Much of Los Angeles will come to a standstill on Sunday morning when 26,000 runners take to the streets for the 41st annual Los Angeles Marathon.
Wellness, fitness and athleticwear brands are activating during the lead-up to the race through proximity-focused runs, talks, fitness classes and gifting suites, as well as race-day cheering sections, official race sponsorships and booth rental at the race’s official Lifestyle Expo.
For example, Lululemon and Hoka are investing in proximity marketing initiatives meant to gather consumers and influential runners for brand activations, community building and marketing opportunities.
For Hoka, which makes athletic wear for a variety of activities, it’s an opportunity to show up within the fast-growing sport.
“Running is becoming more inclusive, and more people feel there’s a space for them,” Allie Tsavdarides, Hoka vp of North American marketing, told Glossy. “In the next few years, we’re going to see an even bigger adoption of running, and that’s really exciting [for the] individuals who never would have seen themselves stepping into this, and we want to support that this weekend.”
The brand’s weekend pop-up, called the Hoka Light House, launches Friday morning with a private press and influencer preview, then opens to the public later in the day and will run through the weekend.
Hoka has targeted runners, creatives, coaches, running community members and local consumers for the activation. The pop-up takes place in a Melrose Avenue storefront near its L.A. Hoka flagship store. The company is employing geo-targeted advertising on the Lyft rideshare app and inviting consumers who have shopped at its nearby Hoka brick-and-mortar store.
Attendees can participate in organized “shakeout runs” and talks, free food and drink from popular L.A. smoothie bar Earth Bar, recovery modalities, and shoe testing on treadmills. The team is promoting its lightest shoe yet, called the Cielo X1 3.0.
“Shakeout runs” are two- to three-mile jogs designed to loosen the legs and prepare the body for a race without fatiguing the muscles.
Tsavdarides told Glossy she will measure success based on consumer engagement, membership sign-ups and participation in activities. “We have some incentives for anyone who wants to purchase the product [in a Hoka store] after trying it [at the pop-up], but ultimately, we really want to continue to build connectivity with individuals and communities a little bit more directly,” she said. “There’s an experiential element that’s becoming more and more important for all of us, and certainly individuals or runners in this community getting to touch and feel the product [allows them to] understand the brand in ways that are more dimensional.”
Hoka is a Decker-owned shoe and apparel brand launched in France in 2009 by two former Salomon employees.
Lululemon’s strategy is similar. The company rolled out several proximity-focused activations meant to leverage the moment into sales conversion. For example, on February 18, the company opened a pop-up training studio in West Hollywood called Studio Yet that offers community activations like run classes. Studio Yet classes are $40 with 100% of proceeds going to run organization BlacklistLA. It is open until Sunday, which is also race day, but it is not officially tied to the event.
On Thursday, the brand hosted an invite-only “run industry night” at the space, with food, music and swag. On Saturday, the brand is hosting a shakeout run from its Venice Beach store, led by local run ambassadors. These activations sync with the launch of Lululemon’s new spring 2026 run collection launch, which will be gifted through various activations.
Meanwhile, companies like Strava, the fitness activity tracking app with more than 195 million global users, is leaning into an intimate, invite-only activation.
“We specifically choose not to directly sponsor races [so we can continue to be] brand and platform agnostic,” Melanie Jarrett, director of partnerships at Strava, told Glossy. “Part of what makes [our meetups] such a hot ticket is [many influential runners and run club founders] are actually never all in the same room together, because some [partner with] Hoka, and this one’s with Nike, and this one does Lululemon stuff — so there’s a certain magic where you see [influential runners] recognize each other, meet for the first time and share best practices around how they’re each growing their running communities in their local cities.”
The Strava app allows users to track activities, like running and cycling, and share their progress with their in-app followers. Strava has more than 1 million run clubs that organize their runs through the app, according to the company.
On Friday, Strava will host run club founders, creators and athletes for a two-mile shakeout morning run followed by a panel and Q&A with influential run club founders. This includes Danielle Burnett, founder of size-inclusive run club Big Girls Who Run; Maya Leppard, creator of Bad at Running, a virtual club for newbies; Mariah Dyson, a Nike athlete and founder of female-focused GirlGangCrazy run club; and Marvin Garcia, founder of one of L.A.’s largest run clubs, Good Vibes Track Club.
Internally, Strava calls these pop-up meetups its “Kudos Collective” program: a series of events tied to races and other cultural running and cycling events. “There are more clubs being created every day on Strava all over the world than we’ve ever seen,” Jarrett said. “People want to connect their digital life with their IRL life, and these clubs on Strava are kind of the perfect intersection.”
Wellness brands are also getting into the mix: Therabody has partnered with FP Movement, Free People’s athleticwear line, for a 5k community shakeout run that starts and finishes at the Free People retail store at the outdoor Westfield Century City mall on Saturday.
Therabody, which also has a brick-and-mortar location within the outdoor mall, will offer its recovery modalities before and after the run to attendees, including Theragun Mini Plus and its JetBoots Prime. Participants will be offered 15% off products and 50% off recovery services available at Therabody’s nearby Brentwood location. Attendees can also enter a co-branded sweepstakes for a chance to win prizes.
The event invitation was posted jointly across FP Movement and Therabody social channels and is open to the public. The partnership continues into Sunday for a dedicated FP Movement x Therabody cheer zone at mile 20 along the race course.
However, there are also more official ways to participate in the race weekend, which offer a wider demographic and footprint.
The largest is a centralized hub at Dodger Stadium, the starting point of Sunday’s race, called the Asics L.A. Marathon Lifestyle Expo. More than 26,000 runners will pick up their race-day bibs on Friday or Saturday at the expo, which also includes more than 100 vendors offering samples, demonstrations, coupons, giveaways and products for sale.
“The Lifestyle Expo presents an opportunity for us to showcase our product innovations holistically and give runners the opportunity to experience them in-hand and on-foot,” Cat Ayers, Asics America vp of marketing, said in a statement to Glossy. “The expo also allows us to connect with runners directly each year and provides a considerable sales opportunity.”
Asics is the race’s official title sponsor for the 7th consecutive year. It has committed to this role until 2029.
Organized by The McCourt Foundation, the operator of the Los Angeles Marathon, vendors pay $3,000-$22,000 to rent booth space at the Lifestyle Expo, depending on booth size, which ranges from around 100-800 square feet. Around 70,000 attendees are estimated to visit the expo between Friday and Saturday. The foundation estimates that more than half of the expo attendees are between the ages of 25 and 36, followed by 20% aged 36-51. Attendees have an average annual income of $86,000.
Some partnering brands also opt in to advertising within the race day program, with rates ranging from $875-$4,500, depending on size and placement.
Asics is utilizing the expo for its primary activations. This includes its “One Asics” lounge, where runners can test footwear on treadmills, create cheer signs, locate their name on a “runners wall,” enter to win one of three free entry tickets to the 2027 L.A. Marathon and purchase official race gear, including the race’s official shoe, LA Marathon ASICS NovaBlast 5, made in a limited-edition design.
The brand also plans to highlight a select group of female runners sponsored by Asics, dubbed the LA100 by the brand. The activation is in partnership with Believe in the Run, a U.S. running-focused media company, and nutrition coaching company Featherstone Nutrition. This activation is timed to International Women’s Day, which coincides with race day.
“Following the pandemic, running experienced a significant increase in participation and interest in the marathon distance,” Asics’ Ayers said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to see that sustained momentum in Southern California.”
