How Tracksmith changed the (running) world
Matt Taylor always wanted higher quality storytelling in running and Tracksmith was how he finally did it
Tracksmith is 11 years old now, but creating the brand that pushed the storytelling envelope and became a trailblazer for the modern running scene wasn’t a flash in the pan decision. Founder Matt Taylor tells me how the kernel of the idea started way back in the mid-1990s, before he even went to college.
The kernel in question was a Runner’s World feature on Marc Davis, who Matt describes as “the bad boy in running - as much as you could be in ‘90s distance running.” He tells me how “it was photographed and written in a way that had never been done in a running magazine.”
It was actually only this year that he discovered that article was originally meant for publication in GQ in the lead-up to the 1996 Olympic Games, but GQ eventually passed on it, so it was ultimately sold to Runner’s World. It’s been difficult for journalists and storytellers for some time.
His noticing of that difference in style led to him paying his own way to visit 11 colleges with the best cross-country programs in the country. He spent a week with each one, writing every day, taking photos, shooting short films, while sleeping on whatever couch was made available to him. He posted the whole series on his own website, and called it Chasing Tradition.
“I was average or below-average in all three of those things individually, but I was really the only person creating any type of content like that back then.”
Cut to 2025 and we have Like The Wind, Citius, a million running IG accounts, untold numbers of YouTube documentaries, and hundreds of newsletters just like this one to choose from. We are spoiled for #content, and there’s a big argument that all of this was being done first by the guy who made Tracksmith. A blogger!
That first batch of work was enough of a portfolio to get an offer to do the same deep storytelling for the Kenyan athletes (Chasing KIMbia), and then for New York Road Runners in the run-up to the 2008 US Olympic Marathon Trials (Chasing Glory). Together they formed a triptych of 21st-century storytelling that would inform the way we would consume this running boom that we’re currently living through
His last gig before launching Tracksmith was at Puma, telling the story of a sprinter from Jamaica. Yeah. Usain Bolt. Those 20 years between reading that article on Marc Davis and seeing Bolt fly into the stratosphere were spent learning how to tell the perfect story with more and better resources at his disposal each time.
“I was trying forever. I just wasn’t good at it when I was 20 years old,” he laughs. “I got a lot better by working through some projects and soaking all that in until I felt like I was a little more prepared to do it on my own.”
Matt recalls being one of the first pop-up storefronts on Newbury Street at the Boston Marathon back in 2014, because they thought they could tell their story better on their own terms, rather than in a 10x10 booth at the expo.
He talks about evolving how people experience running. He talks about looking for the next thing that people want to do. Indeed, pop-up stores around marathons worldwide are now de rigeur, and every flagship store and third wave running store has a lounge with music, drinks, and video games, but Tracksmith was doing it first.
“The entire premise of my life, from a career perspective, has been this insatiable desire to change the way that running is perceived, and the only way to change the way it’s perceived is to change the way it’s presented.”
The best way to change the presentation of running is by changing the presentation of the runner. You can do that in a magazine or on a screen, but fashion was a whole new frontier. Matt Taylor distilled those two decades of wanting better storytelling in running into the Tracksmith vision.
How you experience that vision is different for everyone, of course. Maybe it’s the gloriously retro sash on the high-quality mesh singlets, or the little golden hare insignia on the merino wool base layer, that transports me to a new, far away world where I’m a collegiate cross-country runner. Smartphones don’t exist in my Ivy League town. It’s probably movie night at the clubhouse end of the trail. It’s pure Americana nostalgia. Coming from the UK, it’s what I grew up with, it’s what I crave, and it’s exactly what Tracksmith deals in.
You might have a different relationship with America, though. An issue, I posit, is that the last nine years of Americana haven’t been anything worth future nostalgia, so a brand that is so closely aligned with today’s values of the USA might have a little bit of that grime rubbed onto it. It’s not a problem that Tracksmith can easily escape, and it doesn’t change the quality of their clothes either.
It’s possible that tarring has fueled some of the outrage about the elitist and exclusionary language they’ve consistently used in marketing their wares. They were missteps and moments to learn from, but it was the same outrage that is reserved for the historically-elitist Boston Marathon itself, or influencers who dare to run the holy grail of road races without qualifying. Maybe it’s just people on the internet. Can it be any more serious than that when we’re talking about an $80 singlet?
About the story that Tracksmith is telling, though. He explains how their internal language revolves around the “committed runner.” He talks about aiming for the person that is pouring themselves into the sport. We know that runners are wealthier than average, and if someone’s able to pour themselves into 70-mile weeks, they’ve likely got the money to have that much free time. That’s a little into the how and why Tracksmith is positioned as an aspirational luxury brand that’s an alternative to the big players. It’s so aspirational that it’s out of reach for many.
He laughs about having their “fair share of haters on the internet,” but it surprises me when Matt vocalizes real concerns about what people think of the brand. It’s the curse of being a creator that I didn’t expect from someone helming such a successful company. He chuckles ruefully about the “Matt Taylor character trait” where he hates when people aren’t happy with something he’s done.
During this conversation where he repeatedly talks about a long-seated desire to change storytelling around running for the better, however, you can understand how any criticism might rankle.
“The only thing in 10 years that really bugs me is when people say, ‘Tracksmith doesn’t represent me.’ So what? My job is not to create a brand for everybody.”
Indeed, when questioned about whether running really is the new skateboarding as the sharpest headlines want to suggest, Matt’s not buying it, and expands on that thought.
“There is a faction of running that is the new skateboarding, but running is so broad. The vast majority of people have done it in their life. With that comes hundreds of millions of opinions of what running is and what it should be. Not many people question what skateboarding is or what it should be. Skateboarding as a culture is pretty monogamous. When you look at running, every cohort is represented. It’s the one true melting pot sport.”
We talk about how Satisfy, another decade-old upstart in the running world, might be the skateboarding of running, and how Tracksmith can form another strand of culture within the sport, for a different strand of people, perhaps. Seeing as the tastes of both clans are being serviced better than ever before, there’s not really any need for either to complain about the other.
Indeed, during my conversation with fellow Bostonian Sidney Baptista, the PYNRS founder spoke with admiration of Matt’s storytelling, but also knew he needed to tell a different story for his brand. Another strand of culture.
Just as today’s niche running media found a new lease of life in the past decade, and the new, brightly architected running stores follow the Trackhouse’s original blueprint, it’s expected that the next wave of challenger running brands will take as much inspiration from Matt Taylor’s storytelling nous as the quality garments placed so purposefully around their stores.
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Thanks for reading
Raz x
Good job capturing the lore! Matt Taylor is a true storyteller – and was one – long before that became an internet cliche.
So good Raz! I love hearing stories like this. 🤙🏽