The Weakly: how do you deal with post-run butt sweat
I'm here asking the important questions while watching as much Olympic sport as possible.
Big Q: how do you deal with butt sweat on your car seats?
As often as possible, I try to run in different parts of the city, with different people. Living in a public transit blackspot, I have to drive. That post-run glow, however, is quite damp, and car seat upholstery isn’t as easy to throw into the washing machine as a pair of shorts.
This week on Running Sucks
I’m afraid there won’t be a big Thursday read this week. In that month of nothingness around the New Year, I set about planning 10 interviews. I like to plan! I thought it would take a few weeks to plan and carry out the interviews, but people were really receptive and so I started 2024 with a dozen interviews recorded. Great! Right? What that actually meant was some interviews were published four months after they were conducted, and some of the interview subjects didn’t really like often.
Four months is actually a very normal lead time in magazine world - something I wrote in March is being published in a Danish mag in September, for instance - but maybe there’s more expectation of this newsletter being an instantaneous snapshot of my rambling thoughts. More thought goes into all of this, I assure you.
Anyway, I decided that having four interviews in the bank was a wiser move than double figures, but right now I have zero. Last week, two interviewees bailed on me last minute, and my centuries-old laptop wouldn’t connect to Zoon for a third one. Annoying, but I’m a one-man newsroom, so that’s just how it is. A glimpse into the process. I’ll be back in action on Aug 15.
Last week on Running Sucks
About that expectation of having everything instantly, last week I wrote about news consumption in 2024. We’ve only been enduring this ultra-rapid onslaught of to-the-minute news for a couple of decades - a single generation. It takes longer than that to figure out a normal way to live, and as I see people swinging from consuming every piece of news minutiae to self-imposed social media bans, it’s so clear that we’re not there. Not even close.
In those 20 years, we’ve also suffered corporate purchases, and subsequent ransacking of local news media. We just don’t have local news any more. Partly because we all have the same world news due to having the same internet as every other person in the world, but partly because of the systemic destruction of it. Is it diminishing demand? Is it craven capitalism? A bit of both, perhaps.
Either way, I shoehorned my narrative on the media landscape into this interview with Kate Olson AKA The LA Running Connoisseur. Kate is an exhaustive keeper and publisher of lists - an essential resource in Los Angeles. I hope I contextualized her replacement of classified ads sufficiently!
What else is going on?
Enjoy this photograph of me and my friends cavorting around Downtown Los Angeles for a photoshoot. Sean (on the right) is starting to lead running tours around the city (more on that soon). I wrote about his very, very cool run club last year.
The 2024 Olympic Games
My top two moments of opening ceremony for the Olympics?
Gojira playing a pyrotechnics-fueled progressive death metal / opera mashup from balconies high above the Seine. I’ve followed this band since 2006, seeing them perform in five different countries, so seeing them be such a central point of an Olympic Games? Wow.
The Bangladesh team having their own boat. Will the eighth most populous country on this fair planet get their first ever Olympic medal? The betting odds say no, but it would be quite something.
Also on Substack:
If you are reading this post, you probably like lists or digests. Runner’s Highest sits on the bleeding edge of cool, and talks about “what’s hot in contemporary running.” If that sounds like something you want to know more about, you know what to do.
Last year on Running Sucks
It’s been a year since I spoke to a man who runs through Los Angeles several times a day. Sometimes to run up a hill. Sometimes to buy a loaf of bread. Gordon Clark has been running this city for a decade, and he’s seen how it’s grown. And he’s got some opinions. A fun one.
Next week on Running Sucks
Next Thursday, 8 August is Run Club Culture: a conversation. Yes, I live in Los Angeles, and yes, this event is in London. There are a few tickets left.
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
Pacific Time Zone
Olympics with my breakfast
Only the highlights
I can’t wait for the Olympics to hit LA in 2028 so that I can watch it ALL on TV. I will try and go to as much of it as possible, of course - I made the mistake of not trying hard enough when it was in London in 2012 - but I have no expectation of getting tickets. I have to try and watch some World Cup matches in 2026 first.
Big sports events. They’re great.
Housekeeping
WIN - Go and win a $50 Janji gift card, by going to the Competition page and filling in the form. Easy peasy.
$$$ - I have merch. I’ve got Running Sucks stickers and a HAT. Or you can upgrade your subscription for $50 ($1 A WEEK!) OR tip a one-off $5 OR etc etc. It’ll make me happy.
RUN CLUB CULTURE: a conversation - 10 TICKETS LEFT for the Aug 8 event in London.
CONNECT - Instagram / Strava / Discord / LinkedIn
Thanks for reading
- Raz