Road to Records 2024 – A Runner’s Weekend

Every year, Adidas gathers some of its fastest athletes on a fast course with the hopes of breaking national and world records. So it’s time to hop on a plane and head to Germany. This is a runner’s weekend at Adidas HQ

0:00 intro
1:04 Christmas shopping
2:58 dinner with Geoff
3:37 vegetarian lunch
4:15 first run in Nuremberg
5:39 Adidas HQ tour
10:42 Maker Lab
11:44 Strung
12:31 Athlete Servicing
13:44 run in Herzogenaurach
15:05 breakfast
16:15 haile gabreselassie and Joan chelimo
17:17 Peres Jepchirchir
17:49 secret shoe testing
20:03 brand store
20:56 outlet
22:37 road to records
23:11 mens 10k
24:26 women’s 10k
25:37 women’s 5k
26:19 mens 5k
26:56 women’s mile
27:11 mens 800m
27:48 mens mile
28:25 mass participation 5k

disclosures: this trip made possible by Adidas and Adidas Running

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every year Adidas gathers some of its fastest athletes on a fast course with the hopes of breaking national and World Records so it’s time to hop on a plane and head to Germany this is a runner’s weekend at Adidas HQ don’t fight how you really feel come closer to me closer to I’ll give you something to feel leave come over don’t fight how you really Fe come closer please closer please I’ll give you something [Music] to yo what’s going on just landed in nerur today is my first full day here I’m visiting to attend the road to records vent later in the week and this is my second time in nberg and second time going to the Adidas HQ so today I’m going to do something that I didn’t get to do the first time that I was here and that was to go and visit something that has to do with [Music] Christmas now one of the things that my family loves to do is to go and enjoy a Chris Kindle Market there’s one in Chicago that my wife and I have been going to for years and every year we always go to special place to buy Christmas ornaments and a lot of times we give those as gifts now that Christmas ornament shop is from Germany and they have a location here in nberg [Music] so I normally love to start these videos with the Run preferably right after I get off the plane but the travel schedule didn’t quite work out that way yesterday and I just ran the London Marathon less than two days ago so probably not going to be doing a ton of running this week but it should be a good week to watch Pros run fast so I’m really looking forward to that but got a couple of days till all that starts up in the meantime I’m pretty much just going to be holed up in my room drinking flat whites and getting some videos edited but I will have to venture out from time to time for food and more [Music] coffee at some point in the day I realized that my friend Jeff was also in town early for this trip I’ve been following Jeff’s Instagram account for a while now and I only met him in person a few weeks ago in Jamaica but since then I’ve also had the pleasure of seeing him in London and now here in nurg hey Jeff how’s it going how are you good good we met up for pizza and then went for a walk up to the top of the castle in nurg which had some lovely views of the [Music] city next morning I ate breakfast at the hotel and then worked in the lobby as I had to switch rooms and then for lunch I’d be meeting up with Jeff again but also would be meeting feno and Mikey who are both from nberg I met Mikey in London first on the course and then later as we hit up a couple of After parties with Tommy runs Mikey took us to a vegan restaurant which was lovely because everything else in nurg is basically sausages I had a vegetarian and KATU which was incredibly [Music] [Music] good when we got back it was time to get ready for our first group run we’re on the run now Drew’s here me Carl we got feno we got Thomas everybody’s here and this is my first run since the marathon and we’re going uphill on [Music] Cobblestone I feel like this is the perfect introduction back to running after running the marathon last weekend cuz we were doing a sightseeing run so run a little bit wait for a little bit and check out some of the local sites so a lot of stopping and going perfect for me [Music] hopping on the buses at the hotel we’re going to head over to herzo in the Adidas [Music] HQ he it into the main entrance of the Adidas HQ it’s quite an impressive Lobby we’re only in just the beginning of the space and there’s already just so much to look at everywhere you [Music] turn this is weird and I like it I don’t know what’s happening I don’t know what’s happening but this is this is working for me we’re very thrilled to welcome you all to our campus I know some of you I see some familiar faces some of you have been here before the only reason why I’m here today is because of course you know I mean the program is massive and you will hear about my team shortly what uh you will all experience this week I’m very excited after a coffee and some introductory remarks it was time for a campus tour and first things first they showed us some [Music] shoes typically these shoes live in the Adidas archive a temperature and humidity controlled Museum but with the amount of people that we’re going to be passing through HQ over the weekend many of the most important running pieces were put into a temporary exhibit we saw some of the founding documents of the brand as well as its original logo a diarama of some of the early Manufacturing and images of the first women’s Olympic 800 met race media was so appalled by women running a distance longer than 200 M that the event was banned for the next 32 years there’s a special section dedicated to Katherine Switzer homage paid to Run DMC and a look at the modern era of Adidas record-breaking shoes [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right started snowing here in herto we’re going to walk across the way to another building we’re going to [Music] laces the name of the building is called laces cuz up top if you looked at the building from the sky it would look like the building has shoelaces on it but a lot of the creative work happens in this building and Innovation lab is downstairs all the super secret stuff is down there and the archive is also in the downstairs area as well we’ve got a little bit of time to kind of roam around this Atrium area let’s see what there is to see [Music] from there we visited some of the other parts of the campus spikes is a building that used to be the main entrance at HQ now there’s some admin stuff in there and I believe terx also sits in this building and I don’t remember the name of the next building but it features a giant projection screen made out of 1,800 Stan Smiths it’s a space that I think is typically used for retailers and there were elaborate retail displays and products that we weren’t allowed to photograph and in this building there’s also another history exhibit that I enjoyed the last time I was here and it ends in giving you a special souvenir but we had to skip it because we were running out of time on our tour and I’m not sure but I think it might have been because we made an unscheduled Pit Stop to play basketball but playing is part of the Adidas HQ experience if you don’t stop to shoot around hop on the trampolines get on an Adidas branded ebike and ride through a skate park or take a lap on the rooftop top track did you even visit HQ you guys looking good looking good look good all right that’s going to be it for the campus tour now it’s time for a lunch I’m like deliriously hungry and I need some caffeine I’m struggling [Music] that was a really good lunch but now I’m super sleepy I need more coffee and maybe a [Music] nap but there would be no time for naps they took us back to laces where we broke out into smaller groups for the rest of the day first my group was taken to the maker lab a Willy Wonka Factory of Foams and fabrics there they give us the rundown on the adzo Paris lineup from track spike to Marathon Super Shoe they also explained the race kit and colorways developed specifically for road to records 20124 and the pattern for the bottoms in the shoes is a memorial to Agnes Tero in 2021 Agnes broke the longstanding women’s only 10K world record at the first road to records event and weeks later she became the victim of gender-based violence when she was murdered by her husband this year’s road to records kit pays tribute to the kit that Agnes [Music] wore after the maker lab they showed us how Adidas makes the strung material that goes into shoes like the primex and the new Adidas Spike Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us film The impressive machines that weave the strong material but they did explain the Precision that goes into the placement of each string and the amount of rigidity or flexibility that each string and intersection of string can provide and then they showed us how they test strung to ensure that it is stretching in the right spots and maintaining shape in others they mark up points where the strung strands intersect and then capture deformation data with special cameras and the computer can see where the shoe is moving every time a foot hits the ground finally we got a glimpse into athlete services this is a place where athletes can get full body 3D scans to see how they can tweak the apparel and shoes to best fit their unique bodies all right so we just went through athlete servicing which we couldn’t show you but basically they do like 3D scans of all the athletes uh they do like all sorts of intricate foot measur ments they can do gate analyses they got like highs speeded cameras on treadmills for placed in the treadmill and then they can talk about apparel and Footwear and customize things for them too really cool stuff I think I’m allowed to tell you all that I think it’s just the technology that they use that they didn’t want to share it so that’s why we couldn’t show you that stuff but it’s pretty cool they say normally takes an athlete like about 90 minutes to get through the whole kind of process because they spend a lot of time uh really talking to the athletes after getting like 3D scans and measurements of their bodies but they really talk to the athletes quite a bit and see like what works for them what they like and also explaining product Innovations to them too the last thing we did for the day was to meet up with the Adidas Runners captains who are brought in from all over the world for Adidas Runners week and we went for a run around Herz garok it’s hailing it is it’s not it’s not really a hail it’s just I mean it’s hailing just it’s just hard it’s just hard to sow now maybe it’s because it was snowing or maybe it’s because many of the pro athletes who would be racing that weekend also joined us but this easy run very soon became a strong Tempo effort and I’m pretty sure I was close to Marathon effort by the end of the 5K [Music] [Music] [Applause] wo good morning it is another beautiful day here in nurburg we were all pretty exhausted after the long day we had yesterday but a nice dinner good night’s sleep and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to hit day two at the Adidas HQ but first let’s get inside get some [Music] breakfast what does Thomas watch when he’s on Instagram you want to see I’ll show you my feet see you ready that’s my favorite game let’s see uh let’s go to it what’s on your explore oh let’s go to explore yeah okay you know what’s crazy about that what I mean it’s all shoes yeah okay so let’s go down no bikini models no safe illicit stuff yeah this is a work safe so that’s my person all right back at HQ yo feno told me when I came into to nurg that this was his town that’s right he wasn’t kidding he wasn’t kidding I wasn’t [Music] kidding Friday started out with a panel discussion with running Legend H gber salasi he told us that he thinks he could have run sub two if he had had the EVO One in his prime and he also told us about some of his most memorable wins I think Sydney was just 24 years ago and uh the world record is berin 2008 of course 2007 also world record but the 2007 I mean the 2008 World Record in Berlin the most Good Tour Joan Chala has been winning half marathons and marathons all over the world in Boston Berlin Soul Korea and Paris and as a 65-minute half marathon she’s looking forward to returning to Paris to run the Olympic Marathon this [Music] summer Adidas had two more surprises for us that morning first H gave each of us assigned adios Pro 3 to take home and then we had a chance to hear from recent London Marathon champ a new women’s only Marathon record holder Perez chip churcher the big surprise that perezz dropped on us that morning was that she did not eat breakfast the morning of the London marathon and she took no gels just drink mix Pros really are so different than the rest of us all right guys they’re still finishing up that panel discussion but we got to go cuz we have an appointment in the athlete Testing Lab I think they’re going to hook us up to the V2 Max machine [Music] athlete testing at The Innovation lab is typically a No cameras Zone we had gotten a brief intro to the space the day prior when they had removed all secret prototypes and proprietary Tech but today they were going to have us test some prototype shoes Mark us up for biomechanical analysis and hook us up to the respirator to check out efficiency in the various shoes so the only footage I have of the testing is what the testing staff was able to get for me i’ had never been hooked up to a machine like that before and it was more comfortable than it looks and as far as the shoes go I can’t say much except that one was too firm one was too soft and one was just [Music] right all right guys it’s time for some lunch Drew and I finished up with our testing and then we got interviewed a little bit by some Adidas folks not everyone did that but I think since we have a little bit of a different shoe testing experience they wanted to pick our brains for a little while so I think we’re going to catch up with the rest of the group a lot of people went out and had a track session uh which we just ran so I don’t need another track session and um yeah let’s get some food and I’m glad we’re getting to ride these bikes [Music] the last thing we did that day was to head up the Brand store this is something that I didn’t get to do my first time here and I was eager to see what unique Adidas things I might be able to find the bib pickup for the public 5K portion of the road to records was also happening at the moment so it was super busy and noisy there doing some sort of promotion where if you ran on a treadmill to power a treadmill powered blender you could have some of the smoothie that you made in the blender they had Paris colorway primx 2 strong road to records pack adios Pro 3 and so many versions of ultra boost and then there was the soccer stuff jumpsuits of every color a customization station and of course [Music] jerseys that was a nice look through to the Brand store and uh there’s another store that we’re also going to check out and try to cross the street here but it is the outlet store that one’s even bigger they said so let’s check that [Music] out the outlet store was definitely bigger and it did have a pretty decent running section but there was a little bit of pretty much everything at the outlet and my favorite though was in the kids area where there was a working arcade game of NBA Jam and I’m realizing now that for the kids that this is intended for this game is as Antiquated as the shooting game that Marty and McFly played and Back to the Future too but nevertheless had we not needed to leave to join everyone at dinner I could have played this game all [Music] night at dinner we got back reports of how our testing went it didn’t tell me what my V2 Max was and it didn’t tell me which shoe I was the most efficient in but it does provide incontrovertible proof of what I’ve been trying to tell you all for years I run just a bit funny [Music] Saturday morning we were back on campus for road to recers a series of races from 800 M to 10K on a flat and fast course and first up would be the 10K all right this area is normally a uh bike rack but here is kind of like the media staging space [Music] with the time attack [Music] what did you think of the race it’s pretty cool how many times they came around so you get to keep cheering for them and then the like being able to be media at the finish line was pretty cool so Addy zero wrote a records we’ve just watched the 10 km men’s Elite race men’s winner Nicholas Kip career 2704 boom there he is right there we in the [Music] house beened yet [Music] woo [Music] don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t [Music] we’ve got uh the women’s 5K starting off and uh here they come [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Applause] [Music] looking good Drew look to go baby [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w504 is the winner how was it for you out there hard really hard I blame y Kela Grand doll and anes of course PR number one all right all right how was it out there yeah awesome it’s different than the one that they raced though isn’t it a little bit same oh is it okay CR just pull you through okay the hallway nice yeah all right congratulations [Music] you did it you did it man I’m not 5 it’s hot all right we went out way too fast we didn’t go out too fast how was it that was still a good time 23 minutes job Aubrey nice job man that’s a tough day good job BR how was it there man dead dead good job out there today it’s hot one yeah it was a hot one I went out too fast and just like that the day and the entire trip was over I got some Veggie Curry worst and fries from the food trucks we had some Beverages and we gave out Kudos BMS all athletes you just gave like 2,000 people all scraa Kudos I’ve been wanting to come to road to records for a while now and it exceeded All my expectations it had everything fast racing fantastic venue and most important of all good people [Music] [Music]