A fun run for my music community
On Saturday morning, I led a community 5K run around San Diego’s waterfront for fans of the band Deftones. I’ve been a fan for almost 30 years, since their second album in 1997, Around The Fur. I was in town to watch their annual day festival, Dia de los Deftones – the perfect opportunity to mix my two pleasures.
Deftones has always been a band to span every divide. I grew up in the nu metal era (the cards I was dealt!), but there has always been debate about what genre they really are. I personally love that I went to one show at Brixton Academy with over 50 friends because Deftones sit right across the heavy metal world and the indie rock world.
What’s the link with running? They had a big bump in Gen Z fandom in recent years via TikTok, joining existing Millennial and Gen X fans in righteous love. Promoting the health benefits of running in the next generation (as well as my own) is a huge goal of mine. If I can get people to fall in love with running, job done.
Have you got your RADICAL ACT bookmark yet?
I posted out a few dozen bookmarks to paid subscribers last week. Yes, they’re 3-D lenticular bookmarks that say that both running and reading are radical acts. This photo from NYC by Marathon Weekend shows that off nicely.
If you want to get a bookmark, here is the link. If you haven’t picked up a copy of my book yet, you get a bookmark with it if you order direct from me. Otherwise, traditional retailer links are at the end of this post.
Is running a sport?
Last week, I attended a Substack party in Los Angeles. It was a place where writers asked writers what they/we wrote about.
My reply? “Running.”
My favorite follow-up question was, “Twice a week?? How do you find so much to write about running?”
Well, you see… running is life. Running is one of the most primal human experiences, alongside community and creativity – two other intertwined strands of my work here. Think about what the youngest children try to do. They try to run before they can walk. We know that phrase. Even at the age where they’re learning to stand up on their own, there is an innate urge to go fast. Faster. Farther.
To briefly address the other two, given a moment, those children will sit down with a piece of paper and draw something just so that they can show you their picture. It’ll be beautiful because they trust you with their creation the most.
That’s kinda like what Substack is, to be honest: a bunch of people creating something they think is cool, and want to show everyone.
I have loved getting to know the small group of writers on Substack who would never ask how I find so much to write about (the other running writers). So when I met Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack, I (obviously) immediately told him how much The Running Writers of Substack have called for our own category.
For instance, I’m in two categories: Sport and Culture.
That’s pretty reasonable for my immersed, ethnographic take on the culture of running, but I don’t often write about running as a sport.
When I choose the people I profile, I am looking for what they’re doing in the world of running beyond the accolades of success. And me? I haven’t raced seriously in over a decade, positioning running in my life as health and ritual.
Is any of that sport? When I occasionally race myself, is that sport? I say that there needs to be an opponent for it to truly be a sport. How about running for health (physical and/or mental)? It’s deeply ingrained into many societies, but is it sport? It’s definitely athleticism. It’s definitely culture.
Another idea about sport is that it can be seen as a game. Activities like baseball, tennis, soccer. Those are sports disguised as games (or vice versa). With running, you need to add racing, relays or other side-quests to turn running into the same sort of game.
Ultimately, running is just running. It’s humankind’s most primal and enduring instinct. It’s better than the rest, and we know it.
Adidas still employs people who get it
A few weeks ago, French running fashion brand Satisfy teamed up with Adidas again to launch a new colorway of the Adios Pro Evo 2. Alongside the usual litany of self-congratulatory “YAAAAAAS” comments that plague Running Instagram, the ads themselves caught a few chuckles.