Good Morning! đđťââď¸
No running for me last week. Just no time, but I have a great excuse: my American parents were in town and we had a wonderful time. I did do some reading about running and here is what I found: Harry Styles chats with Haruki Murakami about running as the ultimate reset, stripping away fame's gaze to just you, shoes, and the road, echoing Murakami's empty-minded flow that primes the creative vessel. Ciele Athletics' Jeremy Bresnen geeks out on soft-brim, breathable hats revolutionizing run kits beyond black basics, Nike dangles a dream paid ultra-training gig in Beaverton with full kit and science squad, Longrun Labs skewers carbon-plated shoe hype and daily supertrainer misuse fueling injuries, and smart tweaks like hill sprints shake ruts without overhauling plans, all tempting me to ditch the desk for trails before running topless season season hits.
Enjoy these Five Things Running! đđťââď¸
Harry Styles Is One of Us
HM: When Iâm running, Iâm just running. I donât think much. I listen to music mostly.
When I come back to sit in front of the desk I begin thinking, but when Iâm running, Iâm kind of empty. Something comes into me, but I donât notice it.
To be empty is my one of my purposes with running. I feel that training your body is the way to create the perfect vessel, building a foundation for the ideas to come into.
HS: For me, one of the things that can be complicated is that, as an artist, say if youâre a novelist or a musician or a filmmaker, youâre an observerâbut when you become a known person, you become the observed. You know youâre still the same, but other people can begin to view you as something different.
So something I love so much about running is the simplicity of it. You are the observer once more, and you can go about your day in the most naked form. Itâs just you, alone, moving through the world.
Thatâs what I love about it: You donât need anything, just a pair of shoes.
This really is a fantastic conversation between Harry Styles and Haruki Murakami - and suddenly I remember that I have a really big book by Murakami waiting for me on my nightstand. I donât even find the time to run, how am I going to tackle these 800 something pages? Also, I think I need some new shorts and maybe I should take up running shirtless?
A Conversation with Jeremy Bresnen, Co-Founder of Ciele Athletics
We came into the market as a headwear brand and we had a product that visually obviously was different. It hit the right note in terms of silhouette. The five panel has been sort of meaningful on the skate side. In the 80s, it was pretty meaningful on the outdoor side. Color-wise, we came with something that was different, and that was purposeful. We knew that we werenât going to get attention if we just came with a black hat. We had to come with something different, even though to this day, an all-black hat is our best-selling hat by miles and miles.
The flip side is that if you looked at everything on the market from a headwear standpoint, nobody was doing anything technical. Nobody was actually thinking through the design of the hat. 95% of the hats in the run space had a hard brim. Our soft brim is definitely more comfortable. Itâs packable. And every hat on the market was a woven fabric throughout. Maybe they had a little mesh window to give you this idea that it was breathable, but they werenât breathable.
Aside from shoes and shorts, I think a hat is the most important part of a running outfit. So I really appreciate this talk about Ciele and hats and all that.
Nike Will Pay You To Move To Beaverton And Run Yourself Into The Ground
The Nike Sport Research Lab is accepting applications for a new research project focused on ultra-distance running. Selected runners will be relocated to Beaverton, Oregon, where theyâll spend roughly 15 weeks training full-time under Nikeâs Applied Performance Scientists â with housing, financial compensation, and a full kit of footwear and apparel covered by the company.
The program, listed on Nikeâs innovation platform, is described as a âbrand-new, one-of-a-kind research project.â Nike says itâs looking for high-mileage runners who regularly log big weeks, because it wants to study how athletes adapt across a complete training cycle.
This sounds like a lot of fun! Iâd do it in a heartbeat, but I currently have a self-imposed travelban to the USA as long as Agent Orange is in charge.
Why the Running Industry Is Getting Injury Prevention Wrong
Almost no one in the market understands what a carbon plate actually does. That includes many of the people reviewing and selling the shoes.
When influencers demonstrate a carbon plate shoe by flexing it and watching it spring back, they are showing a shoe performing incorrectly. The carbon plateâs job is to make the shoe stiff. That stiffness creates a longer lever at takeoff, transferring energy more efficiently through the ankle and calf. A carbon plate shoe that bends easily is not working as designed.
Gelindo put it plainly: the wrong message is going out to consumers every week, and it is coming from people with large audiences who have not been told what they are actually looking at.
Beyond the mechanics, there is a training load problem. Recreational runners are wearing their fastest shoes every day and wondering why injury rates are climbing. The shoe that helps you run your fastest race cannot also be your daily trainer.
I know the guy is out there promoting shoes, but I found this insightful nonetheless.
How to get out of your running rut
Mixing things up doesnât mean reinventing your training plan every month. Sometimes itâs just a small shift in focus, and a runner who spends the winter logging steady miles might add hill workouts in the spring. Someone training for a longer race might gradually stretch their long run a little farther as the season goes on.
Those kinds of changes keep your body adapting, and they also keep training from feeling like youâre stuck on repeat. Over time, switching the emphasis of your workouts can help build strength and endurance while keeping running interesting.
Iâll keep reading and posting these kinds of stories until I am back into running for good.
If you missed last weekâs edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
â Nico
đđťââď¸