Good Morning! šš»āāļø
This year I did not run much and right now I am trying to build up mileage again to look semi-decent when running my favorite race around the Great Lake Ratzeburg on the first Advent Sunday. I didnāt get to run at all last week, so I do hope I get some runs in this week.
How do you get back into the flow again?
I am really curious about this. Somehow, running is not what it was for me. I still like, but I do run less and I obsess, eh, talk about it a lot less.
The Ultra-Endurance Race Designed to Find Your Breaking Point
This is a backyard ultra, a rapidly growing endurance event where the only reasons to stop are a runnersā own physical or mental boundaries. Athletes have to complete a 4.167-mile (6.7-kilometer) lap within an hour, at any pace they want. That seems simple enough. Whatās harder is what gives the event its special flavor: repeating that lap on the hour, every hour. The race ends when just one competitor remains.
As Bloomberg picks up Backyard Ultras, how will that change the event format?
Saving Us From Ourselves: Why the Moab 240 Disaster Was 100% Avoidable
Like many races, the Moab 240 has struggled to recruit enough volunteers to support the massive undertaking of a 240-mile point-to-point ultramarathon, even at a basic level. Some of that difficulty stems from the raceās own past misconduct and poor treatment of volunteers at previous events.
A good risk manager sets ego and emotion aside and focuses on the facts. Two facts are clear: they didnāt have enough volunteers to respond effectively to an emergency, and the forecast in the days leading up to the race was enough to make anyone with a shred of risk awareness pucker their asshole. Yet they took no preemptive steps to manage the risks.
Aside from the fact that I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to run 240 miles, just imagine youāre in the middle of nowhere and then the weather turns from bad to worse. Yikes.
Sorry About the Biblical Flood!
We understand that to some, the water was frightening. But imagine trying to explain its power, speed, and scale to someone who wasnāt there? You canāt! And thatās exactly what your registration pays for. That, and enough Hammer Nutrition to euthanize a draft horse.
Weāre also sorry about the plague of frogs. We know that watching the mile 184 aid station disappear beneath a heaving carpet of wet, writhing amphibian bodies was not what most of you pictured when we promised abundant wildlife.
Another way of looking at this, I guess.
The Curious Dichotomy of Running and Technology
Itās becoming increasingly common to see people talking about ābrickingā their phones (maybe with a device that you can buy for 10% off with their codeā¦) so they can complete tasks without looking at their devices.
But more recently, Iāve noticed more and more people in the running world ditching their running watches. It seemed less and less like a silly over-reaction with every smartwatch put out to pasture, but itās stillā¦ just a watch.
Maybe we have just overdone it āa bitā and now the pendulum swings back?
Tracksmith has changed. A lot.
So Tracksmith has swapped its founder, its product chief and its marketing lead in two years, and it now says footwear, womenās running and run-specialty retail are the future. If the next season looks and feels like Tracksmith, the handover story wins. If Tracksmith starts to look like every other brand, the rescue story does. Either way, the Tracksmith of the 2010s is over, time to see what Carver creates.
This sucks. Tracksmith is one of my favorite brands and I love my merino longsleeve shirt, which I bought a long time ago. I do think they tried too much and should have tried to stay as close to the classic style the brand had from the beginning.
If you missed last weekās edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
ā Nico
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