Good Morning! 🏃🏻♂️
This Saturday the 40th anniversary of the Hamburg Marathon was celebrated with a course record. Of course I missed Othmane El-Goumri flying by near our house, on his way to finishing in 2:04:24, but I got to cheer on plenty of slower runners right at the 22km mark.
It was just a gorgeous day for running. So I also tried it and the stupid pain in my forefoot came back after 500m, so I clocked some 1,4 km or so and called it day.
Running sucks. Especially when you cannot run.
Enjoy these Five Things Running! 🏃🏻♂️
The 2 hour barrier has been smashed.
Sabastian Sawe just ran 1:59:30 with crazy negative splits, closing the last half in 59:01....faster than the American Record in the half marathon.
One of the most mind blowing performances we’ve seen maybe in the history of any sport. How did we get here?
Every breakthrough is a mixture of belief and progress. It takes folks daring to see what’s possible, surrounding themselves with a quality team and doing the work to give themselves a shot.
You’ve got to bet on yourself in a big way. Which is exactly what Sawe did in multiple ways. When asked whether he believed he could run a sub-2-hour marathon before the race, Sawe answered with one word: “Yes.”
Ok, wow. That’s insane. I am in awe.
If On Shoes Are for Everyone, Are They Still Ons?
In gyms, in malls, in airports and on sidewalks around the world, the shoes — with a sole that looks from the side like a happy kindergartner’s gaptoothed smile — are hard to miss. Hellen Obiri won the most recent New York City Marathon wearing a pair of Ons — and expects to don a new prototype on Sunday for the London Marathon. Middle-aged dads, with more modest athletic aspirations, fill their closets with the sneakers as well.
But having made the leap from start-up to established name in performance footwear, the company finds itself at a critical juncture: How does it stay true to its roots as a brand for serious athletes while keeping up its breakneck growth, which it can do only by appealing to the mainstream?
While I think On can also make good shoes, for me they will forever be the brand worn by wanna-be rich people strolling on the boardwalk of some beach resort in Germany, not for serious runners.
How do you train for 250 miles?
Training 15-22 hours per week, not including commuting to trails or time spent in the gym, takes significant mental and emotional energy. Then add in caring for a pregnant wife on top of shipping orders and working to grow a brand…your nervous system will be maxed out.
My experience of this was high stress before a run, the stress generally leaving as the run progressed, and then coming back as soon as I hopped back in the car. I observed myself gravitating more towards mindless scrolling and cheap dopamine hits when feeling tired at home too. Sometimes I’d pull up into our carport and sit in the car for 10 minutes before heading inside. Even typing all of this out I can feel anxiety starting to flood my system.
Unfortunately, my dog is getting older, so training with her is no longer possible and I guess that’s why I cannot train for 250 miles. No, in all seriousness, I am always in awe when I read about people training for such endeavors.
The Hardest Part of Injury Isn’t Physical
If belief shapes perception, and perception shapes experience, then the beliefs you reinforce—intentionally or not—start to define how you move through both training and recovery. That’s where self-belief becomes more than confidence. It becomes a skill. It’s not something you either have or don’t have, but something you practice by deciding what you pay attention to and what meaning you assign to your experience.
For me, that’s looked like a shift away from asking “what am I losing?” and toward asking “what is still here?” The fitness I’ve built doesn’t disappear overnight. The discipline, the consistency, the ability to show up—those are still there. The body that adapted to years of training is still capable of adapting again. That distinction matters, because it gives you something stable to anchor to when everything else feels uncertain.
Oh, totally.
The Strange Rise of Denim in Running Culture
A couple of years ago, people wondered why 3sixteen, a menswear brand that specializes in meticulously produced denim, was hosting monthly summer runs from its Manhattan store, but a little dig into their lookbook reveals a niche of equally thoughtful running apparel. 3sixteen founder Andrew Chen is a regular at World’s Fair Run Crew in Queens, and the running bug runs deep throughout the company and among the brand’s fans it has amassed over two decades of business.
The way that 3sixteen seamlessly brings together two parts of its identity in the Jorts Mile is a fascinating case study on the explosion of running into mainstream culture.
Yeah, no. Just because it is possible, we don’t have to do it. Running in denim is just stupid.
If you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
— Nico
🏃🏻♂️