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I spent the last week up in Norway at the Oslofjord and did some running along the coast. It was just beautiful. I am still not back in the shape I was at the beginning of the year, because when I am injured and canât run, I am frustrated and eat too much candy and that makes my running form go downhill, which makes me frustrated and⌠you get where I am going. Anyhow, I am trying to get out of this mess and try to run more. Maybe not as much as I need to compete in a 200 miler anytime soon, but I think I am slowly getting back into shape. Speaking of great shape, how many times did you watch the video of Josh Kerr running his personal best in the mile? What an achievement! Not that I want to compare myself to him.
Here are my five picks for you to read!
Elite Young Runners Are Becoming Freakishly Fast. Welcome to âTrackflationâ
The track world, I discovered, has coined a name for this much-discussed phenomenon of kids getting ultra-fast: trackflation. In June 2025 at the New Balance Nationals, an annual championship that draws around 6,000 top youth athletes, more than 100 kids beat previous meet records. âThere might now be a hundred kids that run under 4:10 in the full mile,â says Will Rodgers, who ran track at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in the early 2010s and now co-owns RunningLane, a coaching and events business. âBack when we were competing in high school, it mightâve been like 20 at max.â
I had to know why kids today are essentially breaking track. And that meant trying to understand the dramatic shift happening at the sportâs roots.
The kids are alright! And fast, too.
Aiming for My Fastest Marathon, I Turned to Distance Runningâs Mecca
On my first morning in Iten, I stood along the main road as packs of runners bounded past along the red dirt paths, like flocks of birds gliding in formation, their strides smooth, their posture straight. They moved with an envious efficiency. Almost every runner looked exceptionally fit.
This is a village where few people run recreationally. Most are hoping to win prize money in major competitions or, like the team I trained with, are trying to win scholarships to run college track in the United States.
Running there with all these very talented runners must be a really amazing experience. This is something I would very much like to do for a runcation. No destractions, just running.
How to Juggle Life & Work to Train for a 200-Miler
The 200-mile distance is no longer a niche anomalyâitâs on a meteoric rise. In 2025, Aravaipaâs Cocodona 250 livestream captured a level of engagement that even rivaled the iconic Western States 100. Whether itâs a feat of promotional excellence or a collective desire to push past the once unthinkable, the ultrarunning world is moving the finish line another 100 miles out (and beyond.)
Watching the Cocodona 250 livestream this past year, it was easy to feel a spark of inspiration, thinking, I want to do that, followed immediately by a wave of, thereâs no way I can. You might assume these runnersare all elite professionals with endless time to train, but the reality is much more encouraging: the 200-mile finish line is far more attainable for the everyday athlete than it appears from behind the screen.
I read through all three profiles and honestly, I donât think training for a 200 miler is the right thing for me. I just donât have the timeâŚ
Is Josh Kerr Runningâs Greatest Storyteller?
The great thing about this whole story is how Josh is telling his own story. Heâs got a newspaper column in The Telegraph and heâs releasing video documentation via his own YouTube channel, gaining tens of thousands of views for each clip. This is the notable part because usually itâs the brand sponsoring the athlete that tries to own the storytelling, but Brooks started releasing their own content much later in the process.
Brooks are more central to the question of where those 3.34 seconds are going to come from. When Josh Kerr stands in front of a British crowd on Saturday, hiding behind those famous Oakley lenses, heâll be confident in the ground-breaking technology thatâs been created for him.
Brilliantly executed by Josh Kerr. Iâve seen the race video everywhere on social media and watched it many times. What an accomplishment!
For 24 Years, Horses Dominated the Man vs. Horse Marathon. Now, Humans Are Starting to Win
For the first 24 years of the Man vs. Horse Marathon, the outcome was never in doubt. The mounted side of the race crossed the line first at Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, every single time, from the inaugural race in 1980 through 2003. The debate that started it all had played out at the Neuadd Arms Hotel, where landlord Gordon Green bet a group of local huntsmen that a man could outlast a horse over rough, uneven ground. The huntsmen took the other side, and Green turned the disagreement into an annual fixture. Pour enough pints into a pub argument, and eventually someone proposes settling it outside.
Then, something shifted. Since 2004, five different runners have crossed the finish line ahead of every horse in the field: Huw Lobb, who beat 565 runners and 47 horses to end the 24-year streak, followed by Florien Holtinger in 2007, Ricky Lightfoot in 2022, Daniel Connolly in 2023, and Dewi Griffiths in 2025. When three of those five wins came within a single four-year stretch, observers started to wonder whether the balance of nature had finally tipped in manâs favor.
Why would anyone start racing with horses in the first place? And now humans are outracing horses? Letâs wait until the trackflation kids run longer distances!
If you missed last weekâs edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
â Nico
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