Winning isn't for Everyone

Nike Loses Ground

What’s missing in this picture?

Once or twice a week, I wheeze asthmatically around the Rose Bowl’s three mile track, getting passed by guys twenty years my senior and girls twenty years my junior. Endorphins are nice, but I mostly dread the experience. At Run With Us Pasadena, on the other hand, I’m a kid in a candy store. 

A high-powered branding professional such as myself loves nothing more than exploring this little high end suburban boutique full of primordial running shoe brands—a bevy of new names, logos, shapes, and taglines ready for me to cast judgment upon without having to actually run anywhere. It palpably bursts with exotic, overpriced yuppy freshness. Running shoes, like Erewhon, are a new kind of status symbol that looks upon the naive dreams of the 90s not with nostalgic love, but with disaffected disgust. “Yeah…no thanks.” Sunshine, white teeth, and good retirement planning. No bullsh*t Gen Z street signaling; no GOATs in sight.

Hoka (French/American), On (Swiss), Hyl…