Run247 went along to the launch of the adidas 26rs, a marathon running club based out of the London Marathon store in Bishopsgate, London
You can see a gallery from the event by clicking the 'Gallery' button above.
We first visited the store in December last year (HERE) and at that point the engine room, as it was called, was completely empty, waiting for adidas to work their magic on it. That magic has now been added and with the help of Olympic marathon runners Liz Yelling, Scott Overall and Great Britain internationals Aly Dixon and Elle Vernon, we were treated to a guided tour of the facilities and the opportunity to run around London and experience some of the sights of the city.
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"The city is our stage, the marathon is our mission and this is our club. We are the adidas 26rs and these are the miles that make us"
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Also on hand were Marathon Talk's Martin Yelling and Tom Williams, Simon Freeman and his lovely wife Julie and plenty of other members of the press with a love for marathons and running. Upon arrival we were directed to a locker with our name on which contained some adidas goodies and a adidas 26rs T-shirt with gold stars indicating how many marathons we have run. This helped with the theme of the evening, which of course was all about the magical marathon distance of 26.2 miles and we were all encouraged to share stories of races past and future goals.
The engine room of the store looks amazing and has been kitted out with lockers, changing rooms and showers, along with plenty of space for members to chat and mingle both pre and post run. Being based in the store, there is plenty of running kit to look at and members of the adidas 26rs can also trial for free the much talked about adidas Boost footwear (find our more about Boost in our launch summary (HERE).
There is a video montage of the evening here:
After the run, while enjoying some food and drinks, we got to listen to a couple of people's stories of successful and not so successful marathon races.
Scott Overall's first marathon very much falls into the successful races category and you can watch a video of Scott talking about his first marathon in Berlin, where he finished in fifth place in a time of 2:10:55:
The adidas 26rs is based in the engine room of the Marathon Store at 1-3 Norton Folgate, Bishopsgate London E1 6DB.
Runners can sign up for free membership to the adidas 26rs by visiting www.adidas26rs.co.uk and you can join in the conversation on Twitter using #adidas26rs
