loved the v5 (ok, it was brick-heavy), did some serious runs in the v8 and the v9 could be a worthy successor. Now that NB has bought into Marathon du Mt Blanc they’ll probably step up their trail game even further!
