HEAD OF THE PACK
In just five years, Skechers has become one of the biggest disruptive forces in the running footwear landscape, producing some of the best products on the market and putting its shoes on Marathon Major champions, international medal-winning athletes and elite triathletes Minimalism, maximalism, motion control is good, motion control is bad… you may have noticed that over the years the shoe industry has been changing direction more often than a weather vane on a windy day. Well Skechers doesn’t do ‘ isms’. It prefers to ignore fads and instead focus on what a runner actually needs, and how best to deliver that. It doesn’t do mission statements either, but if it did, it would be something along the lines of: ‘ Skechers wants to keep you moving forward as fast as possible for as long as possible with maximum comfort and minimum fuss.’ Sounds pretty good, right?
It’s an ethos that Skechers applied to developing its first everyday training neutral shoe back in 2012, the Skechers Gorun. That shoe went on to beat off stiff competition and win the coveted
Runner’s World Best Debut award that year. But once the corks had finished popping and the celebrations had passed, Skechers set about making sure it built on that success and kept producing shoes that get the job done for runners across the globe.
And there’s no greater way of showing you know how to get the job done than by making a shoe that will win the world’s oldest and most venerated annual marathon. In 2014, US distance running superhero Meb Keflezighi won the Boston Marathon wearing Skechers Performance’s fastest shoe, the Skechers Gomeb Speed 3. As the name suggests, Skechers Performance initially created the shoe just for Meb, but now runners the world over benefit from the dedication and technical know-how of the Skechers design team. In fact, that same know-how has been developed over the years since that Runner’s World award. Not only is Skechers Performance the Title Sponsor of the Los Angeles Marathon and the Official Footwear Partner of the 2017 Ironman European Tour, it’s been busy building Skechers Performance running shoes that cater to the needs of runners of all shapes, sizes, speeds and abilities. And right in among that pack is the latest version of the shoe that started it all – the Skechers Gorun5.