From city to city, run clubs – and its culture at large – have been all the rage.
Whether it’s to cultivate new connections – both platonic and romantic – achieve fitness goals or adopt a community-centric work culture, as in the case of Hypebeast in New York City, run culture is taking over. Joining in on the movement, the creative collective at Hypebeast kicked off the run club as an after-work affair for staff and have expanded to encompass friends and family. Recently, the crew took to the streets with the support of adidas’ new running shoe, the Adizero Evo SL.
Starting off a running session at 41 Division, Hypebeast’s headquarters, the Hypebeast Run Club heads all over the city, hitting the East River and sometimes the Manhattan Bridge for some fast-paced segments. For us culture-forward creatives, the run club – and the sport in general – is right in line with having our fingers on the pulse of: footwear, performance and fashion. adidas met our team in the middle of it all by supplying our grassroots running group with their new silhouette, built for speed but with style in mind.
A sleek, speed-inspired running shoe, the Adizero Evo SL takes cues from the design aesthetic of adidas’ revolutionary road racing shoe, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, and arrives with a lightweight hybrid specifically built for feeling fast. The minimalist model strikes the balance between fashion and functionality with a white finish adorned with the signature black adidas stripes – that blur as runners gain speed – a full-length Lightstrike Pro midsole and a new mesh upper. With the high-stack midsole, runners find a soft and dynamic feel while the engineered mesh upper provides heightened breathability.
“The first thing that I noticed was that the sneakers are super lightweight and were immediately comfortable on my foot. They’re bouncy but still supportive,” Courtney Kenefick, Associate Creative Director at Hypebeast shared. “I love a clean and streamlined sneaker because it’s almost like an exclamation point on whatever running look I’m going for that day. Overall, I felt super fast and almost as if they were an extension of my stride so I could let my thoughts wander without being weighed down by my sneakers.”
The latest addition to the adidas Adizero lineup will have limited releases starting on October 25 (sign ups starting October 21), followed by a larger launch in February 2025. The Hypebeast Run Club tested it during a full workout earlier this month, taking them from start to finish with ease. Hailing from all five boroughs, the group included Sarah Kearns from Staten Island, Tyler Mason and Bryan Leon from the Bronx, Ross Dwyer and Nick Llanton hailing from Queens, and Brooklyn’s Logan Slater and Courtney Kenefick. Together, they tested the technical features of the Adizero Evo SL and bonded over their post-work run.
“Run culture is quite endemic to what we do at Hypebeast, so HBRC wasn't created for a specific "reason," per se. It just happened organically,” Kenefick said. “[With HBRC] we instated a single rule: you’re not allowed to talk about work. Coming off the pandemic and working remotely, that one rule provided the space to create a rapport with each other outside of the office, which has been the best part.”
During the Hypebeast Run Club’s 3-5 mile workout, we also captured photo moments of how the runners styled the adidas Adizero Evo SL for their high-speed session. Join in on run culture with HBRC and the Adizero Evo SL, priced at $150 USD, starting October 25.
Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast
