In the vocabulary of running, adidas is one of those words that appear first.In every sense. As the story of the Three Stripes teaches us. From the Berlin track where Adi Dassler’s spiked shoes rewrote the mythos of athletics, to the avenues of today’s global cities, the German brand continues to stand exactly where running evolves, shaping its aesthetic and cultural pace.

In recent years, the state of the art of this connection has taken form through a pivotal chapter: the Adizero family. A running laboratory translated into functional objects—where radical technologies, increasingly light and responsible materials, and avant-garde design, constantly balancing human intuition and scientific experimentation, collectively set the tone for the global running scene.

During our days in Texas—between San Antonio’s sun-struck asphalt and the lights of an event conceived to present not just the future of a product, but of an entire culture—we chose to return to the beginning. To the origins. To the why.

It’s ‘The Running Event’ (TRE), launched in 2006 and now North America’s premier specialty retail conference and trade show, where thousands of industry professionals converge each year to discover the latest in footwear, apparel, gear, and services—through peer learning, interactive programming, and vivid product demonstrations that make it the must-attend moment for the run and outdoor enthusiasts.

From December 2–4, alongside the convention’s pulse, adidas Running shaped a parallel narrative: an exclusive experience for select guests at the historic Ranch Motel, complemented by an off-site ‘adidas Hub’ in the King Williams Cultural Arts District, in San Antonio’s Southtown neighborhood. Across both curated spaces, guests moved through upcoming product drops, the rhythm of TRE itself, and a private screening of the epic Nardò documentary. Over three days, the activation didn’t just showcase adidas performance technologies—it made a case for how adidas Running is setting the pace, shaping the future of running culture through immersive, intentional experiences and the communities who give them meaning.

We delved into the adidas Running world alongside those who are tasked with imagining the next strides—the tomorrow of the adidas Three Stripes and the renewal of its epic narrative. On one side, Patrick Nava, General Manager of adidas Running.On the other, Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running. We met them far from their offices, but fully immersed in the flow that guides them daily: using running as a lens to decode athletes and enthusiasts around the world—their fragilities, ambitions, and values—and to translate those layers into a brand capable of connecting them all.

What emerged is a dialogue that lives at the intersection of science and art, technique and feeling, material and meaning: all distilled into a running shoe.

We always love to begin from the origins. Which sports shaped you, and how did running enter your athletic biography?

Patrick Nava, GM adidas Running

“I’ve always been a very mediocre athlete… with very high ambitions. I was born and raised as a tennis player—not by choice. My father was a tennis player, and he literally put a racket in my hand at four years old without asking whether I liked it or not. I’ve always had a competitive mind, so I never really questioned if I loved tennis. I simply played.

When I was fourteen, I suffered a serious injury. That moment changed everything. I shifted to volleyball, also because I’m from Modena—one of the great volleyball cities. Then, like many Italian kids, I eventually moved on to football. In my early twenties, I fell in love with rugby almost overnight. And then, gradually, I transitioned toward running. Running, athletics, pacing—they were always components of whatever I did. In a way, running had always been there, under the surface.

When I began working, I started traveling constantly. In the end, running was the one sport that stayed with me—long after the others faded away. After university, after the team sports ended, running remained. I’m an engineer by education, and after graduating I worked in consulting for ten years. My lifestyle became fast, intense, complicated. I needed a sport I could practice whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted—one that didn’t depend on teammates, schedules, or structures. Something that created a clean break from everyday pressures. For me, running is that: more meditation than sport.

I’m lucky to live near a forest. A hundred meters from my front door and I’m already surrounded by green. I step inside, and everything else dissolves. Running is what keeps me balanced.”

Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running

“I grew up in Munich, which means a large part of my childhood unfolded in the mountains: hiking, skiing, being outdoors. I was on skis at two years old, so nature was my first playground. As a kid and teenager, I played field hockey—that was my main sport for many years. But across all these phases, one thing never changed: running.

Today, running is my primary sport. It integrates perfectly with my life: easy to schedule, simple to practice, and capable of striking that perfect balance between doing something athletic and finding a space to recharge, to decompress, to reset. For me, it’s ideal—a physical gesture that keeps you moving, and at the same time a ritual that empties and fills you in equal measure. The beauty of running is that you can take it anywhere. Even now, here in Texas, we can simply lace up and go.”

For us, sport is culture. How does the cultural dimension shape your work—and what does it mean to evolve the deep historical impact of the Three Stripes in the present?

Patrick Nava, GM adidas Running

“adidas Running has a very specific mission: to build the future archive of adidas. And it’s grounded in two components that, to me, are the essence of what adidas is. The first is an obsession with innovation tied to performance. The second is a design signature that enriches culture—not just running culture, but the aesthetic of sport in general, and to some extent even fashion. The fusion of these two forces is what makes adidas—and adidas Running in particular—unique within the sports landscape.

If you think of adidas broadly, the formula is always the same: look at the archive with an eye toward the future. Football is where everything began, and still the beating heart of global sport culture. Originals is the art of reimagining the past. Running’s task, however, is different: it’s about looking forward and creating the archive that future adidas designers will study 10, 20, 30 years from now. Evolving in the present means one thing above all: keeping your gaze firmly oriented toward what’s next.

We have two very simple objectives. The first is to make adidas a winner today: winning races, creating products that represent the pinnacle of innovation—not only for elite athletes, not only for Kenyans running marathons, but also for anyone who decides to run their first 5 km. I deeply believe in adidas’ mission: sport changes lives. That’s my motivation: helping someone live longer, healthier, more fully. More time and more energy to spend with my children. That, to me, is enormous. The second objective is to leave the running department better than we found it. To elevate it. To build immediate success today, while creating something the next adidas generations can inherit and push even further.”

Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running

“I think the point of connection is this: everything we do in running is about defining and constructing the future archive. It begins with having the right innovations, the right technologies, to shape what running will look like tomorrow. That’s a huge part of our work.

At the same time, designing for elite athletes lets us create radically disruptive products with a very clear identity: shoes built for the best athletes in the world—honest, uncompromising, credible. Extremely modern, sometimes almost futuristic, yet still anchored in a sense of inner truth.

This has always been our ethos: start from the athlete’s needs—from the best athletes—and express that through a design language that is simple, real, stripped of anything unnecessary. Pure function, pure intention. And in doing so, we stay connected to the principles of the archive while also building the next chapter of it. We live in that constant tension between past and future. And culture is the spark that ignites it.”

You’re now working at the edge of design and technology. What questions do you ask yourselves when thinking about a new product?

Patrick Nava, GM adidas Running

“The first question we asked was: How do we create an adidas Running identity that is unique, brand-coherent, and instantly recognizable across products that serve very different purposes? We design racing shoes and everyday training shoes. But when people look at them, beyond the Three Stripes, they must intuitively know: this is adidas.

To reach that point, we followed a very intentional path—one made of design, visual expression, and a redefinition of what adidas means. The answers live in clean lines, in showcasing the technology, in maintaining cultural references for the adidas community while simultaneously projecting ourselves into the future. Visiting the archive made something very clear: inside those shelves lives the deepest history—the history of sport. adidas, together with Puma, is one of the very few brands that has literally written chapters of sporting epic. The most interesting part of the archive is realizing that every single product was, at some point, the pinnacle of innovation. Our job today is to make the shoes we’re creating now the ones people will study in that same archive ten years from today.

This is exactly how the Pro Evo was born. When we started working on the first Evo—the one unveiled in 2023—we told ourselves: let’s forget the ‘normal’ way of building a shoe. Let’s remove all the constraints we usually impose. How do we build the fastest shoe in the world? That was the question. Not a shoe meant to last 700 km—our usual benchmark—but a shoe built for one purpose: maximum velocity. Even if it lasted only one race. We broke every rule imaginable. And from that moment, the entire running team, and our innovation philosophy, shifted direction. A new mindset emerged.”

Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running

“Everything we do is rooted in function: helping a runner become better, helping an athlete experience their sport more fully. Every product is built to elevate people—not just champions. Whether it’s the lightest, fastest shoe ever engineered, or a comfortable daily trainer that lets you run without injury at your own pace… design enters the picture strongly here. We want products that perform, but also ones that feel intuitive, desirable, emotionally resonant. You should look at a shoe and immediately understand what it was made for—and feel something. The product must speak to you. It must connect. This is where science and art meet—at a very high level—to create the best possible experience for the people who run out there.”

How much does your academic background shape your work today?

Patrick Nava, GM adidas Running

“I’m a nerd in the purest sense. I’m an engineer, and I love being one. I can dive into highly technical conversations, down to the chemical composition of materials. Understanding complexity matters—especially with mechanical or chemical components.

The beauty is in bringing that complexity into design. A shoe must be visually compelling while being structurally profound. Engineering taught me to recognize this. You look at a shoe and you see pure engineering: where research lives, engineering lives. Every great mind—across all fields—is a little obsessed with detail. That’s what I see working with elite adidas athletes. They’ll ask us to adjust a point on a shoe by half a millimeter. And they’re right. We once spent two years studying the rocker point on a sole—shifting it forward or backward by just 2–3%. In a marathon, those millimeters change everything. It’s Formula 1 logic. The margins are microscopic, but decisive.”

Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running

“When I was 14, I suffered a major knee injury. Overnight, I had to stop everything. Sport was my whole identity, and suddenly a huge void opened. So I started doodling, drawing—without intention. But through that, I discovered a second passion: creativity. 

When my knee healed, I found myself with two great loves: sport, and the act of creating something from a blank page. These became the pillars of my life. Studying industrial design eventually made everything click: designing sports products wasn’t just a job—it was the perfect intersection of both passions. That’s why leading adidas Running design isn’t work to me. It’s the synthesis of who I am.”

How do elite athletes and community runners coexist in your vision—and in adidas’ approach?

Patrick Nava, GM adidas Running

“Running is a strange sport—and a beautiful one.  The perception of running athletes is very different from the way in football or tennis, athletes can gain a star status that makes them almost untouchable.  This is not the case with Running, and because of this, there is an immediate sense of community and connection in the sport.

Running connects people through experience. Every runner knows what an elite marathoner feels. The shared suffering, the masochism, the moment of euphoria where you feel invincible. That creates a powerful bond. Running is perhaps the most democratic sport on Earth. You hardly need anything. It’s the most natural human movement. In that simplicity lies a unity that transcends performance. That, to me, is the bridge between elite and everyday runners.”

Moritz Hoellmueller, VP Design Running

“At the top end—racing, world records, adizero—we test and validate our products exclusively with elite athletes. Sometimes this means sending our team to Kenya; other times we work with advanced testing groups worldwide. But at the same time, we stay very close to running communities. They help us understand what is culturally relevant, what matters to someone who runs not to win races, but to stay healthy, to reconnect with themselves, to be with friends. This requires a different aesthetic: products that blend seamlessly into everyday life, yet perform at the highest level when needed. That’s where elite and community meet.”