HOKA WANTS MORE, STRAVA BUSY, PITTSBURGH GOES TO ICELAND
Tracksmith has appointed Jared Carver as the company’s new CEO, succeeding founder and decade-long CEO Matt Taylor. Taylor will step into the new role of Tracksmith’s Chief Creative Officer and will focus on brand vision, identity and the creative direction of the company. Carver most recently served as Converse’s president and CEO and before that was their vice president and general manager of North America. He lives in the Boston area and is a runner, allowing him to easily fit in with his new work mates.
Nike is set to lay off 775 employees, most of whom work at distribution centers in Tennessee and Mississippi in an effort to boost profits and accelerate the use of automation in the warehouses.The employees earn, on average, $36K a year, per ZipRecruiter, while company President and CEO Eliott Hill had a compensation package worth about $27 million in 2025, according to Fortune. Nike’s 2025 fiscal year profit declined to just $19.79 billion, which had to put a crimp in company co-founder Phil Knight’s contributions to the Republican Party. It will be interesting to monitor this year’s profit surge in light of the departure of the 775 poorly paid distribution center workers.
Hoka is coming off of a third quarter sales increase of 18.5%, with their direct to consumer and wholesale channels seeing sustained growth in performance footwear sales. The brand is now seeing the lifestyle category as a growth opportunity while cognizant of the fact they must maintain their integrity in the performance marketplace. Hoka would also like to double their presence in the sporting goods category, expand shelf space in their existing accounts and build sales in both Europe and China.
Strava has introduced Instant Workouts, a feature that will suggest workouts in a variety of disciplines and are based on the user’s exercise history. The workouts focus on habit building and inspiration rather than hardcore performance coaching, presumably making users eager to continue their training. Four different categories of workouts are included: Maintain, Build, Explore, Recover, so that users can set their intention and specify what kind of workout they desire. For runners, Strava will create a suggested route starting from the user’s current location along with an explanation on why the route was chosen. Strava has also trained three Machine Learning models to detect and delete improperly classified activities, effectively shaking up many leaderboards. Canadian Cycling reports 2.3 million activities that include run-cyclists, drivers and e-bikes have been affected. In the run-cycle category, if a runner has gone on a bike ride without changing their activity profile to running, that workout gets thrown out. Reaction to the new policy was positive as evidenced by the many approving Reddit comments.
Garmin users can now track their food intake with the addition of a nutrition tracking feature in Garmin Connect. Users can see their caloric intake along with proteins, fats and carbohydrates levels and receive information on how to achieve their nutrition goals and how their food intake impacts their performance. Reports can be generated in a daily, weekly, monthly or annual format.
| Blistering Pace Race Management (BPRM), who undertake a variety of race management activities across the U.S., has hired 2:09 marathoner Noah Droddy as Sponsorship Manager. Droddy will work closely with BPRM partners and sponsors to enhance the race experience for both parties. Company president Michelle LaSala noted that Droddy’s outgoing personality will “make him a tremendous addition to our team.” | Noah Droddy |
The New York Road Runners, Atlanta Track Club and Vacation Races are all losing valuable staff members as the growing demand for MarathonFoto’s services has led to four new hires from the three groups. Amanda Tobin and Shasten Hildebrand have joined MarathonFoto as client relations managers. They will assist in enhancing the race day experience for both race organizers and participants. The duo were last employed by the Atlanta Track Club and NYRR. Dehn Craig and Jacob Harris are the company’s newest external operations managers. They will be managing the race photographers and ensuring the rapid flow of image delivery to runners.
The DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon and Islandsbanki Reykjavik Marathon in Iceland announced a new international marathon partnership that will encourage runners to run both races, highlight runners traveling between Iceland and Pittsburgh and make runners aware of travel opportunities in the two cities.
Massachusetts-based Wicked Fast Race Company has acquired seven South Shore of Massachusetts road races. A newly formed company, Wicked Fast, founded by Jamie Smith, who is the former director of Experiential Marketing at Stack Sports and Founder and CEO of Top Score Sports & Events. Smith vows to not reinvent, but rather protect all the events, saying the races “have great bones.” He will transition race registrations to Race Roster and intends to expand community partnerships and increase sponsorship opportunities for local and regional brands.
Major Race Swag has introduced Cold-Activated Color-Changing Aluminum Cups. The move will allow races to stand out by adding something unique to runners’ swag bags. Once filled with a cold beverage the cups can reveal vibrant designs, messages and sponsor logos. The company says the cups can drive registration numbers up, create race day buzz and deliver a sponsor message well past race day.