The delayed gratification of the darker side of running

Acid Running creative director Oliver Powe explains how his luxury running apparel brand connects to endurance sports by leaning into gallows humor.

We just marked the four-year anniversary of a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that forced us to temporarily lock our lives down in a way that those of us privileged enough to have never lived in a warzone hadn’t experienced. It was a big deal.

Eventually, we were allowed to leave our homes for a government-mandated hour of outdoor exercise, but no further than a mile from your house, so as not to spread the mysterious plague that had befallen us. Freedoms that we had previously taken for granted were removed for a few days. People were impacted differently. People reacted differently.

In London, Oliver Powe was inspired to make a new running apparel company - Acid Running. Citing Carl Jung, stoicism, and jarring collection titles of ‘Voluntary Discomfort’ and ‘The Pursuit of Suffering,’ it’s a brand inspired by the darker side of life.

“Running was a way for people to escape from the monotony and the prison of their own homes, and even their own minds. There was something powerfu…