THE BROOKS BLOG

January 22, 2010

An Open Letter to the Running Community ,

For many of us, running is an inseparable part of our lives—we need it. When we run, we improve our health, relieve stress, achieve personal goals, compete, raise money, and have fun. On any given weekend, check out a running event in any city across the globe and you’ll be inspired by runners spanning ages, speeds, motivations, and goals—each with their own stories. At Brooks, inspiring everyone to run and be active is our reason for being.

Given the passion felt about our sport, it’s easy to understand how everything about the run is actively studied, critiqued, debated, and questioned—including shoes. People strive to run faster, longer, healthier, more efficiently, and injury-free mile after mile, and they’ve traditionally looked to their footwear to deliver that. But many people have recently questioned whether running barefoot is better, so we feel it’s time for Brooks to join the public dialogue.

Let’s call a spade a spade. We make running shoes: High-quality, biomechanically mapped, performance running shoes calibrated for runners’ unique needs. We hope runners buy our shoes and we’re confident they’ll enjoy them. But this isn’t about selling shoes. And, quite frankly, this isn’t even about running barefoot.

So what are we talking about here? First and foremost, we’re all talking about running, and that’s a great thing because we believe to our core that running is a positive force in our world. We want everyone to run and be happy. But to get there, whether you should run barefoot is not the great debate. We are all unique. The focus should be on how you run and train, and then finding the right shoe that addresses your unique biomechanical needs. "The Perfect Ride for Every Stride," as we say at Brooks. Let’s look at a snapshot of the running population:

• At one end of the spectrum, we know there are runners who lack foot strength leading to severe pronation. They may strike heavily and need a great deal of support to run injury- and pain-free. We hear repeatedly from them that the Brooks Beast "saved their lives."

• At the other end of the spectrum are the biomechanically blessed (and/or conditioned through training) who have natural healthy gaits and enjoy great efficiency. These gazelles may wear shoes, they may not.

• The vast majority of runners (including this middle-of-the-packer !) fall in between. And for us, we strongly believe most of our mileage should be logged in a performance running shoe, not barefoot . For us, supportive, cushioned footwear is not only beneficial, it also plays an essential role in delivering a comfortable, injury-free running experience.

Elsewhere on our Web site, you’ll find a robust discussion on this topic (or you can view it as a downloadable PDF here ) from our Brooks footwear team. We also asked people we respect in the running industry to chime in with their perspectives on the barefoot running discussion. These experts include accomplished runners, coaches, researchers, doctors, and specialty running retailers, who see more runners (and their feet) each week than many of us see in a lifetime.

Join us in this conversation and be active in your decisions. We were all born to run. But the ultimate goal, of course, is to keep running for the long haul.

Run Happy,

Jim Weber
President & CEO
Brooks Sports, Inc.

The award-winning infiniti 2

Go, Brooks! We recently learned we won two awards from Shape magazine:

• The Infiniti 2 won the “Best for Distance” Award in the Spring 2009 shoe guide. Shape’s bi-annual Shoe Award selection process uses 260+ women who test shoes from 20 athletic companies in the running, trail running, walking, and training categories.

• Brooks, the brand, won a 2009 Green Living Award for the Trance™ 8. New for 2009, the Shape Green Living Award honors people, places, companies, and products that successfully blend fashion and practicality with eco-friendliness.

As you probably already know, the Trance™ 8 is no longer the only shoe with Brooks’ biodegradable BioMoGo midsole. BioMoGo is now also available in the Adrenaline™ GTS 9, Glycerin® 7, Cascadia 4, and the above-named Infiniti 2.

Both distinctions appear in the popular women’s fitness magazine’s April issue, on newsstands NOW!

Hip, hip, hooray! For the second year in a row, the Brooks Cascadia 4 won “Editor’s Choice” Award in Runner’s World’s Spring 2009 Trail Shoe Guide! The Cascadia 4 received best overall marks after rigorous testing by Runner’s World editors and wear-testers, and being flexed, pounded and prodded at their independent Shoe Lab testing facility.

What makes this shoe so great?

The secret sauce is that the Cascadia 4 is a pure trail running shoe designed from the ground up. Neither a stripped-down hiking shoe nor a glorified road shoe, it combines the best attributes of both. Using our “pivot post construction,” the Cascadia 4 adjusts to undulation in terrain which allows the foot to stay neutral on a multitude of surfaces. Runner’s World also summed it up by saying “The Cascadia offers dependable traction for technical trails, yet is cushy enough so that running short distances on roads won’t beat up your legs.”

This latest version of the Cascadia 4 also offers an assymetrical lacing system (which allows the overlays in the forefoot to be relaxed for wider feet, or snugged up tighter for narrower feet), as well as Brooks’ biodegradable midsole BioMoGo.

The Cascadia 4 is geared for neutral runners with biomechanically efficient strides. Stabilty-seeking trail runners should check out the Brooks Adrenaline ASR 5.

Now go hit the trails!

This time, Trail Runner, the only magazine dedicated to the off-road running community, presented BioMoGo their Sprout Award for “Best Green Innovation.”

New this year, the Sprout Awards recognize a race director, company, community leader, and innovation that have made steps to achieve environmental and social consciousness in 2008. To check out the other winners, pick up the December issue of Trail Runner, when it hits newsstands this November.

A popular magazine for active women, Fitness honors Brooks and our BioMoGo technology in its “Fit 50” feature.

Fitness magazine’s team of editors searched high and low for the 50 greatest people, places and breakthrough ideas that made 2008 the best year for your body yet. Look no further than #18 for a cheer to Brooks for introducing eco-friendlier BioMoGo in our running shoes.

What are the other 49? The “Fit 50” feature appears in the November/December issue of Fitness, on newsstands now.

Take a tour through our Green Room to delve deeper into BioMoGo and other sustainability efforts in the works at Brooks.

This past summer, Brooks hosted writer Florence Williams for a visit to our manufacturing facilities in China. Florence was doing research for an in-depth Runner’s World article about the environmental impact of running shoes. Our aim was to help her understand how complex running shoe material sourcing and manufacturing is, share the challenges all performance brands face when trying to make their products more sustainable, and show her what Brooks is doing to help move the needle on sustainability.

The article, entitled “The Runner’s Footprint,” now appears in Runner’s World’s November issue. We hope you read the article, and take a tour of our Green Room to learn more about Brooks’ sustainability efforts.

As our CEO Jim Weber says in the article, “It’s not all pretty . . .But we believe no one is working harder at it. Our belief is to be transparent. We are where we are, and we’re not pretending we’ve figured it out.”

Ever wonder what goes on inside your Brooks running shoes? Like how the different parts of the shoe cushion you from the road and help keep you stable?

Check out our new interactive Exploded Shoe, which gives a peek into the inner workings of the new Brooks Trance 8, along with short explanations (in plain English) of how it all works. You’ll learn what parts of the shoe contribute to cushioning, stability, durability, breathability, and sustainability. (After all, the Trance 8 is the first running shoe ever made with a biodegradable midsole!)

Take a tour of the Exploded Shoe!

(PS: Free Java plug-in required.)