Growing up in a family of endurance athletes (cross-continental cyclist, triathlete marathoner, national team rower, elite cross-country skier) Alyssa really had no choice in falling in love with the great outdoors. But it wasn’t always running.

She read Dean Karnazes’ book Ultramarathon Man when she was just 10 years old, and thought, ‘I’m going to do that one day.’ It’s not classic reading material for a 5th grader, but there was another surprising aspect to her reading that book at that age.

“I hated running at this point. I wanted to be on a sports field.”

That all changed over the next couple of years as Alyssa was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. A very competitive Nordic skier, she had to think about her relationship with sport as repeated hospitalizations and surgeries impacted her ability to place well. She had to relearn her approach to being outdoors – a place deeply entrenched in her soul.

“Running became the constant throughout all that, and has been the thing that I view as my freedom. For a long time, running was my way of escaping confinement, and to prove that I wasn’t sick.”

“I had to learn how to run with it. I’m really grateful that I’ve gotten to learn that. There have been rocky moments, but I’ve gotten to run through that transformation from a pretty negative place to a much more positive place.”

You don’t get much more positive than finishing on the podium during UTMB week, and that’s what Alyssa did at the end of August when she finished third in the Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie AKA TDS, a 95-mile / 150km trip through the Alps.

It’s far from her first achievement, of course.

2020 - 95 consecutive days running a marathon before contracting Covid
2022 - finished third overall at Moab 240
2023 - first female in the Canyons 100-miler
2024 - finished an agonizing 11th in the UTMB 100-miler
2025 - first female to complete the HURT 100 in Hawaii in under 24 hours

It’s an impressive list, but when I met her in Palisades Tahoe, she was getting ready to crew fellow On athlete, Jeff Mogavero. Her role this time was to be in charge of filling pantyhose with ice. It’s a seemingly innocuous job, if not a little absurd, but cooling a trail runner down during the height of summer in the American West is a full-time job performed in short bursts over 14 hours. Jeff finished 7th at UTMB.

Alyssa explains exactly how and why that offering of community is key to what makes trail unique.

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I got some world exclusive quotes from UTMB 2026 winner Ben Dhiman about his Indian heritage. Go and read it if you haven’t yet.

Thanks again to Amazfit for helping to schedule that time with Ben.

Are influencers really that important?

Ask any of the publicists in my inbox: I’m not really susceptible to being sold things. That means I also don’t have much use for influencers, which means I don’t follow many. The few I do keep in touch with are the ones who either have elite levels of creativity or they use their position to turbocharge charities. For me, it’s got to be either fun or worthy.

After I posted on IG about how to balance the unfettered consumerism and consumption during UTMB week, I noticed the prevailing sentiment in the comments to be an extraordinarily visceral reaction against influencers.

It was quite startling to see how angry people are with influencers existing at all.

I foolishly suggested the easiest solution was to unfollow them like I had, because I didn’t see anything of them beyond the ones photographing their lukewarm flutes of champagne directly next to me. Apparently, it’s not that simple.

Next, there was the news from the US Open1 about 100 influencers being loud enough during matches to disturb the players, and how Wimbledon wouldn’t allow them next year. I love tennis, and so I know that silence is demanded during these tournaments held in somewhat stuffy, bourgeoisie environments.

If the brands are looking to gain coverage beyond the tennis (or running) world, I think it’s incumbent on those brands to educate their guests on the correct etiquette.

An important thing to note here is that influencers at UTMB did not disturb the athletes. And, like I said, they didn’t disturb me either, because I simply don’t follow them. I think it’s pretty easy to be in charge of that.

The next thing is I don’t think excluding influencers from UTMB week will really do anything on the important point of how helpless we’re all feeling about the actions of big industry and the proliferation of data centers, let alone our own massive personal contributions. Making it 99,000 people in a 10,000-person town instead of 100,000? That’s a statistically insignificant difference.

My strategy for (not) following influencers is drum that I’ve been beating around generally using your time more wisely.

If you have found yourself spending too much time on your phone, engaging in non-digital activities that you enjoy – like running or reading physical books and magazines – means that you simply have less time in your day to sit there and doom-scroll.

Likewise, if you have a strong dislike of influencers, 1) unfollow them, and 2) make sure you’re supporting the kind of content that you do like. That second point is important.

Over the past decade, many traditional publicists have changed their job titles to Influencer Marketers, because that’s how companies get coverage now. Obviously, the rise of TikTok and IG is one side of it, but the other side is how many newspapers and magazines have folded due to poor sales.

If everyone complaining about influencers also genuinely supported the publications that they read regularly, we’d have less of a problem overall. Just 2% of the readers of Running Sucks pay for it, for instance. Fill your world with what you love. You’ll probably be happier.

R is for Routine

Despite being booked for wall-to-wall interviews following his UTMB win (“It’s a good problem to have,” he said.), still found the time to write 1500 words of race recap on his Speedhiman Substack.

The Speedhiman Substack

Release the Beast

At some point in the night I stopped looking back. The chasing headlamps were no longer visible. I felt very alone, and it was a nice feeling. Solitude in the mountains can be cozy, clarifying. I am doing the thing I came here to do. There is no turning back…

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9 days ago · 390 likes · 28 comments · Ben Dhiman

How did you find time for that, let alone the clarity of mind??

“That’s my inner compulsion. Nobody’s hanging that over my head. That’s my own sense of getting something done. And that’s a tradition of mine I’ve held for a long time: to pump that out, and it can’t wait.”

“I just have to do it. It’s an animal act. I gotta get it out. I gotta purge. And that’s what it feels like. Until I get it done, I feel anxious. I just need to get it out there and then I feel better.”

Ben Dhiman on the best time to write:

“I find writing in the morning is better for me. Otherwise, I start getting more and more tired, especially after races in the afternoon, so I’ve just gotta hit it while it’s fresh.”

Ben Dhiman on whether there are any similarities between writing and running:

“Maybe, but [running is] a lot more calibrated. Writing is more visceral. Running is an expression of myself but it’s also my job so I treat it a bit differently.”

I love his focus on routine. With my self-imposed publishing schedule of Mondays and Thursday, it’s one that I obviously like to adhere to, and I like writing in the mornings as well. I also like to run in the mornings though, which is a major battle in my life. When to add in a nap?

Tell me about your favorite routines, or why you don’t like routine.

Leave a comment

Bangladesh’s first UTMB finisher

Another story from UTMB that I’m hoping to tell is Bangladesh’s first ever finisher, Partho Saha. Having diligently built his UTMB Index and Running Stones, he completed the course with over an hour to spare. I hope to tell the story of what he had to go through to get to Chamonix!

You might remember this story from 2024 that I adapted for This is Running. There’s a lot more to think about when you’re from that part of the world.

A run connecting London’s green spaces

One of my final acts of my UK summer was to run nine miles with my friend, Colin along the Green Link Walk2 in London. It connects 15 miles of green spaces between Peckham and Walthamstow, and was an absolute delight.

I met him at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and we traversed winding city streets before traveling through several of East London’s parks. I recommend it!

Thanks for reading!
Raz xx

ME - Instagram | Strava | email: raz@runningsucks101.com

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I was dot-watching a couple of friends who were running OCC, but for me, it was really quite singu…

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I spent the last week in Chamonix in the French Alps. I was experiencing the glory of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc for the first time, and it truly was glorious.

Everything from spotting the white peak of Mont Blanc appearing through an alleyway or across a vista as I turned a corner to the food to seeing the first non-white winner of UTMB since the very first edition on Saturday afternoon.

All week, Ben Dhiman winning the 100-mile event was top of my conversation of what I hoped to happen. A man with heritage from the Indian subcontinent winning the most prestigious race on the trail calendar? Yes. Please.

And then he did it. What a moment it was seeing him cross the finish line at 2:04pm on Saturday. Just like Rachel Entrekin winning Cocodona, however, it doesn’t mean we’ve solved everything. It doesn’t mean we’ve solved anything.

A huge part of that is that I haven’t actually seen Ben discuss his heritage in interviews. He’s widely celebrated as a boy from Cincinnati who moved to France with his wife and got this deep into mountain running partly due to French employment laws leaving him redundant for two years.

Maybe that lack of discussion comes from a lack of interest or knowledge from the interviewers, but it might also come from within. Maybe Ben simply wants to be known as the winner of UTMB. Maybe as an American. Maybe as an Ohioan. Primarily as the man who finished running around Mont Blanc 81 minutes faster than anyone else ever has. 7% faster? Crazy fast.

As a boy from northeast London, I primarily used to fall asleep dreaming of scoring last-minute winners for current Premier League champions Arsenal. Helping my parents’ home nation qualify for the World Cup wasn’t my priority, even though I knew that would be cool.

In the same way, South Asian representation in running wasn’t always a focus for me. I used to just run a lot. Sure, I was the only Bangladeshi at run club 99.9% of the time, but I wasn’t really thinking about it because there were plenty of other immigrant kids. More recently, I’ve been somewhat radicalized by seeing how the running industry sausage is made (and who exactly makes it).

Searching for someone, anyone who looks like me Western States, The Running Event, TrailCon, and, most recently, the Global Majority Meet-Up in Chamonix has kept flipping the same switch for me. And I’ve been party to increasing numbers of conversations to know that I’m not alone in that.

I would love to primarily be known as the Substack guy who wrote a running book, and that people enjoyed the book, and that the book was even good enough to be stocked by the best department store in the world. That stuff doesn’t put people off as much as being the guy relentlessly writing about getting more South Asian representation in the running world.

Personally, I love it when other people are organizing something that I can join in with. For example, there was a Global Majority Meet-Up1 organized by Sabrina Pace-Humphreys who founded the UK charity, Black Trail Runners2. It’s so great that UTMB made space for such a wonderful event.

I wrote about the Black experience in Chamonix back in March 2025, so I knew that this gathering was an excellent opportunity to push the conversation along. However, upon arriving, I found that I really didn’t see myself among the 100 or so attendees. A similar sentiment to Sabrina’s in her film, We Are Here3.

Take a moment to consider how many South Asian-origin athletes represent the British or American Olympic teams. In 2026, I really, really should not be one of the very first South Asian authors of a running book. I want there to be 100 more so it ceases to even be something to mention.

In my book, I outline the inexorable rise of ultramarathoning in China, and there was a huge, visible East Asian contingent in Chamonix for all of UTMB week, so I was surprised to see even fewer people from that section of the Global Majority at the meet-up.

When I pointed out on IG that I felt like a statistical minority even at a Global Majority Meet-Up, I received a few slightly defensive responses reminiscent of when I’ve highlighted the incredibly white demographic stats in trail running. Yes, there may have been another couple of South Asian people at the meetup, but I would maintain my position that 3% rather than 1% is far from a success in representation of South Asian people, who make up 30% of the Global Majority.

I care much more about working together to achieve that success in parity. My dream would be to be actively invited to something like that. Having a sign-up link is a great middle ground of being able to say it was open to everybody, but I believe directly inviting people to a party is the best practice, and the onus is on the most powerful: UTMB.

One method – and maybe they did do this (which makes the situation worse) – if UTMB invited the gazillions of brands in attendance to send someone to the event, it would be a great start. If the brand doesn’t employ anyone from the Global Majority or simply doesn’t care, that says a lot. Word will spread one way or the other.

For me, a large issue is that I don’t really believe that intersectionality exists. And if that makes you bristle: good. I want it to change.

Some believe that a lot of the big names who rise to the top of campaigning for diversity, equity, and inclusion are largely out to make a name (and money) for themselves. I have a slightly kinder view where many really only think about uplifting others who are exactly like themselves.

When I see how women and Black people have climbed the closest, but still haven’t achieved anything approaching true equity despite the years of constant campaigning, I know that my kinfolk are far behind. It’s one of the reasons why I write about those topics so frequently. I see us all as having the same fight, and I don’t want any of us to be behind. Regardless, reciprocation and unity among allies pulling for the same thing – intersectionally or as part of a Global Majority – would be magnificent and helpful, but feels at least a half-step away.

Like I said: this win doesn’t mean that we’ve solved anything, but I’d love to see more progress next year. Maybe Ben Dhiman’s record-breaking effort can be the next catalyst.

Thank you, HOKA

Eternal thanks to Hoka for getting me on that finish line VIP platform to see that historic moment. What a view.

Chamonix was taken over by UTMB and its title sponsor, Hoka. With the influx of 100,000 visitors, I fully understand the Mayor’s promise to make it better for residents. It’s a local race that’s been commercialized and co-opted by the world.

Hoka in particular had their bright blue, yellow, and orange fingerprints on seemingly every part of the city. From a brand strategy perspective (one that I love), it was a masterpiece. Read this from for an excellent rundown. Did I see some of the photos in this article being taken? Yes, I did.

PEOPLE BRANDS AND THINGS

They didn’t just sponsor a race - they took over a town.

We agree - sometimes, you really do have to see it to believe it…

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12 days ago · 12 likes · 1 comment

The common feature of the best brand activations in Chamonix

As I mentioned, Chamonix was 100% Hoka-town last week, but four other brands managed to stick out to me, and they all had one thing in common.

First, there was the rabbit Clubhouse with Halo, with its slap bang centre ville location and carefully-curated programming, it was a dream to host a book event there. Thanks so much to the readers who came down! It was so lovely to meet you.

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Things I’m looking forward to:

• Hoka very kindly showing me the ropes

• Meeting a lot of friends in an unfamiliar place

• Running on the track with Mont Blanc as a backdrop

• Hosting …

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In March 2024, Camille broke a dozen world records1 by running 560 miles over 6 days in California’s Coachella Valley as part of the Lululemon Further spectacle. Later that year, Lululemon dropped her as an athlete2 following a bizarre Wikipedia-editing controversy, and she was later diagnosed with ADHD and autism3.

Now, essentially retired from the sport that gave her so much, Camille Herron is in a state of flux. With multiple lawsuits in progress as she attempts to clear her name, she’s also navigating a new stage of life as a neurodiverse athlete.

The Diagnosis

That diagnosis has gone a long way to completing the jigsaw of Camille Herron’s life. It’s well documented that as a child, she was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder and took speech therapy until she was nine years old but autism was never really considered. Why? Because – as with so much in the medical fields – diagnostic criteria was built around men4, and only men. Even now, women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and other disorders before the underlying autism is recognized.

We spoke via video call back in June. It just so happened to be a Tuesday. Taco Tuesday. She’s fueled ultras with tacos, and it’s something that Camille celebrates online with videos of her dancing most weeks. It’s part of her brand but not everyone loves it. She talks to me about being misunderstood, mistreated, bullied “for being different, for being colorful, for being happy, for being successful, for being a woman.” For being herself.

“In neurodivergence, you hear about masking and trying to hide your authentic self, but for the most part I think that I’ve stayed pretty true to my little girl Camille self. Dancing and being crazy and not really caring what people think. I’m 44 and I’m still wearing colorful clothes.”

The journey to her AuDHD diagnosis started at 40 years old, when she realized she needed to take better care of herself. She started going to the gym, of course, but it was working with a dietician who noticed chronic stress markers in her bloodwork that led to a focus on her mental health. The diagnosis was a revelation.

“When you get the diagnosis, it feels like relief and it feels like grief. You’re finally able to explain why you feel like an alien. I just had never felt like I fit into this world. I’ve known that I’m not like everybody else since I was two.”

She talks about identifying with Forrest Gump’s difficulties enough to start running as a young girl; about being both gifted and having disabilities; about being reassured by her parents when she struggled. Despite all this, she was Valedictorian, received academic scholarships and 4.0s, and her work in further education was published multiple times.

Despite all that high achievement, Camille has lived a lifetime of feeling like she’s never fitted in.

The Tall Poppy

The funny thing is that a very recent study has shown that distance runners in particular are three times more likely to show ADHD traits5. I’ve been interested in this particular sub-topic for a while now, and had a passage on neurodiversity in running in the first draft of my book but it wasn’t quite right, so didn’t make the final cut. Many of the new studies over the past 12 months would’ve helped. I’d be interested to see if there are any further increases in incidence as you move into elite distance running, for instance.

Interestingly, higher education also reports a higher incidence of neurodiversity6, so maybe Camille has always been in the best place to fit in. Camille also excelled in her previous career in biochemical research. Her work in bone imaging was published many times, and she used that work to inarguably become one of the greatest ultrarunners of all time.

The accepted wisdom for training to run 100s of miles in one go is that you have to run 100s of miles per week in long runs, but her research said otherwise. She found that short frequent bouts of low intensity running combined with infrequent bouts of high intensity exercise were better for gaming the recovery windows for skeletal stress7, optimizing adaptations to high mileage. It was something that experienced people in the sport vocally opposed. Regardless, she stuck to her guns and has those 12 world records to show for it.

The Curse of Being Terminally Online

Camille talks about protecting her peace over the last couple of years, but she’s also attracted some of that attention whether she likes it or not.

In September 2024, Camille was apparently caught deleting accolades and accomplishments from the Wikipedia pages of Kilian Jornet and Courtney Dauwalter. Unsporting behavior. Her husband Conor Holt later took full blame8, and it probably kinda checks out, but I honestly do not have the wherewithal to adjudicate this kind of petty nonsense. I already spend too much time on god’s internet.

Camille lost her Lululemon partnership in the immediate aftermath of this scandal, which has led to finger-pointing and defamation lawsuits. Here are a few Reddit and LetsRun threads from 2024 if you’ve got too much time on your hands.

• Canadian Running broke the news

• LetsRun thread

• Reddit thread

• LetsRun - Conor Holt’s admission of guilt

Most recently, Camille chimed in when Sage Canaday reported Cam Hanes’ doping when he used illegal, unregulated peptide BPC-157 to accelerate healing in his body enough to win a marathon. She shared Sage’s desire for a clean sport and supported him very openly online.

“I told Sage to report it. It shouldn’t be up to us as athletes to smear a person. It’s about following the rules and it needs to be reported to the authorities to let them decide how to handle it. Sport has to be both, and it has to be safe.”

Camille and I discuss her justice sensitivity9 – another well-documented trait of autistic individuals that isn’t more widely understood. It’s the kind of thinking that prizes the idea of true equity over socially accepted norms that are often less proper. It’s what we want, right?

A Bunch of Cowboys?

For me, it speaks to a need for better governance in ultra. It can often feel like the Wild West, even when there are premium prices to participate. It’s obviously impossible to test every single runner, but if they podium, make sure they ran a clean race. Pretty simple, but Camille says it goes further than that.

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I’ve not written a long-read interview for over two months now. Yes, first I was busy on the road promoting my book (decent excuse), and then I watched every match of the World Cup with my son (excellent excuse), but I had planned to get back to it in August.

My next piece with Camille Herron has been transcribed and has been in…

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1. Chamonix, cheese, creativity

The newest one is a wine and cheese reception in Chamonix with rabbit. I’ll be giving a presentation on the links between running and creativity, and you can get a copy of my book to spill some wine and/or c…

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Events

Thanks to all who came to my event with Hattie in Stoke Newingto…

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My Love Affair... WITH RUNNING: Raziq Rauf and Hattie Williams

Thursday, July 23 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Stoke Newington Bookshop
159 Stoke Newington High Street
London N16 0NY

This Thursday, I’ll be in conversation with at Stoke Newington Bookshop, and we’ll be talking about writing books about running from both a fiction and non-…

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I was a fresh-faced 17-year-old whose primary motivation was meeting the bands he was falling in love with, but the secondary bonus of free concert tickets and advance access to new albums was mighty appealing.

The band in question back on the 13th of July of the year 2000 was My Vitriol. I’d heard t…

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TrailCon’s curious lack…

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As a first-time author, working in a niche category, who put out only the most difficult format of book, it was incredible news. For context, 90% of non-fiction books sell less than 2,000 copies in …

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That’s right: I made Running Sucks running socks with Swiftwick.

Designed in a retro style using the blue/yellow colorway of my book, the words are on the back of the sock especially so that the people you pass can have a chuckle. If you’re reading this newsl…

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How’s that for some over-alliteration? Maybe I should put it on a t-shirt.

Interestingly, there’s an article on Business of Fashion today about how books have become a signifier in this cruel age of AI slop. If you’ve read the introduction to This is Running, you will know the parallels that I draw between running and reading – two of the most human acts possible

If you haven’t yet read the introduction to my book, This is Running, please pick up a copy today.

Get your copy of This is Running now

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Enjoy your Global Running LIFE this Wednesday

For Global Running Day, I’ve been featured on the Swiftwick Socks blog. Cool socks. Cool people. It’s an honor to be highlighted by them.

Running Sucks by running socks

Wouldn’t it be great if there were some Running Sucks running socks? Now there’s a thought… (Keep your eyes peeled on IG.) In the meantime, here’s a feature with Greg Itahara, who designed one of my favorite pairs of socks.

How to get 1 million people running

I believe the number one way to celebrate running is by sharing it with more people. Yeah, you’ll end up complaining that you can’t get into the marathon you want to race but overall I think that more people running is a good thing.

Couch to 5K has been one of (if not the) most impactful things in the history of running. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, there is a Q&A with Josh Clark in my book, and I published the extended version of that on Thursday.

May was also 10 years to the month of the NHS formally incorporating a C25K app into their health program, so it’s a timely moment for the program.

Happy 10th birthday to rabbit.

Earlier this year, I profiled Monica DeVreese, co-founder of rabbit, when I was taken by their Clubhouse series of quiet haven hotels at the NYC and Chicago Marathons and at UTMB. The brand is celebrating their 10th anniversary right now.

D is for Doping

It’s a question every injured runner has asked themselves: what would I do to not be injured any more.

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The chances are that they used the Couch to 5K (C25K) program to get up to speed from zero. One of the big scoops (personally speaking) in my book was finding the guy who created that program. At heart, I’m a journalist, so digging through enough layers of information to definitively find the guy who made a training schedule that eight (8!) million people have downloaded via the UK’s NHS app over the past decade alone.

It’s the 30th anniversary of C25K’s inception and exactly 10 years since the NHS incorporated C25K into its app to help the British general public find a healthier lifestyle, so come with me and enjoy this landmark moment for Josh Clark.

Josh Clark - Couch to 5K

The Couch to 5K program is a nine-week training schedule, mixing running and walking, that helps a beginner runner become able to run 5 km (3.1 miles) without stopping. You probably knew that, but the concept of Couch to 5K has become so deeply embedded into the vernacular of running that we can almost take it for granted.

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For instance, Joe Biden was at pains to point out that his pithy clapback, the Dark Brandon mug was made in the USA while Trump’s signature red hats, with their violent messaging that suckles on the teat of rabid nationalistic bravado, are made in China.

Restoring both taxes and the minimum wage to something more deserving of humanity would solve a lot, but I digress.

An exercise: take a moment to look inside your favorite running clothes and you’ll likely see one of the following on the tag:

MADE IN VIETNAM
MADE IN TURKEY
MADE IN PORTUGAL
MADE IN BANGLADESH

MADE IN NEW YORK CITY, then, is something of a statement, and it’s a statement that Ben Morrow is making with his premium running apparel brand, Miler Running. Born in 2019, the clothes are designed, tested, and made in NYC.

When I ask Ben why he’s committed to supporting a local factory, when brighter economics point to overseas manufacturing, he’s very clear that he’s intent on building Miler with quality first, and it shows. You can position Miler with the likes of District Vision, Soar, and Satisfy in terms of premium apparel, and a big differentiator between those brands is the narrative; the brand storytelling.

The Value of Place as Identity

While the challenge of higher manufacturing costs leads to greater personal reward for Ben, the geographical identity and the story that goes with it strengthens the brand. In a world where there is little to no protection of intellectual property in fashion, Ben talks about the brand moat – the intangible assets – that has been achieved by aligning Miler so deeply with New York.

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Last week, I was in Minneapolis and Portland for the Gravel tour with Salomon, and I got to explore both cities on foot and at speed.

I wrote about how to run in a new city a couple of years ago, and it is genuinely how I do it. I landed in Minneapolis (Minnesota is the 19th US State that I’ve visited now!) on Monday afternoon. John, the local Salomon rep, picked me up from the airport (what unexpected luxury!) and dropped me off at my hotel.

On that drive, John gave me a couple of places to see in downtown Minneapolis, so I put a few landmarks into my phone map and created a quick route. Once I’d finished accidentally tipping everything out of my suitcase, I pulled on my running gear and set off.

I ran past First Avenue nightclub, where Prince played however many hometown shows, ran across the Hennepin and Stone Arch bridges, finding out / remembering that the Mississippi starts all the way up in Minnesota, and took video calls at the Twins and Vikings stadiums with my sports-mad eldest son.

From there I ran south down Chicago Ave until I reached the George Floyd memorial. Filled with people congregating with music at the end of the day, It was a moment that was as sobering as it was warming – one worth experiencing. I ran a couple more miles to Matt’s Bar, a glorious dive bar that claims to have invented the local delicacy of cheese stuffed into a hot pocket of hamburger patties. I ate it and took the bus home. Here’s the IG post.

The following day I ran with TC Running Co and met area “trail person” Kurt Decker. When you talk about building culture, there are few people more important than the local race director. Especially one as storied as Kurt. Read this Trailrunner mag article on him, titled The Godfather.

Brilliantly, Kurt and I primarily bonded over our shared love of Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro. After years of cancelled shows and unsavory tour routing, Kurt finally saw them live in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. The following day Spotify announced Biffy as my most-listened-to band ever. I’ve been watching the Biff live since 2001, and finding an American fan is a real rarity.

They’re like a weird Foo Fighters with 10/10 lyrics. One for the heads, as they say. On two levels in this case. Here’s my favorite Biffy song. Just in case I can convert a couple more of you.

In Portland, I ran in Forest Park twice, along the Willamette, had lunch with some of the coolest running writers (Zoë Rom, Tina Muir, and ), some beers in soccer-themed brewery Away Days with UP professor Dr Ian Parkman, was taken to Powell’s by my friend Eli, and feasted upon the wonderful Khao Man Gai from Nong’s (twice). I love PDX, and I’ll be back as soon as humanly possible.

All that is to say that I ran a 20-mile week for the first time in over a year, and it feels great. Fewer miles this week, but I’ll be in “San Francisco” on Wednesday evening, so come by. It’s at the Fleet Feet in Menlo Park, the birthplace of Silicon Valley, so that’ll be fun. I’ll talk tech.

Last week on Running Sucks

The last couple of long-reads have been about newer running brands that I like. I spoke to the Pruzan founders the week before last, and published a profile of Jason Levine of Minor Planet in New York on Friday. I think he’s making some marvelous stuff. Effortlessly cool, and purposefully important.

Jason is from the world of hardcore punk, and I wrote about that, and about how Satisfy is the equivalent of a punk band headlining a stadium. Some would grandstand in saying that’s the antithesis of punk, but maybe it’s just a natural progression. For example, Green Day are still cool or super corny, depending on who you speak to (and what they’re doing).

My final brand profile in this mini-series is coming at the end of this week, and is maybe my favorite of the three. New York, New York again.

What to say about Satisfy?

My beautiful friends Cole Townsend and Howie Goldklang have two great reviews of Satisfy’s brand activation with Adidas. One is somewhat more diplomatic than the other, let’s say.

What’s my take?

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