Run Dry, Run Right.

On a beautiful, sunny day in SoCal a few weeks ago, I headed to Santa Monica, for a K•Swiss press conference. The press conference was to kick-off the 2011 LA Marathon – which K•Swiss proudly sponsors – and to give media and key retailers a sneak peek of what they have in store for running sneakers next season.

Now, just to give a little background, K-Swiss introduced the first all-leather tennis shoe, the K•Swiss "Classic" in 1966. With that being said, most people associate this brand with, take a guess…Tennis. But, about three years ago, they decided to take their knowledge of athletic footwear in a totally unexpected direction and dive head first into the emerging Triathlon category, making their debut at the Ironman Championships. This is where the fun starts. Since, pretty much dominating that market in terms of footwear and athlete sponsorship, K•Swiss have turned their sights on more traditional training in the form of Running.

Cut back to that sunny day I mentioned…as we sat there (thoroughly impressed by the way) K•Swiss ran through their new offerings for Spring/Summer 2011. Not only were they entering the Trail category (for Fall 2011) with the debut of the BLADE-MAX TRAIL, a hydrophobic, high-mileage trail runner, they were also about to change the game with two new and innovative styles, the KWICKY BLADE-LIGHT and the CALIFORNIA. So why are these two specific styles games changers? They both feature, for the first-time, the state-of-the-art SeamFree™ and Ion Mask™ upper technologies. With data gathered during their Triathlon research, they found that wet sneakers weighed more (don’t act so shocked), and in turn, slowed down athletes. The Ion Mask™ technology is applied to the upper of the sneaker to ensure a “liquid repelling” run for any level of endurance. Basically, its keeps the sneaker dry, light and clean for the life of the shoe. We were even given a little swatches of paper that were treated and untreated with the Ion Mask™ technology, so we could conduct our own personal science experiments. End result, the treated swatch repelled water like a champ.

As we left the press conference, basking in the sun, no one would have guessed that two days later, the LA Marathon would be a complete soggy, mess. It was almost serendipitous that this new, water-repellency technology was announced just in time for the marathon. Torrential downpours made it almost impossible to enjoy, but die-hard runners did not miss a beat. In fact the winner of the men’s division, Markos Geneti of Ethiopia, set a new race record by almost two minutes—not bad for his first competitive marathon run, in the rain.