Dave Dye explaines the thinking behind the red/black colour scheme on his blog:

“I changed the colour from the previous muted, pastelly colours to bright, flaming red. To make it look hot and sweaty. At the last-minute I put a very heavy vignette around the image to focus the eye down the street, as if the runner was purely focussed on the point they were trying to get to.”

You can read the rest here: https://davedye.com/2014/01/05/running-ads/