Back in July 2022, Pablo Gil, 43-time marathoner (at the time - that number has since grown), Mexico City community legend and new owner of the coolest multi-brand experiential running store in the world (for our money) DM'd us as a very early fan of what we were building at Bandit.
The first DM from Pablo over 3 years ago, with him rocking the OG's in August '22.
At the time, we hadn't even released our first head-to-toe apparel collection, but Pablo was already a supporter, rocking our only real product in those days - the OG sock. He'd asked if we'd be willing to have Bandit carried in his new temple for runners, showing more confidence in what we were doing than we probably even had in ourselves. This was one of those "pinch-me" moments for the squad, where we had the opportunity to be carried by an amazing store, internationally, right from the jump.
The rest is Bandit history as Metta Running became one of our two first retail partners(the other being Renegade Running). We've since become great friends with Pablo and many other members of the CDMX community, who we love to spend time with as our paths have crossed throughout the WMM circuit over the years. Pablo even got engaged right outside of our Chicago Marathon Pop-Up and so it was a long time coming that we officially partnered up as we did a few weeks ago for a community dinner, shakeout run and exclusive Bandit x Metta capsule collection for the Mexico City Marathon at their new store in Condesa.
Speaking of the new store - it is the holy grail of running stores, complete with a full-service restaurant and DJ booth in the front and a uniquely formatted space that winds around the corner with a living room setup, and traverses down to the back of the building where you'll find a gorgeous footwear wall and treadmill. We can't wait to get back there, and in the meantime, enjoy a bit of a scene report from our weekend in CDMX.
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