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We are a brand created by sports lovers and we have always been guided by a clear commitment: to create technical apparel and accessories that offer outstanding value for money.
Passionate about sport and running!
42K is part of the running story of hundreds of thousands of people in Spain and in other countries.
We are a sports brand specialising in the design, development and creation of technical textiles and accessories. We have always paid special attention to 3 factors: design, quality performance and affordable price.
We are the leading brand in technical textiles for sports events.
We also have a line of custom kit for clubs and groups.
Since 2016 all our products, both technical apparel and accessories, have been available to everyone through our online shop.
In little more than a decade we have built a strong presence in the world of running and trail running, and we are also well established in sports such as fitness, crossfit, padel, beach tennis, beach volley, e-games…
We are a brand created by sports lovers and we have always been guided by a clear commitment: to create technical apparel and accessories that offer outstanding value for money.
We have earned the trust and appreciation of thousands of sports events in almost twenty countries, and also of countless sports clubs, groups and amateur athletes of many nationalities.
Looking ahead, we have the determination and the enthusiasm to keep growing as a brand and to strengthen our commitment to grassroots sport in Spain and across Europe.
For some years now our great challenge has been our commitment to recycling as a necessary responsibility in order to contribute to sustainable development.
Innovation, sustainability, outstanding value for money and customer focus are the main challenges of 42K's present and future as a brand.
A little brand history!
The Peñalver family, passionate about running, decided to bring 42K Running to life in 2010 to offer quality technical apparel to sports events.
42K is part of a family business born in 1949.
That year the grandfather of the current owners founded PEÑALVER S.L., a company specialising in the manufacture and sale of personalised promotional items, what we now know as “merchandising”.
PEÑALVER EUROPE, S.L. is the example of a family business that has known how to adapt to the changes and the new business circumstances imposed by the passing of time and, above all, by digital transformation.
La third generation de la familia Peñalver fue la que pilotó esa transformación que supuso la aparición de 42K y su rápido crecimiento como empresa especializada en textil técnico.
Su pasión por el running les lleva a dar vida a 42K en 2010 para ofrecer quality technical apparel a los eventos deportivos.
The old cotton promotional T-shirts ended up being replaced by technical garments that were increasingly advanced and of higher quality.
After a little more than a decade of growth and innovation we have established ourselves as one of the benchmark technical textile brands among the organisers of running and trail running events in Spain, and also in other countries such as Ireland, Portugal, Italy and France.
Our experience in designing and developing high-performance, high-quality technical apparel has made us the technical brand of thousands of road races, and also of fitness, crossfit, padel, beach volley, beach tennis and e-games events…
42K has been present as a technical brand at sports events in almost twenty countries across three continents.
The pillars that make up 42K's leitmotiv
The most important brand milestones
1948/1949
Guillermo Peñalver Ramos
Guillermo Peñalver Ramos, wearing his only suit, fills a suitcase with calendars, pencils, keyrings and ashtrays and, case over his shoulder, travels much of Spain to sell them to companies as promotional items. These are the hard years of post-war Spain when the Valencian company Reclamos Peñalver is born.
The company consolidates with the second generation, led by siblings Guillermo and Concepción, but it is with the arrival of the third generation that it becomes a thriving family business.
In the 1990s Reclamos Peñalver S.L. specialises as a supplier and manufacturer of merchandising for banks and savings banks, public institutions, insurers, construction companies and pharmaceutical laboratories…
2005
New facilities
The company moves into new facilities at the Parque Empresarial Táctica in Paterna (Valencia); a first unit of more than 1,000 m² is acquired and the need to keep growing soon appears, but the global financial crisis that breaks out in 2008 brings everything to a halt.
Since the beginning of the 21st century running has become one of the Peñalver family's passions, so when the crisis forces them to look for new paths within the world of merchandising, the idea of offering a new product to road races is born.
2010
Cotton T-shirts at races?
Their passion for running leads the Peñalver family to create 42K Running as a new business line within the family company.
42K Running takes its first steps as a line of technical textiles for sport, mainly with T-shirts that quickly become attractive ‘mobile advertising screens’ for the sponsors of sports events.
“We are athletes and we think like athletes. That has been the key to understanding from the very beginning what organisers might need in order to satisfy their participants. Our proposal of technical T-shirts was very well received because races understood how important it is to look after runners, and sponsors too”, explains Guillermo Peñalver, manager of 42K.
“As runners we could not understand why the race pack included a cotton T-shirt that was no use for running. That gave us the idea of offering races T-shirts in technical fabric with good breathability, lightness and no skin irritation… It was also a new advertising medium for organisers, since they could assure their sponsors that the T-shirts would really be worn by the runners.”, says Guillermo Peñalver.
2011
Pegasus
Pegasus is the name chosen for the first collection of 42K technical T-shirts. This is the collection that starts to give the brand visibility. 42K Running begins to make a name for itself in the Valencian Community, and soon in other Spanish regions too.
One Sunday in March almost 1,300 runners line up at the start of the Media Maratón de Moncada. At the finish they receive a 42K Running technical T-shirt from the Pegasus collection, customised for the race. Most of them put it on straight away; it is the first time a small tide of runners is dressed in a garment from our young brand.
In August the 32nd Gran Fondo Internacional de Siete Aguas takes place, one of the great summer dates of grassroots athletics with 2,600 participants. The organisers entrust 42K Running with its commemorative technical T-shirt, a major endorsement for the brand, which ends the year as the technical brand of the Maratón de Benidorm and dresses for the first time the participants of a race over the queen distance.
2012
Increasingly technical, increasingly effective garments
In 2012 work begins on new collections to expand the 42K catalogue. The second collection is named DryTec, a name that also designates the technology in charge of improving breathability and sweat evacuation in our technical garments.
This year the first order for an event outside Spain is formalised. The Clube Atletisme de Portalegre in Portugal chooses 42K and from that moment on many Portuguese organisers and clubs will place their trust in the brand.
2013
The brand finally takes off
Three highly visible sports events mark a turning point in the evolution of 42K: the 15K Massamagrell, the 15K Nocturna de Valencia and the VII Carrera Solidaria BBVA in Madrid.
The 15K Massamagrell, with more than 5,000 entrants, makes a bold bid to stand out from the rest of the calendar: kitting out every participant with an exclusive T-shirt matched to customised technical shorts. The commission is a creative challenge for the company and also a race against the clock to have the garments produced in time.
This year sees the first edition of the 15K Nocturna de Valencia, a race that breaks the mould and cements Valencia even further in the imagination of Spanish running. This spectacular race, which runs through the most emblematic streets of the city on the Turia in the middle of the night, brings together more than 6,000 runners in its first edition. 42K Running produces the commemorative T-shirts for its first two editions.
The VII Carrera Solidaria BBVA, organised together with Cáritas Madrid, brings together 10,000 participants in the Spanish capital in mid-October. The challenge this time is to make an exclusive technical T-shirt which, as a special feature, must carry each participant's bib number printed on it.
The product catalogue starts to grow. In addition to new collections of technical T-shirts, other garments and accessories are developed and designed to widen the range of sports products intended for the race pack.
The brand's guiding principles are set: to develop sportswear and accessories with innovative designs and outstanding value for money.
2014
Expanded facilities and continuous growth
One of those big events is the prestigious Media Maratón Internacional de Santa Pola. The race reaches its twenty-fifth edition and decides to hand out a special commemorative T-shirt; it is the first time digital sublimation (a fabric printing process that preserves breathability and does not add weight to the garment) is used to customise one of the company's T-shirts.
Another big race held this year is the Carrera Popular Liberty Seguros in Madrid, whose seventh edition brings together more than 10,000 runners. The streets of the Spanish capital turn blue that day and the brand's visibility soars.
Interest in the brand spreads across Spain, and agreements with events beyond our borders also begin to be signed regularly. Portugal and France are the first countries where the internationalisation of 42K Running takes hold, followed by Ireland and Italy.
In 2014 comes the first “exotic” experience, with the commission to kit out the Run Q8 Race Kuwait, a charity event organised by the Fawzia Sultan Rehabilitation Institute with 2,000 participants (photo).
2015
Martín Fiz, 42K ambassador
The paths of 42K Running and Martín Fiz cross after his success at the 2015 New York Marathon, where he takes victory in the over-50 category. The athlete from Vitoria becomes a brand ambassador, but above all a friend of 42K.
After his victory in New York he begins a great challenge that will take him a couple of years: to win the world's six most important marathons in the M50 category, the ‘Six Majors’ or World Marathon Majors (New York, Tokyo, Boston, Chicago, Berlin and London).
In February 2016, only a few months after his victory in New York, he wins the Tokyo Marathon. In April 2016 he takes the Boston Marathon and in September he completes the Berlin Marathon in an incredible 2:26:32, once again raising his arms as the winner among runners over 50.
In October 2017 he travels to the Chicago Marathon and breaks the race record in his category with 2:28:09. The dream of becoming the first athlete in the world to win the Six Majors in the masters category comes true in April 2018 with victory at the London Marathon.
2015 is the year of 42K Running's international consolidation. Agreements to kit out competitions, mainly in Ireland and Portugal, grow steadily, and organisers from Italy and France also start to take an interest in the brand.
2016
Our online shop opens
During 2015 the idea of opening a shop starts to take shape. Many runners discover the brand after taking part in a race where 42K is the technical brand, and immediately want to buy more products.
The online shop opens its doors on the internet in June and before long sales reach figures that confirm the interest of individual customers in our technical apparel and accessories.
The facilities are expanded with a new 1,000 m² unit to increase production and storage capacity and meet the needs of ever bigger and more crowded sports events.
Together with the organisers of the 10K Divina Pastora Valencia, the “Running Pack” concept is introduced as an evolution and improvement of the traditional ‘race bag’. The 8th edition of what is already emerging as Spain's most prestigious 10K trusts 42K as its technical brand for its 7,000 participants.
After the success of 2016 the “running pack” formula is repeated in 2017, this time for 10,000 participants.
2018
We reach 1,800 sports events a year
This year production capacity is expanded again with a third unit (another 1,000 m²). With this third unit 42K reaches 3,000 m² of facilities, with room for more than 1,200 pallets, 300 m² of offices, 200 m² of digital printing workshop and 200 m² for the online shop...
2018 is a year of enormous growth in Spain and Portugal. Agreements are signed with almost 1,800 sports events, mostly running and trail running races, but the brand also starts to be valued at padel, beach tennis and beach volley events…
The internationalisation of 42K takes hold. Awareness and prestige of the brand in Ireland have grown considerably and the organisers of the Cork Marathon, in the country's second most populous city after Dublin, entrust us with all the technical apparel for the marathon, the half marathon and the team marathon. It is the beginning of a collaboration that continues today and spreads awareness of the brand across the "Emerald Isle".
42K also becomes the technical brand of the Bucharest Marathon, a race with 19,000 participants across the marathon and half marathon distances. The streets of the Romanian capital fill with amateur runners wearing our brand's technical T-shirts in 2018 and again in 2019.
2019
INFINI_TECH fabric
The year begins with the joy of the new 10K world record set by Martín Fiz in Valencia in the over-55 category.
March sees the Málaga Half Marathon, with 7,500 participants on the start line, an event for which an exclusive T-shirt is made that becomes national news when it is sponsored by Málaga-born actor Antonio Banderas.
This year the new recycled technical fabric INFINI_TECH is developed, a fabric made with polyester yarn that comes entirely from recycled PET plastic bottles.
This 100% recycled fabric is a firm commitment to sustainability and makes real the challenge set in 2018: to bring to life in 2020, coinciding with the brand's tenth anniversary, a new generation of collections made with recycled fabric.
We became the first Spanish company specialising in technical textiles for sports events to develop a line of garments made with recycled material from plastic bottles.
At the end of the year LHOTSE is born, the brand's first thermo-compressive T-shirt and the first garment designed exclusively for trail running.
2020
Sports face masks and the ELEMENTS collection
42K Running turns ten. It is a particularly special year for the brand because it sees the launch of ELEMENTS, the first collection of T-shirts made with 100% recycled fabric.
The year starts with countless projects and exciting challenges on the horizon, but everything comes to a halt on 14 March when one word takes centre stage worldwide: coronavirus.
A few months after the health alert caused by the pandemic was declared, we developed two types of reusable hygienic face masks: one for everyday use and another for sport, with an innovative 3D structure that allows intense physical activity (something backed by a medical study carried out by the Sports Health Unit of the Vithas Valencia 9 de Octubre hospital).
Our 3D sports mask is an extraordinary success, recognised as one of the best by various media (VOGUE magazine chooses it as one of the best on the market) and, above all, by the users who become the product's best advocates.
Many athletes at home and abroad, but also football, basketball, handball, rugby, hockey and volleyball clubs and many other team and contact sports, trust our 3D sports mask to keep training during the worst moments of the pandemic.
When the health authorities lift the lockdown, virtual races appear. Organisers reinvent themselves in the face of the long-lasting ban on sports events. 42K becomes the technical brand of countless virtual races in Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland.
2021
We launch CUSTOM LINE for clubs and groups
Coronavirus restrictions continue and the year is faced with a great deal of uncertainty. Many organisers and companies in the sports events sector are struggling to survive after almost two years of bans.
The turning point is the 5K Valencia. The main private companies in the running sector, 42K Running among them, pool resources and efforts to start the race machinery up again while guaranteeing every health safety measure. On 23 May the first mass-participation race in more than 2 years of bans and restrictions comes to life in Valencia.
Almost 2,000 people set off in different waves under the slogan #valenciavuelveacorrer and prove that events can be held safely by following a strict security protocol.
The experience of the 5K Valencia encourages many organisers to put similar safety protocols in place and obtain authorisation to start holding races again.
42K's machinery of initiatives and new products keeps running at full capacity and, shortly before the summer, INSPIRE 42K is born, the first collection of women's sportswear for fitness and yoga.
The line of 100% customised garments known as CUSTOM Line is also strengthened, growing with new fabrics and garments that widen the customisation offer for clubs and groups.
2022
Renewed strength!
42K faces 2022 with renewed enthusiasm after leaving behind the difficult times of the coronavirus pandemic.
Present and future goals focus on continuing to grow as a brand, strengthening our presence in the countries where we have been established for years (Portugal, Ireland, France and Italy) and consolidating new markets in other European countries.
After intense work we open a new window on the world with our new website and the new look of our online shop.
Olympic athlete Elena Loyo becomes the face of the brand.
2023
Javi Guerra, new 42K ambassador
The year begins with the great news of the agreement with Javi Guerra to become a 42K ambassador.
The athlete from Segovia, one of the great names of Spanish marathon running in the 21st century, starts working with the brand after winning his fourth Spanish marathon title and tackles the season determined to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
After a 2022 of growth, 2023 is approached with great enthusiasm and ambitions focused on the internationalisation of the brand.
Portugal becomes a strategic country for 42K and our presence at major Portuguese events is consolidated as 42K becomes the technical brand of races such as the Maratona da Europa-Aveiro, the Meia Maratona do Douro Vinhateiro and the Meia Maratona do Porto.
2024
Sustainable growth and internationalisation
The goals for 2024 are very specific: to drive international growth in strategic markets (Italy, France, Portugal and Ireland) and to strengthen the business line devoted to customised sportswear (Custom Line) for sports events and clubs.
In 2023 we passed 1,600 sports events as the technical brand and the challenge is to reach 2,000 in 2024. Agreements with major organisers and timekeepers, together with the expansion of our catalogue with up to five new T-shirt collections and other new technical garments, make us very optimistic.
We are introducing new 100% recycled fabrics to reinforce our commitment to sustainability, a commitment to achieving by 2030 a product catalogue made entirely from recycled raw materials.
Another milestone planned for 2024 is the growth of online sales thanks to new technical garments and accessories. The expansion of the Production and Development department has brought new products designed to meet the needs of runners in any country of the European Union.
2024 marks the beginning of a deep national and international renewal of our brand image. An ambitious investment in textile machinery and state-of-the-art technology has made it possible to bring to life new fabrics, exclusive designs and completely new colour palettes…
2025
Consolidation and projection
2025 was a key year in 42K's history, marked by strategic milestones that reinforced 42K's position as a benchmark technical brand in running and athletics.
The year began in the best possible way with Fermín Cacho joining as a brand ambassador. The Olympic legend of Spanish athletics, star of one of the most fondly remembered feats of Barcelona '92, became part of the 42K family, bringing prestige, experience and values fully aligned with the brand.
During 2025 42K's CUSTOM Line was definitively consolidated, reinforcing our commitment to designing and producing technical kit for athletics clubs. The agreements reached with organisations such as Valencia Club de Atletismo, Club Atletismo Albacete and Esteso Runners, among others, confirmed the strength and the potential of this strategic business line.
Another significant event was the arrival of the premium fabric Elastter, which gave life to the exclusive DEEP and APEX collections, two launches that marked a turning point in design, technology and comfort within our range of T-shirts for running and high-performance athletics.
2025 closed with a hugely important step: the signing of the agreement under which 42K became the technical brand of the Athletics Federation of the Valencian Community from the 2026 season.
2025 was a year of growth, consolidation and future projection for 42K.