A good relationship between run and coffee . Report on the collaboration event between New Balance and Blue Bottle Coffee!

New Balance, which has garnered attention not only for its sneakers but also for its running shoes, has collaborated with Blue Bottle Coffee, a leading third-wave coffee company, to create the "Fresh Foam X 1080 v12" running shoe! The "Fresh Foam X 1080 v12" running shoe has been released with the blue color that is associated with Blue Bottle Coffee everywhere. Running and coffee . What kind of chemical reaction will be created when these two seemingly unrelated things are combined? Together with five guests who love active hobbies, we infiltrated a group run event to commemorate the collaboration. We explored the relationship between run and coffee.

Photo_Hikaru Morita

Text_Issey Enomoto

Edit_Hideki Shibayama

Go to the leading run spot in East Tokyo.

With the familiar blue bottle logo on the facade, this is the Blue Bottle Coffee Kiyosumi Shirakawa Flagship Cafe. This flagship store opened in 2015 as the first store in Japan of Blue Bottle Coffee, known as the spark plug for the third wave of coffee.

Let's go for a quick morning run from Kiyosumi Shirakawa to Kiba Park and enjoy a good cup of coffee afterwards. This is the purpose of this event, a collaboration between "New Balance" and "Blue Bottle Coffee. The distance of the run will be a light 3 km. The pace should be slow enough to allow people to chat while running.

Here are the five guests who participated in this year's event.

From left to right: Rao Kinoshita (PR), Ana Aoi (actress), Shingo Suzuki (19SO director), Yukino Miyazaki (actress), Kazuki Namiki (hair stylist)

Each of the five runners has his or her own way of perceiving and relating to running, ranging from a casual runner who runs only moderately to a hard-core runner who runs all over the place on a regular basis. However, they all share the same goal of leading active, healthy lifestyles and enjoying physical activity on a daily basis.

First, all participants chatted over a cold brew to introduce the product. This collaboration is rooted in the empathy for the sustainability that each of the participants stands for, and the upper is made of dope-dyed engineered knit, which consumes less water during production. The soft texture of the material is maintained while at the same time being environmentally friendly.

Afterwards, Yu Nakamura, a.k.a. "the running celebrity," gave us a lecture on stretching, and once we had relaxed our bodies and minds, we started running!

Five runners run in Kiba Park under a blue summer sky. Kiba Park, with its vast grounds and abundant greenery, is one of the most popular running spots in East Tokyo among runners.

The footwear is the Fresh Foam X 1080 v12, a collaboration model between New Balance and Blue Bottle Coffee. The base model, the "1080," is a shoe with comfortable cushioning that is popular not only for running but also for daily use. The fresh color scheme of white with a hint of blue is unique to this collaboration.