Words by Like the Wind – Photography supplied by adidas TERREX
It might surprise you to know how much goes into designing a new shoe. There are footwear designers with decades of experience building their knowledge.
Material experts who constantly keep an eye on the latest fabrics and foams. Biomechanical specialists called upon to work out how to give the shoe the perfect fit and feeling. Colour and aesthetics are taken into consideration. As are commercial factors including pricing and sales channels. The people responsible for liaising with factories have their say. Sustainability experts will consider how to lessen the environmental impact of a product. The list goes on and on. Indeed, Jeff Morris, the Global Director of Innovation at adidas TERREX says that his job is leading “a highly cross functional product innovation team in the research and development of future product concepts for the outdoor category.”
Additionally to all the people in his innovation team, Morris also has access to something which might be the secret sauce, powering adidas TERREX to the top of the trail running world: a team of athletes who don’t just provide input and feedback on upcoming products. They want to have a say.
On 24 June 2023, just after 7.30pm as the sun set on a hot day, a figure appeared on the athletics track at Placer High School in Auburn, CA surrounded by photographers, team mates and supporters. Dressed entirely in black and white, except for a bright orange pair of running shoes, Tom Evans jogged his way around the track to victory in the 50th edition of the 100 miles Western States Endurance Run in a time of 14h40m22s – the fourth fastest time ever at that point.
For Evans, this was an extraordinary win and the result of years of effort. Having always loved sport growing up, Evans joined the British Army straight from school and continued with team sports – especially rugby – as he trained to be an officer. After a while, Evans felt that team sports were not compatible with his job as a soldier and he turned his attention to endurance pursuits. Some army colleagues completed the Marathon des Sables in 2016 and Evans challenged himself to beat their finishing positions the following year. He raced the event in the Sahara Desert in 2017 and finished third overall. After that his passion for trail running quickly blossomed.
Immediately after his victory at the Western States Endurance Run in 2023, Evans said: “I think for me, this year, I put all my eggs in one basket to come to Western States and have my best possible day. And yeah, I still can’t believe it myself… This is my favourite race in the world.”
But it was not just Tom Evans who was celebrating. The bright orange shoes he was wearing were a pair of adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultras, a shoe that was designed with a very specific focus. And for which Evans – along with many of his fellow Team TERREX athletes – had provided significant input.
Jeff Morris grew up playing as many sports as he could. In high school that included track and field, where he specialised in shorter track races. However it was during his time at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR that running became a much bigger part of Morris’ life. After joining adidas, his relationship with running deepened. And along with it an appreciation of what it takes to create great products for runners.
Based in adidas’ Global Headquarters in Herzogen aurach, Germany, Morris says that having access to world class testing facilities gives him and his team the opportunity to explore what new shoes are able to do for athletes. But it is on the trails that real world feedback is gathered.
Abby Hall is a member of Team TERREX alongside Tom Evans, Petter Engdahl and many others. Hall’s running resume is impressive with top three finishes at the UTMB CCC, the Transgrancanaria Classic and the Canyons 100km in the past couple of years plus taking the win at Transvulcania in 2022. Running became part of Hall’s life early – when she was in the fifth grade at high school in Vermont, she signed up for a summer trail race series with members of her family. She won a pie at one of the races and was immediately hooked.
“I quickly fell in love with the freedom of running outside,” explains Hall, “especially at that young age. I immediately started a training journal and quickly fell in love with the process of trying to grow and improve at this thing that I was enjoying.” Beyond that, Hall also says that being part of a team who went running around the woods, then “stop by the gas station and get a soda”, was great fun.
Hall kept running all the way through high school, college and into her professional life as a graphic designer living in Los Angeles. She always found herself drawn to the mountains and would head off for weekend climbing trips, returning to the city for work and her marathon training schedule. Then after a while the two worlds started to come together. Running on the trails that she would hike at the weekends felt good. Some online research uncovered the sport of ultra running and once again, Hall was hooked.
Petter Engdahl – another member of Team TERREX – had a different route into the sport. Growing up in Norway, Engdahl focused his attention on Nordic – or cross country – skiing. And running when there was no snow was encouraged by Engdahl’s coach as a way to stay in shape for the winter season. Despite his focus on skiing, Engdahl was sufficiently interested in trail racing to take part in the 2016 Skyrunning world cup in Limone Sul Garda, Italy. After that, trail running became Engdahl’s primary focus and he has gone on to win some of the most important races in the trail running world including the UTMB CCC, the Transvulcania Ultra and the Livigno Sky Marathon.
Whilst Evans, Hall and Engdahl have all taken different routes into the sport of trail running, there are aspects which unite them. Not least the fact that they are all so successful. Another connection is their passion for working with Jeff Morris and the team at adidas TERREX on new products.
Engdahl trained as an industrial designer and so he has an understanding of what goes into designing a product. But the real reason he is excited about having the chance to work with the adidas TERREX innovation team is that “if I have the opportunity to help develop products that not only help me but also other athletes and other people to enjoy the trails, that is amazing.”
Tom Evans agrees with Engdahl’s reason for wanting to have input into the development of a shoe like the Agravic Speed Ultra. And he adds that, as an athlete, he is also excited about the chance to take responsibility for what he and other athletes will race in: “If you’ve got the ability to be able to put some of your DNA into a shoe, [then] come race day, you’ve got no excuses” because you will have the ideal product for the performance you want to deliver.
In Abby Hall’s view, working with Morris and the adidas TERREX team reflects the long-term process that elite athletes have to adopt in order to get the most out of themselves. “I have been on the team long enough to have seen the cycles of multiple shoe ranges getting developed,” explains Hall. “This is often a two or three year process, to get from the stage where we’re dreaming about them at a training camp and sketching on pieces of paper, to trying on samples and then refining those samples. So I think the long term process requires a lot of patience. But also we all have long term goals as athletes.”
For Hall and her fellow athletes, committing to a distant goal feels natural – whether that is being part of a team of athletes or part of a team designing a shoe. The Agravic Speed Ultra is the result of a development process that had inputs from many directions. But perhaps the most important came from data that the adidas TERREX team gathered at races and validated with input from the team’s athletes. According to Jeff Morris, the most important lesson was that “trail races are won on the downhills. The downhill is really the point in races where the winners start to separate themselves.”
This insight – which could be verified but not discovered in the lab – informed some crucial design decisions in the creation of the Agravic Speed Ultra. “If you think about what happens during downhill running,” explains Morris, “the leg muscles and the joints experience a huge amount of impact forces. Anybody who runs on trails will relate to that. So it is an insight that’s relevant for anybody who runs on trails.” Understanding the importance of developing a shoe that addresses the challenges that runners – of every level – experience from running downhill, led to a number of decisions. Of the myriad of design decisions made with the team’s insights, the choice of midsole material was crucial. In the three years of development, several foams were tested with the goal of finding the one that balanced the best energy absorption during downhill running and at the same time deliver energy return for fl at and uphill sections. The result is Lightstrike Pro which provides ‘cushioning and energy return for next-level speed’. As Morris points out, “This is a super compliant foam, which means it can absorb a lot of energy on impact and reduces those impact forces on the legs. But it also has a high level of energy return, so it’s helping to push the runner forward.” The team then added a rocker geometry specifically tuned for trail running.
Combined with the midsole material and geometry, the adidas TERREX team worked on the Energy Rod carbon insert, to provide lightweight stiffness for a dynamic stride on ultra distances. And finally, numerous traction patterns for the outsole were examined to establish the optimal weight-to-grip ratio for fast running off road. After all the input from the team, by mid-2022 prototypes of the Agravic Speed Ultra were ready for Team TERREX athletes to use in competition. And the results were astounding.
In June that year Ruth Croft won Western States 100 wearing the final prototype shoe. In August, Petter Engdahl set a new course record at UTMB CCC whilst Tom Evans finished third at UTMB. In October, Abby Hall and Petter Engdahl both won their respective races at Transvulcania. The following year the results kept coming. In June 2023, Tom Evans won Western States 100. Later that summer, with prototype shoes on their feet, Yngvild Kaspersen won the women’s race in the CCC at the UTMB, Toni McCann won the women’s OCC 50km and Emily Hawgood placed second in the women’s fi eld at the CCC. And these were just a handful of the results that athletes wearing the Agravic Speed Ultra achieved.
Jeff Morris perhaps put it best when he said: “Speaking on behalf of the Innovation Team, I would point to those moments when the Agravic Speed Ultra started showing up on the feet of our elite trail athletes in some of their biggest races, as our proudest moment. We had been working on the research and development of this shoe for two years. And to see Ruth win at Western States wearing a prototype, to see Tom winning at Western States wearing the Agravic Speed Ultra or Petter setting records in Chamonix – to just see that culmination of years of research and development come to life, it was just an awesome feeling for the team.”
The Agravic Speed Ultra – designed both in the lab and on the trails, with input from experts and athletes alike – has hit the trails and left an indelible mark on the sport. In April 2024, the shoe was released to the public. And now you can get yours.
Go to www.adidas.com/us/outdoor to find out more about the Agravic Speed Ultra and the rest of the adidas TERREX collection.