7 Comments

Heck of a story. Very inspiring. Puts my few miles here and there into perspective! REminds me of the Scott Jurek books I really enjoyed. Thanks for writing this, I just subscribed.

Expand full comment

Glad you enjoyed reading it! Welcome

Expand full comment

Thanks for the mention Raz - we’ll keep finding these wonderful, crazy people and giving them some promotion I guess!

There is definitely an increasingly high bar for ‘extreme runners’ to get national media attention. Even The Hardest Geezer only got extensive coverage once he’d completed the Africa run (although he got a lot of social media hits).

I was working with a runner called Isaac Kenyon before the London Marathon, as he was doing it dressed as a tree to try and break a Guinness World Record. We both said how much harder it is to get publicity now for something that, say, the BBC would have been all over a few years ago.

Excellent piece as ever by the way.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Craig. It was your comment that helped me crystallise my thoughts on it all.

Take it to the other extreme of distance and running an 11-second 100m is completely ignorable.

Running is primarily about excess whether it's sub-10 seconds or 600 miles in one go, and I wanna see more of it haha

Expand full comment

That's a really good point about the 100m side of it - I need to find an 11 second 100m runner with a backstory!!

Expand full comment

This post is well written as always, but made me groan. I don't like this aspect of pushing to extremes for attention and marketing in our sport. It's bad for longevity and overall unhealthy.

Expand full comment

I think the fact that Brooks himself highlights that point in the first place says it all.

Expand full comment