It’s election day in America, and if your algorithm is anything like mine right now… it’s unavoidable. It’s not just palate-cleansing corgis and babies doing adorably silly things, it’s the embodiment of the stress, anxiety, and fear that many of us feel and have felt building over the past year. So, if your brain needs a break, a small after-lunch recess, or a little reset, I’ve put together a small collection of things I’ve enjoyed reading recently. Hopefully, you too, can take solace in a little distraction before we once again roll our sleeves up and get to work.
This is your brain on “the backyard”…
To be fair, I’ll read basically anything Alex Hutchinson writes, but his most recent piece for Outside does an excellent job of highlighting the science recently released on runners competing in Backyard Ultras. Yep, think Big’s Backyard, where runners take on a 4.167-mile loop every hour on the hour until only one runner is left standing. Just when we thought research on ultrarunning was niche, a group of Belgians (of course, they were Belgian… they did just reset the Backyard record books) just published the first research article on the discipline in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. If you are curious about what happens physically and cognitively to athletes during and after they’ve run for 60+ hours give Alex’s new piece a read – you might just get the itch to test your limits.
A philosopher and a through-hiker walk into a bar…
What Tara Dower did on the Appalachian Trail (AT) this September rocked our socks off. Seriously, trying to wrap our minds around her 40-day and change vision quest/sprint of the very very long (2,197 miles) trail is quite literally hard to comprehend. And while we’ve heard a lot about the physical effort, the bears (and one very creepy deer), her crew dynamics, and the mental endurance to see this effort through, there are so many broader lessons we can learn from the endeavor. If you haven’t yet read Sabrina Little’s irunfar column it’s worth sitting down with. Physiologists can pull apart this recording setting performance all they want, but the gems gleaned from a moral philosopher’s point of view are the ones I think we can all learn the most from.
Be a mountain runner and messenger…
The 2024 Snowman Race recently came to a close, and if you follow folks like Luke Nelson, Cody Lind, Meghan Hicks, or Kelly Halpin you might have caught glimpses of the beautiful five-day stage race through Bhutan. A race, oddly enough, that was founded by His Majesty the King of Bhutan (now that’s an RD like no other) to raise awareness around climate change. You see, while Bhutan is the first official country to reach carbon neutrality, they are heavily impacted by the effects of climate change – many of which create catastrophic events. While we wait to hear more from this year’s race participants, Nate Bender, who was part of the inaugural event in 2022, put together an incredible website where you can learn more about the event, Bhutan’s call to action, and his experience traversing those landscapes. Need an interactive escape? This is it.
Go down a Semi-Rad rabbit hole…
No puns intended. Do you want to know what’s one of my favorite newsletter-y things that hits my inbox regularly? It’s the work of one very clever writer and artist, Brendan Leonard… better known as semi-rad. Maybe you have his book at home, I Hate Running and You Can Too, and while that’s great (woooo capitalism, seriously go buy his books) you could also have his thoughts hit your email every Friday. For me, it’s a little reminder that the weekend is around the corner. But if you’re into having an inbox of zero and you’d like to take part in a much more fun version of doom-scrolling I’d encourage you to go burn many many hours finding inspiration over on his website. You can thank us later.
Your eyeballs are tired? Thank goodness you have ears!
We get it, one can only stare at the blue light for so long. So if you are still craving some much-needed distraction and you are all caught up on your Trail Society & Freetrail Podcast listening let me suggest something that is a little off the runner’s beaten path. This podcast was recommended widely and wildly by the WAGs (wives and girlfriends) of the “Boulder Boys” – basically a five-star stop what-you-are-doing recommendation – we’re talking about Normal Gossip a Defector podcast. Yeah, THAT Defector. Swoon. A podcast all about spilling the tea might not be for everyone, but again you were here for a distraction after all.
