Francesco Puppi ran the second-fastest Western States 100 of all time.

At mile 78, he reached Rucky Chucky, put on a life jacket, crossed the river, and kept racing. He had planned it that way. Saving the legs for a few seconds, using what was available for a smooth river crossing, moving on as quickly as possible. A clever decision inside a very long race.

Some people still managed to read the life jacket as weakness, as lack of toughness, as inadequate masculinity.

That reaction is alarming.

The New Posture

Running feels different lately. Not everywhere, not all the time, but clearly enough wherever the sport becomes visible to a broad audience: filmed, sponsored, clipped, reposted and turned into identity.

For a long time, runners, ultrarunners in particular, had a different aura. Lauchs1, basically. Thin arms, wild tan lines, awkward posture, quiet energy, salt stains everywhere, ten hours of suffering described later as “a good day out.” I say this with love. There was something disarming about a sport where the strongest people often looked like they had never won a fight in their life.

Of course this picture is romantic. The old running world was never innocent. It had plenty of sexism, gatekeeping, male self-importance and a habit of turning experience into ownership. I do not plan to beautify a golden age here.

Still, the vibe felt different, and so did the tone.

A lot of this comes from the gym world. Some seem to move into running when strength sports no longer offer enough meaning, attention or progression. Others keep the old language, add a few long runs, and call themselves “hybrid athletes,” a term that has entered Instagram bios and handles and remains unfortunate for everyone involved.

To be clear: I have no problem with strength. Muscles are great. Strength training is useful. People arriving from lifting, CrossFit, Hyrox or martial arts are welcome like everyone else.

The body is rarely the issue. The broadcast around it is.

The Broadcast Around The Body

A muscled runner can be humble. A skinny runner can be an idiot. Phenotype explains almost nothing.

Culture begins with the signals around the body. A biceps flex, showing up shirtless at the start of a race, an Instagram caption suggesting that running far or fast is simply a matter of trying hard enough — none of this stays neutral. It creates a small but steady pressure against softness, hesitation, fear, care and caution.

That is how toxic2 masculinity stops being an individual trait and becomes part of the culture.

A culture does not have to openly exclude people to become exclusionary. It only has to repeat the same image of confidence, intensity and male certainty often enough. Women notice it, as do queer, trans and non-binary runners, beginners, older runners, and men who do not recognize themselves in that version of the sport.

Running likes to say that everybody is welcome. I believe in this. But it means nothing when it tells you that you are entering someone else’s game.

Men remain the default narrator in race coverage, brand campaigns, podcasts, comment sections, start-line energy, and social media algorithms. We already have enough of that everywhere else. Running should know better.

The Market Loves Hardness

Hardness sells well because it is easy to understand. A flex travels faster than a complicated feeling. So the market rewards the simplest version of strength.

Running loses something when it adopts this script too eagerly.

This way, the sport loses its depth. More impressive at first glance, emptier after a second look. The strange, generous, awkward soul of running gets pushed aside by men who speak about endurance like every run has to prove their personal superiority.

I find that boring. Actually worse than boring, because it makes the sport smaller.

What I Still Expect From Running

A long race should teach humility. Heat, mountains and rivers are utterly indifferent to masculinity, six-packs and chest day.

The best runners I know understand this. They solve problems, listen well, accept help before pride takes its toll, and can suffer without making suffering their whole personality. Their ambition does not need an audience.

That is my version of (running) strength. And it keeps the sport open to other people. For different bodies, different identities, different voices, different fears, different ways of being serious about the sport.

Running does not need to be soft. It does not need to become harmless, cute or cozy. The sport can stay hard. Racing can stay brutal. Ambition can stay sharp.

Hardness means very little when there is no humility behind it.

Still Lauchs

I don’t want to lose the Lauchs.

I don’t mean the body type. I mean an idea: a runner with no need to look dangerous, an absurdly fast person who still appears a little strange, an ugly exhausted face with no sales pitch behind it. Super strong athletes who remain gentle in the way they move through the sport. People who race hard, accept help, thank volunteers, look completely wrecked at finish lines and never confuse being serious with acting superior.

Getting back to the Western States (just as an example), the best version of this sport is still there. Quiet brilliance, open queerness, odd bodies, nervous energy, kindness under pressure. People crossing finish lines destroyed, relieved, grateful, confused, and deeply human.

That is the running I still want to believe in. How about you?

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Everything Not Running

There is no clean transition from masculinity and toughness into grief. Could be the point, though.

I’m still devastated and heartbroken that Harry and Toto are gone, and I’m crying a lot. It’s way too quiet in here.

On Repeat

These are good times for metalcore bands. NO CURE fit right in with the ranks of new bands that are breaking down the boundaries between hardcore and (death) metal in a very fresh way.

Bonus: They’re a straight edge band.

NO CURE’s new album, “It Is Going To Get Dark,” is out today.

Four months after Toto, we had to say goodbye to his brother, too. The loss of Toto was still deep in us, so when we found out a few weeks ago that Harry was fighting tumors, it hit hard.

But the weeks he still gave us were beautiful.

It could have been the extra attention he got after Toto was gone. It could have been the fifteen different luxury food options we served him every day. Or maybe the fancy dental treatment he still received from us. Whatever it was, Harry, who had always been more of a private guy, suddenly became a social cat.

Whenever we had guests, we told him they were all there to celebrate his birthday. He seemed to like that. He greeted everyone and slept under the dinner table, as if he had finally accepted that people could be useful for more than opening cans.

Harry had always been a very unhurried cat. Slightly grumpy, but completely at home in himself. He was the voice of reason in this family, the one who seemed to roll his eyes whenever Toto, Lisa or I had once again decided to do something unnecessarily stupid (in his eyes). Just like in any good family. And yes, that is what we were. A family.

The last few weeks with Harry felt like a gift. We cuddled a lot, carried him on our shoulders through the apartment, and spent long hours on the balcony in the summer sun. Life became very small around him, but somehow enough.

Then there was less of Harry.

He ate less and lost all the weight that had always been part of his Harry-ness. He moved less. He scratched less at the scratching post. He purred less. He paid less attention to what was going on around him.

Then less became almost nothing. And yesterday it was time to let him go.

After Toto died, Lisa said that part of him lived on in Harry. That is exactly how it felt. And now it is so still here. So still.

Your litter box is still there. Your favorite spot is still ready. Your scratching post is still standing. Your favorite fur brush is still here. The cupboard is still full of food. And your piece of string is still on the floor, the one you kept attacking until almost the very end, with the full seriousness of a life and death battle.

Those two little troublemakers leave behind a huge emptiness and, at the same time, the fullest and most beautiful sixteen years of my life.

Harry, now you can cuddle with Toto again and steal his food like old times.

Mach’s gut, Knuffi.

On Repeat

Harry was never much of a music fan.

But this song, he could live with, I am sure. It has the right kind of calm for him. Unhurried, warm, completely at home in itself.

So this is officially your Harry song now, Harry.

)Das Laufen ist für viele Menschen deutlich mehr ist als nur ein Freizeitvertreib. Manchmal ist es der letzte Rettungsanker der einem zur Verfügung steht um nicht in den eigenen Gedanken und Gefühlen zu ertrinken. Das ist schön, kennt aber auch Grenzen. In dieser Folge geht es um die “Filling the Void” Kollektion von Willpower, den HappySad Running Podcast, die schlimmste Zeit meines Lebens und natürlich das Laufen.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Das Z Letter zur Folge

• “Filling The Void” Kollektion von Willpower

• HappySad Running Podcast

• ON REPEAT: ROCKSTAH - A-Taste

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

I don’t often talk about my own shadows of the past. It’s not secrecy, and it’s not discomfort. It’s respect for the people who are actually struggling right now. I’m worried I might come across as smug, as if to say:

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been through that too, it’ll be fine.”

At the same time, though, I think any open discussion and exchange about mental health issues is extremely important. And by that I don’t mean superficial Instagram tips and tricks, but an honest and unfiltered exchange of experiences in both directions.

Let’s just see how it goes.

Free Fall

Leaving my childhood aside, I went through the most difficult period of my life so far in my late twenties and early thirties. Over many years, so many mental knots had formed inside me and so much emotional baggage had piled up that I had lost control over what was happening inside me and to me.

Constantly on the road with my bands, money worries, and some really messed-up relationships eventually broke me. When I hit rock bottom, the absolute basics began to falter: sleep, food, work, health, and social contact. Instead of living, I was just existing. Mostly alone.

Back then, I didn’t have running or any other coping mechanism to fall back on, and it was terrifying to see how quickly my downward spiral unfolded.

But the most alarming thing of all was that I became increasingly indifferent to everything. Including myself.

The Safety Net

In the end, it was luck. Just plain luck that that I found a way out. Through a chain of fortunate circumstances, I ended up seeing a therapist with whom I began working through my current situation. And also on how I’d gotten there in the first place.

I don’t have much to compare it to, but I think he did a good job. I remember many uncomfortable questions and even more uncomfortable probing. Anger, tears, blockages and breakdowns. After at least every other session, I cursed him and was determined not to come back. And yet I did.

“I wish you all the best”

And then it ended.

I still remember our last session very well. Everything felt like usual. We talked about current issues, a few things from my childhood, nothing much different from other sessions. At the end, we said our goodbyes, and I said, “See you next week.” He replied:

“That’s not necessary. I wish you all the best.”

I looked at him, confused, and without much drama, he added,

“You have everything you need and are on the right track.”

I was caught off guard by his statement and the abrupt end to my therapy. I felt neither healed, nor fixed, nor restored. It just couldn’t end here, the job wasn’t done.

It was as if they’d simply pushed that broken-down car (with its busted engine, squealing brakes, and grinding V-belt) back out onto the road from the garage.

The Toolbox

I didn’t realize the difference until a few months later. In the trunk of my clunker, where before there had been nothing but a flat spare tire, a flimsy warning triangle, and a torn-open first-aid kit, there was suddenly a fully stocked toolbox with everything you need to keep a car running. Someone had placed it there just before the car ended up at the junkyard.

I know this metaphor is a bit overused, but I don’t know of a better one to describe what therapy does. In the end, it’s up to you to figure out which tool to use to fix which problem. And sometimes none of them fit. Then you wish that someone or something else could take care of it for you, but that’s not how it works.

It’s similar with running. It equips us with a toolbox that can help us during difficult times. And sometimes it leaves us to deal with our problems on our own.

Running isn’t a cure-all. It never has been. But it’s always honest with us. When it gives, it gives. And when it takes, it takes. Just like life itself.

Almost exactly three years ago I wrote a deep reflection of what running can do for a person struggling with life, and what not. And most of all, what it does for me.

Let’s leave it at that for now.

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Everything Not Running

Two friends of mine, David and Christian, host a podcast together that fits this topic perfectly: HappySad Running. They’re both very empathetic, attentive, and thoughtful people, and I can’t think of many others whose perspectives I’d rather hear on the sensitive topic of mental health (and running).

That’s why I was all the more stoked to be invited as the (first) guest on HappySad Running. One reason was that we decided to jointly present the “Filling The Void” collection from my running brand, Willpower. But it was also because, thanks to the ZUT (which largely shaped our conversation) we were sitting at the same table.

Give it a listen (sorry, German only), it’s worth it.

Apple Podcast

On Repeat

The year is 2011. German rap had moved past its worst “Aggro Berlin gangsta rap” phase behind, and the new, young, wild artists are gearing up to take the scene by storm. Who’s going to come out on top? Ahzumjot? Cro? Casper? Olson? Fatoni? Rockstah?

Well, it’s no secret: it wasn’t Rockstah aka Max Nachtsheim. At least not commercially. But his gamer-nerd rap struck a chord with many, and the smash hit “A-Taste” (A Button) still hits ridiculously hard.

Not by new people. New people are good. I stick with that. Every sport needs fresh faces, different routes in, new language, new mistakes, new energy. I decided not to stand at the window like the old grumpy guy, convinced that everything was better back then. When was that supposed to have been, anyway?

The Sport as a Stage

Still, something feels off when a sport becomes a stage before it becomes a relationship.

You can feel it when hard and beautiful things are turned into stories before they have even happened. When the actual lead actor, the mountain, becomes a backdrop for someone else’s self-presentation. When a race turns into content, and a difficult day outside becomes theatre for an audience already waiting for the next “crazy thing”.

The effort can be real and that matters. Running through the night, climbing with heavy legs, dealing with heat, fear, hunger, exhaustion, and doubt still costs something, no matter for which reasons you race. The body does not care about reach or likes. At some point, every image cracks. If in doubt, though, you can always turn it into a story.

At this year’s ZUT, all of that was easy to see. Phones and selfie-sticks everywhere. Reels and IG-lives being made on the move. The whole strange influencer machinery around races is getting bigger and louder.

What unsettles me is not the camera itself. I also take photos. I also write about races. I have built parts of my life around telling running stories. So pointing a finger too confidently would be dishonest. The difference, I think, begins where documenting stops being a way to remember and starts becoming the reason why a moment has to happen in the first place.

You can sense that shift. People do not simply move through a race anymore. They produce themselves inside it. Aid stations become sets. Volunteers become background. Other runners become moving scenery. The trail is no longer a place you enter with a certain amount of caution, respect and humility, but a raw material for your public appearance.

That sounds harsh because it is harsh. But I do not know how else to describe how it makes me feel. It changes the atmosphere. Even if nobody means harm.

To be clear: a race does not have to be silent. Trail running was never some sacred monastery of pure souls and humble calves. There has always been ego, noise, gear obsession, status and ridiculous behaviour. But there is a difference between bringing your ego to a race and building the whole race around it.

That difference matters.

And then there was Juliane

She had signed up for the 100k, which became 74 kilometers after the weather-related course changes. Because of the new start time, her race turned into a night operation. My wife Lisa, our friend David and I had agreed very spontaneously to support her, which already felt a bit funny because Juliane is one of the most autonomous runners I know. She can spend hours alone on a trail and come back happier than most people after a holiday.

Still, we all loved the idea and spent the night together, hopping from aid station to aid station, filling up bottles, handing over gels, and checking in on our runner. That was the plan.

At the first aid station we saw her eyes and immediately knew she had not come for a great hangout and free food. She was racing. With that dangerous little shine that says: Tonight I am going after it.

From that moment on, our support job became much more stressful. We drove from aid station to aid station, always slightly worried that she would arrive before us, which almost happened a couple of times. Her stops lasted only a few seconds. Bottles, gels, a quick hug, aaaaannnnd gone. And yet, those brief moments were filled with warmth and love.

By morning, the inevitable finally happened: Juliane crossed the finish line as third woman1.

Of course, that result is beautiful. I was happy for her because I like her very much and because it is moving to see someone earn such a moment. But the result was not what stayed with me the most.

It was the way she got there.

Juliane is a mother. She has a job. She does not live inside a constant performance lab. She does not even have a training plan. And she is not forcing running into every empty corner of her life to build some perfect athletic identity. She has been running for many years because she loves being outside, because the mountains give her something, because trail running has become part of how she moves through the world.

And over time, that became endurance, speed and experience.

There was something almost relieving about it. In a weekend where I once again saw so much that made me uneasy about the direction of trail running, Juliane’s race felt like a marker placed in the right ground. A reminder that the most powerful invitation into this sport does not have to sound like a challenge, a “crazy thing” or a personal brand.

It can look like this: someone keeps going outside for years. Someone builds a relationship with the mountains. Someone learns what they give and what they take. Someone stays close to the thing itself long enough that one day she lines up, runs through the night, and arrives in the morning with tears, joy and a podium she did not need in order to enjoy being a runner.

That is a much better message than “everyone can do this.”

Because no, everyone cannot simply do this. Time, money, health, family, work, access, fear and luck all play their part. Pretending otherwise turns inclusion into a slogan.

The Thing Itself

The better message is far more generous.

• You can start where you are.

• You can go outside without knowing what it will become.

• You can let the sport take time.

• You can fall in love with a trail and not want to conquer it.

• You can race fiercely without turning yourself into a product.

• You can be ambitious without becoming hollow.

I thought about that while the night slowly opened into morning.

I know what I saw and I am glad I saw it.

I saw our friend come into an aid station with bright eyes and leave before we had time to worry. I saw a runner who has loved this sport for long enough that racing well looked less like proving herself and more like coming home.

For a moment, my trail running world was fine. The phones, the runfluencers, the growth, the suspicious little cultural shifts I keep circling in my head.

Still there – Still worth talking about. But no longer the whole story.

Juliane’s race gave me something back. Hope, maybe? Or just a clearer picture of what I am trying to protect when I get irritated by all the wrong things entering the sport.

What that is?

A way of running that begins before anyone watches and remains true after the finish line is empty again. Running for running’s sake.

Everything Not Running

Sometimes a lot of great things come together. For example, when a) I write an article for Runner’s World Germany, which I really like; b) it’s about a topic I find truly fascinating; and c) one of my absolute favorite artists creates the illustrations for the article. And that’s exactly what happened.

The article is titled “Zeiten ändern Dich” (sorry, German only) and it’s about race cheating. The beautiful graphics were created by Simon Marchner.

In short: Head to the newsstand!

On Repeat

Did you know that metalcore existed before metalcore existed? And that it originated in Europe of all places, rather than in the culturally influential U.S.? True story.

Even before2 the first American bands like Killswitch Engage, Diecast, or Shadows Fall started mixing (death) metal and hardcore in the late 1990s, there were a good dozen bands in Europe — especially in the Belgian H8000 (Hate + ZIP code; that’s how they did it back then...) area — that were doing exactly that. Congress, Length of Time, Deformity, Sektor, and, of course, Liar.

These bands were brimming with confidence and stuck to their guns at a time when no one yet knew that metalcore would become the most commercially successful subgenre of hardcore.

Metal & hardcore, it worked back then and it works today.

Der ZUT 2026 is a wrap. War ein ganz schön wilder Ritt bei dem die Emotionen in alle Richtungen hochgekocht sind. Es war spannend das ganze als Beobachter und nicht als Läufer zu erleben und ich konnte viele Eindrücke gewinnen wie sich das Trail- und Ultrarunning verändert.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Das Z Letter zur Folge

• ON REPEAT: BRING ME THE HORIZON “Black & Blue” (2026 Repented)

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

“I paid for a 100k and now I get a 70k. Where can I collect my change?”

That was one reaction after three races at this weekend’s Zugspitz Ultra Trail were shortened because of extreme heat and thunderstorms.

• The 100-miler became 107 kilometers.

• The Ultratrail (107k) and Ehrwald Trail (88k) were reduced to 74 kilometers, with new start times and a new start location.

A Mess Before the Storm

Straight to the point: the communication around the decision was terrible. First came rumors, then changes appeared on the UTMB website while the race organization still denied them, followed later by the official announcement, initially vague, later specific and final. At the info point, one runner asked four simple questions and received variations of: “I don’t know. I’ll call someone. Oh, she’s not answering again.”

Turning off comments on Instagram made the whole thing worse. Much worse. It’s 2026, the social web has been around for 100 years now, everyone knows that ducking away and playing dead does not work. You cannot tell runners to follow your official channels and then close one of those channels when people become angry.

It’s worth noticing that the ZUT already entered this weekend carrying considerable weight. Its sale to the UTMB Group, the registration chaos, rising and tiered prices and the end of bib transfers had damaged trust before anyone reached Garmisch.

I do understand, though, why shortening 100 miles to 100 kilometers feels tough after months of training. A new start time or the removal of a drop bag can ruin carefully arranged plans within hours. Several friends of mine were affected and really disappointed.

Still, some of the comments (users just moved on to the next post that still had comments turned on) went far beyond disappointment.

“This is absolutely pathetic. Are you fucking kidding us?”

“Cutting the 100 miler to 100 kilometers looks like the easiest way out.”

“For more than €300, you can expect a prepared bad-weather course.”

Reading through the comments gave me the impression that something was very much off. The mountain had somehow become a service provider.

Adventure, Delivered

There is a Lieferando/DoorDash mentality entering trail and ultra running.

The sport itself has helped create this type of “customer”. Races are increasingly sold as polished premium experiences, complete with tiered pricing, global branding and promises of an unforgettable adventure. It can make entering a race feel like booking a cruise with AIDA.

Once adventure becomes a product, people begin asking for refunds when the adventure refuses to follow the schedule.

An alpine race remains a different proposition from an all-inclusive vacation. The course passes through terrain where a thunderstorm can literally kill people. And at some point, the weather forecast outranks the brochure.

Martin Hafenmair is a certified mountain guide and ZUT’s long-serving course director. He knows these trails, the region and the movement of thousands of runners through exposed terrain. When he helps make a decision this consequential, you can be sure there are better reasons behind it than convenience.

The Runner’s Part of the Deal

The deal is simple: entering an alpine race means accepting a share of its uncertainty. The organizer carries responsibility for safety and communication. We carry the disappointment when the mountain changes the agreement. That part cannot be handed back at the customer-service desk.

Most people I know have dealt with the changes remarkably well. They are frustrated, rearranging their plans and still preparing to run whatever course is available. Partly because they’re super cool people, and partly because they understand what a thunderstorm above the tree line means.

The ZUT is underway now, and it can still become a great weekend. I remain glass-half-full. The mountain has already changed the race. What happens from here also depends on what we believed our entry fee bought.

Everything Not Running

As you’ve probably noticed from my articles over the past few weeks, I’m struggling with a lot of things that are happening right now in running. But I’m obviously not alone in this struggle. The once-niche sport of ultracycling (that’s the folks who cover thousands of kilometers over several days with just a few bags on their bikes) is booming almost as much as trail and ultra running, and is grappling with nearly the same issues.

That’s exactly what I discussed with Jana Kesenheimer (ultracycling pro) and Stephan Wieser (sports filmmaker and photographer) on their wonderful “In Between” podcast. In our insightful conversation, the discussion quickly moved beyond just cycling or running to cover culture, politics, inclusion, capitalism, turbo-capitalism, bro culture, and the toxic “If you don’t run or ride ultra, you’re not tough enough” mentality.

Well worth a listen—unfortunately, only in German.

On Repeat

Bring Me The Horizon have come a long way. From Deathcore to stadium rock… and back. Obviously.

They have re-recorded their (for the time) legendary Count Your Blessings album for its twentieth anniversary. Other bands have done stuff like this before, but BMTH put their original album on crack.

The first track sounds like the band is trying to outplay the teenagers they used to be. Super heavy, super on point, completely overproduced (in a positive way).

Most re-recordings turn old albums into museum pieces. This one sounds ready to start a fight again.

Arda Saatçi, 99 laps, Run Raves, Satisfy x Adidas, gym bro backyard ultras, Tudor watches for trail running pros... The list changes every couple of weeks, but the feeling underneath stays pretty similar. Something happens in this sport, I look at it, and a part of me reacts like an old man standing at the window, shaking his head at the kids in the street.

I am trying not to become that guy.

But it’s hard. And I doubt it is only a personality thing.

Why I Keep Flinching

Part of this is probably just the oldest conflict in the world: a generational clash. One generation builds something, the next one walks in and moves the furniture around. The parents hate what the kids love. Their parents hated what they loved. In the end, everyone takes turns being unreasonable.

There is one piece missing for me, though: I was never a young runner.

I started running in 2013, at 34. By then I was already an adult in most ways that matter. I had a job, a life, a solid sense of who I was, and a lot of the earlier damage had already been cleaned up or at least put into a place where I could live with it. The one part that still needed serious work was my health, but running took care of that.

So I never knew what it felt like to be a young, self-confident, trend-aware runner who enters the sport and immediately wants to leave a mark. I did not grow into running through crews, hype coops, brand activations, fashion signals, or social codes.

In fact, the first two to three years of my running journey, I trained and raced alone. Everything I knew about running came from books (yes, actual books) and a few shaky YouTube videos.

Before Running Became Content

After all, the internet in 2013 was still a very different place. The social web still meant Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr & other blogs, forums, RSS readers, Flickr, YouTube and the very early days of Instagram, when people were still posting memes there. Vine had just launched, Snapchat Stories had just arrived, while TikTok, Instagram Stories, Discord, (a free version of) WhatsApp and Substack did not exist yet. Strava did, but no one cared.

So yes, running was also happening online, of course, but it had not yet become a permanent high-pressure content storm. It was something people wrote about, documented, discussed and searched for in quirky corners of the internet. Much less visible than it is today. And much quieter.

Who I Looked Up To

Also, all my running heroes were older than me. Besides, there weren’t exactly many options to choose from, which is why we all looked up to Anton Krupicka, Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton, and young Kilian. Dean Karnazes was around too, but I always thought he was a bit of a blowhard.

Most of my running friends, who I met after my lonesome start, were older than me, too. The early lineup of the Willpower Athletes were mostly oldsters I knew from the hardcore scene. Many of them already had several years of running under their belts.

Overall, it felt a bit like I discovered a version of running that had already been gone for at least 5 years when I arrived.

Sounds nostalgic, I know. And I am always suspicious of nostalgia, especially my own.

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Still My Sport?

Trends always interested me. They still do. Running a brand makes it necessary to understand where the sport is moving, what people care about, what language they speak, which symbols have power, and which ones are overused and empty. I still think I have a decent sense for that.

The difference is that many new influences in running seem to move against the version of running I fell in love with and the values I draw from it.

That does not automatically make them wrong. It only raises the question I keep coming back to:

Do I recognize myself in this?
More often than before, the answer is no.

I already argued with myself about that here:

DAS Z LETTER — Running, Culture & Self

Getting Older in a Young Sport

Getting older in a sport that worships youth means asking myself, more honestly than before, what running still gives, what it takes, and what it is allowed to become…

Read more

3 months ago · 33 likes · 12 comments · Chris Z

You Run, But…

I am 47 now. I do not have to find the same things cool that a 22-year-old runner finds cool, and that’s just fine. It would probably be terrible for everyone if I did. What I miss, though, is the simple unifying element that running used to have for me:

That was the whole thing.

Now it often feels like belonging requires extra proof. You have to be a part of the right bubble, with the right attitude. Do the right races, speak the right language, and show the right amount of visible passion.

I know this is not the full reality of the sport. I still meet runners all the time who simply run, love it, suffer like Jesus for our sins, and still don’t share it on Instagram. I wrote an appreciative piece about these “Invisible Runners”:

DAS Z LETTER — Running, Culture & Self

In Good Hands

Most runners will never become visible…

Read more

2 months ago · 32 likes · 5 comments · Chris Z

However, the image portrayed in the broad media and across the social web is a completely different one.

Yes…

It would be easy to fold my arms now and spend the next forty years (“Run Till Death”, baby!) complaining about everything running is turning into. And the worst might still be to come.

But I really do not want that life.

I want to stay curious. I want to be open-hearted toward people who discover this sport in ways that look nothing like my own beginning. I want to remember that their excitement is real, even when the visibility around it makes me tired. I want to leave enough room for running to become something else for someone else.

But…

At the same time, I do not want to wave everything through just because it is new and trending. That would be dishonest. It would also be useless.

A community does not get better when the alumni disappear into polite silence.

Experience can be annoying, yes. The same goes for values. But they can protect a culture from selling every last piece of itself to big corporations and becoming a dull, watered-down version of what it could be.

This Will Not Get Easier

So this is where I am.

Somewhere between tolerance and suspicion. Wanting to welcome what comes next and at the same time defending what still feels worth defending. Knowing very well that running does not belong to me but somehow feeling responsible for the part of it that saved my life.

I don’t think this conflict will go away. If anything, it will probably get worse.

That’s probably the work now. My work. To stay in the room and listen without losing my judgment. To criticize without turning bitter. To keep loving a sport that keeps changing in ways I do not always like.

And to go out for a run whenever I find myself standing at the window too long. Figuratively speaking. Of course.

Everything Not Running

I’ll just come right out and say it: there’s nothing that interests me less than soccer. I’d rather watch a 3-hour (okay, nowadays 2-hour) live broadcast of a road marathon than even a 10-second highlight reel of a soccer game. I don’t find anything — and I mean absolutely nothing — about it exciting or worth getting worked up over.

So I couldn’t care less that the World Cup just kicked off. At least from a sporting perspective. Politically, though, I find this ticking time bomb quite exciting. I’m pretty sure one scandal will follow another. It’s already off to a good start with entry bans, jersey bans, three separate opening ceremonies in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, protests, and the intriguing question of who has to beat whom so that the U.S. ends up in a match against Iran. All under the watchful eye of a mad orange goblin king and a corrupt mafia boss who heads the world soccer federation.

I suspect these will be a few turbulent weeks, which is why I’m absolutely thrilled that I couldn’t care less who wins. So tell me: Who’s going to win?

Leave a comment

On Repeat

We’ve had them on repeat before, too: Die Toten Hosen. And even last time, I claimed that I’m not really that big of a fan. Still, this band has been with me my whole life, and the fact that they’ve just released their last album, “Trink aus! Wir müssen gehen”, justifies mentioning them here once more. But only if...

...there’s a song on the album that really blows me away, and that’s the case with “Schlechte Nachbarn.” An incredibly lively punk blast for a club of over-60s! You can tell that Die Toten Hosen have never lost touch with the times or their connection to the younger generation. That’s probably why they’ve consistently managed the difficult balancing act between “staying true to themselves” and “reinventing themselves.”

By the way, I first heard about the album when their singer Campino was a guest on the ever-popular podcast “Hotel Matze.” I was surprised and delighted by how much overlap I still feel with Campino’s values and viewpoints. While listening to the podcast, I kept getting the feeling that we’ve aged gracefully together, haha.

In the generous reading, this is encouragement and motivation. In the less generous, and probably more accurate one, it is egotism and marketing for some product.

Especially for new runners, this kind of attitude can do real damage. It turns natural curiosity into pressure and makes shorter distances look like unfinished business. It sells ultrarunning as the place where running finally becomes real.

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What’s So Special About Ultras Anyway?

I understand the appeal.

Ultrarunning has a cinematic quality that most other race formats simply do not have. The sheer scale, the landscapes, headlamps, mountain ridge sunrises, busy aid stations, dramatic weather changes, volunteers handing you popsicles while you question every decision that has led to this moment.

It offers the seductive idea that somewhere beyond the marathon, your true identity as a runner might be waiting.

That idea is powerful. It is also stupid.

Because ultramarathon is a race category and not a lifestyle. It is not a moral upgrade and not the final form of running. It does not automatically make anyone deeper, tougher, freer, wilder, wiser, more authentic, more spiritual, or more interesting at dinner.

It simply means the course is longer than a marathon. That’s it.

The Ladder Nobody Asked For

Running has a hierarchy problem. It likes to pretend it does not, because runners also like to pretend they are relaxed people who only compete against themselves, which is adorable considering how fast they can calculate age grading in their heads.

The hierarchy usually starts harmlessly. A first 5k. Then a 10k. Then a half marathon. Then the marathon, the grand public certification of having done something serious with your body and a few weekend mornings. After that, the obvious question arrives from somewhere in the room, often wearing a cringy belt buckle.

As if running were a military career ladder with rank insignia.

However, many of us internalize this very quickly. We start to believe that distance equals development. That farther means deeper. That the next race has to be longer because otherwise we are somehow standing still.

That is where the damage starts.

Because once running becomes a ladder, every distance below the next one starts to look like a rung you are supposed to climb as quickly as possible and then leave behind.

Nothing Small About It

I have raced almost everything from 3000 meters on the track to 100 miles through the Sierra Nevada. This sounds like a humblebrag because it probably is one, although at least it comes with plenty of personal embarrassment.

Let’s go through it chronologically, for the sake of dramaturgy by distance.

• The 3000 meters was my first track race, after I had already been running for a couple of years. On paper, 3000 meters looks like nothing. A warm-up with a bib number. In reality, it feels like an all-out interval session where someone forgot to schedule the jog recovery in between.

Race That Stayed: Läufercup Karlsfeld 2016-2018. My first track race, and I had no idea what I was doing. I still returned many times like a comeback kid.

• A 5k race is not kinder. Take the hardest part of a 10k, remove the opening politeness, compress the suffering, and there you are. It is short enough to make pacing feel optional for the first minute and long enough to punish that thought mercilessly.

Race That Stayed: ISPO Night Run 2020. A compact evening format in the Olympic Park, Munich, with high winds that blew over the construction fences, trees, and runners.

• The 10k was my first race distance, at the Munich Marathon in 2013, and the kickstart of my running “career”. For years it was the cleanest measure of my progress. At least I thought it was. You can also race 10,000 meters on the track, of course. But let me warn you, it feels like it never ends.

Race That Stayed: Munich Marathon 10k, 2013. The first official suffer face, and the certainty that there is no turning back.

These distances do not need mountain scenery or nightfall to become large. They do not need a crew, a pacer, a drop bag, or a 27-minute YouTube video called My Journey Into The Unknown. They can empty you in less than twenty, thirty, forty minutes. They are small only if your imagination is.

The Cruel Middle

• The half marathon is probably the distance I have raced most often. When you hit the right sweet spot, it feels boundlessly beautiful, almost like floating. A pace you should not be able to hold, held anyway. Just wonderful.

Race That Stayed: Johannesbad Thermen Marathon half, 2023. The sweet spot exists, but rarely where you expect it.

• And then comes the marathon. The queen of all races. No other race format creates more desire, projection, storytelling, workplace conversations, and mother-in-law updates. Finishing a marathon is a real achievement. Running a good marathon, right on the edge of your ability, is close to witchcraft. I spent years trying to unlock this distance. And yet, to this day, the marathon remains a black box to me. That is exactly why I love it.

Race That Stayed: Boston Marathon 2019. I started out ignorant and full of myself, and finished the race having been painfully humbled. Ever since then, I’ve felt the need to go back and try again with humility and respect.

Welcome To Ultra, Sort Of

• The 50k is the official doorway into ultrarunning, which is funny because in many cases it is mostly a marathon with an afterparty. It can be wonderful, though. Flat, runnable, relaxed, especially compared to the marathon because there are usually fewer sacred reference times hovering over the running bubble. Nobody asks whether you broke three hours in a 50k.

Race That Stayed: Rodgau. Always Rodgau. A wonderfully unglamorous place to run loops at the very heart of this sport. It’s where the family meets (“Es ist ein Ort echter Menschen. Ich liebe diesen Ort. Einmal im Jahr bedeutet er Familie.” – ).

• The range between 60 and 80 kilometers is its own little in-between world. Once you have made it that far, people naturally start looking at 100k. Because 100k sounds better. That is the entire argument. In practice, the difference can become marginal. If you are out there for 20 hours over 80 kilometers or 17 hours over 100 kilometers, you are deep in the same discipline. And trouble.

Race That Stayed: Stubai Ultratrail, 2021, old race course. Sixty-seven kilometers with an insane amount of vert and the longest climb ever all the way up the Stubai Glacier.

• The 100k looks terrifying on paper. In reality, it is sometimes less mysterious than the number suggests. For most of us, by that point, the race has little to do with VO2 max, 1000-meter repeats, or whatever heroic value your watch had in store for you this morning. It becomes a long problem-solving and eating competition under physical stress.

Race That Stayed: Zugspitz Ultratrail 2025, pre-UTMB era. A hometown lesson in limits with an unexpected Western States heat vibe.

The Hundred-Mile Fever

• Then there are 100 miles. For many Europeans, the distance still feels exotic. The Americans, meanwhile, have turned it into a national mood. They are obsessed with it in a way that is almost concerning. Western States, Hardrock, Leadville, Javelina, Hurt, Vermont. Say any of these names to the right person and watch their eyes get wide. And still, a 100 miler is not the top floor of running. It is not a diploma or a degree in running. It is simply very, very far. Much farther than 100k, by the way, which sounds obvious and still catches people off guard.

Distance Has No Ceiling

• Then there are the 200-milers, becoming quite popular lately, hashtag Cocodona. I have never raced one. I supported my wife Lisa once and our friend Juliane once at Tor des Géants, which is a little longer than 200 miles and additionally features an insane amount of alpine vert. Watching that kind of race from the outside raises many questions.

Race That Stayed: Tor des Géants 2021 and 2025. Supported twice, raced never, fell in love forever.

If anything, 200-mile races make the whole hierarchy even more absurd. Once you accept 100 miles as the top of the ladder, somebody moves the roof. There is always another distance, another format, another escalation. Another race that makes your biggest achievement look like someone else’s Sunday longrun.

That is the problem with treating distance as status. It never ends. The sport keeps extending itself beyond every supposed final border. The ladder has no last rung.

So the better question is not how far running can go. The better question is which race actually belongs to you.

The Race That Is Yours

The point of all this is not to shrink ultrarunning. I love ultrarunning. I understand why people are drawn to it, why they dream about it, why they want to know what happens when the day gets long and the simple act of moving forward starts to strip things away.

I also understand the wish to belong to it. To say “I am an ultrarunner” has a certain weight. It sounds like a door opening into a more committed version of the sport. A little wilder, a little less polished, a little farther away from the start corrals and split mats and office conversations about your marathon time.

But identity is a slippery thing in running. It can give us direction, then slowly start charging rent.

At some point the question becomes whether you are choosing the race or whether you are chasing the label attached to it. Whether you are curious about the experience or trying to step into a costume that looks good from the outside. Whether the next distance calls you, or whether you simply heard that it should.

There is no ladder. There is only the question of what keeps pulling you back.

I took years before I ran my first ultra. Looking back, I am grateful for that. I did not need to arrive there faster. I needed the races before it.

And I probably needed the marathon most of all.

The Race of All Races, At Least For Me

If I had to choose my race, it would still be the road marathon. This may sound slightly bizarre from someone who wrote a book about a 100 miler, but here we are. No other race format has occupied me more. No other distance has given me more, taken more, confused me more, or made me feel more exposed as a runner. I have not raced one in a long time, and still, when I think of running as a lifelong argument with myself, the marathon is the room where most of it happened.

Only If It Calls You

So run an ultra if the distance honestly calls you.

Sign up if the long day scares you in a useful way. If the mountains pull you. If you want to know what remains after everything has fallen off and the only plan left is to keep eating, keep moving, and avoid sitting down too comfortably.

That is reason enough.

Just do not let anyone talk you into believing that your running has to graduate into ultra. Do not let a feed full of headlamps, buckles, mountain reels, and superficial post-race wisdom convince you that you are still waiting outside the real sport. Your path does not need approval from someone who turned a race category into a personal brand.

Find the distance that means something to you.

Stay with it for as long as it keeps asking questions you cannot answer yet. Return to it. Fail at it. Love it. Let it shape you in its own language.

One last time:

Find your own race.
Then run it like it matters.
Because it does.

Everything Not Running

A belated happy World Running Day!

To mark the occasion, we teamed up with Willpower to release a limited-edition design called “Run Deep,” which we introduced with the following text:

On Repeat

There are songs that do not comfort you by making things lighter. They comfort you by refusing to look away.

Tim Barry has always been good at that particular kind of honesty. Memento Mori has that bare, worn-down clarity I love in his songs: life is short, people disappear, time keeps moving, and somehow you still have to decide what you do with the day in front of you.

He’s also a runner, by the way.

Happy World Running Day. Wenn ich eine Sache am krass schnell wachsenden Laufsport 2026 am meisten vermisse, dann ist es Tiefgang. Die vielen Dinge, die dieser Sport mit uns anstellt, wenn wir uns wirklich darauf einlassen und damit meine ich ganz bewusst nicht nur die schönen Momente.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Run Deep bei Willpower

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

Der perfekte Lauf. Wetter schön, Laune gut, beste Playlist, Kramerplateauweg, laufen ohne auf die Uhr zu gucken, Knie spielt mit… Und trotzdem hält die Freude und Zufriedenheit darüber nicht länger als ein paar Minuten an bis wieder diese Gedanken kommen was der Lauf alles hätte sein können oder müssen: Niemals genug. Irgendwie bin ich da falsch verdrahtet und darüber spreche ich in dieser Sprachnachricht.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Das Z Letter zur Folge

• ON REPEAT: Turnstile - Never Enough

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

My knee rehab is finally moving [Yay!].

I write that carefully, because after months of setbacks, back and forth, micro improvements, and mornings that decided the meaning of the day before, every bit of optimism still feels slightly suspicious. But it is true. The small steps have become bigger lately.

Quick reminder, here’s where I stood in January:

I can run three to four times per week again, mostly without symptoms. Sometimes I even forget to stare at my watch every few minutes to keep the run safely inside its prescribed limits. Uphill works, which it already did last year. Flat running works again, which feels new and beautiful. Rolling terrain is back in the repertoire too. Small climbs, small descents, and a little bit of that flow feeling that makes running feel effortless.

The knee’s reaction to the new load has been mild enough. Acceptable. More important than the run itself, most mornings after are okay. That 24-hour-rule has become the real metric. A run can lie. The next day usually does not.

So yes, this is progress.

I am happy about it.

And still, I want more.

The Gap

I want more – that is the part I keep running into. The injury makes the feeling more visible, but it did not create it. I know this state from healthy training blocks too.:

• The plan does not progress fast enough.

• The hard sessions are too rare.

• The long runs are too short.

• The track paces feel too soft.

• Some runs seem to serve no purpose, while others come with a heart rate that looks wrong for the effort.

• Too few weekly miles.

• Too little time on feet.

• Too little elevation.

• Too little proof of progress.

Even when things are going well, part of me immediately starts looking for the gap.

Never enough.

I know this feeling so well that I had it tattooed on myself years ago as a warning:

Written in a direction only I can properly read (the tattoo artist hated it), which made sense to me when I got it done, because the pressure was always private first. Nobody had to tell me I should be more. I had been doing that job for years.

The easy reading would be to call this a flaw. There is truth in that, especially during rehab, where progress arrives in painfully small units.

But is “never enough” really just bad?

My “Never enough” is also my ambition. It got me out the door when vague motivation would not have lasted a week. It made me train, care, build routines, write things down, take the sport seriously, and create a life around running that did not appear by accident.

Ambition is not some toxic monster hiding under the bed. Often it is the force that gives shape to some real epic sh*it.

Ambition opens doors. Unfortunately, it keeps opening them on and on.

The difficulty is that the same thing that moves me forward can rob me of the place I am standing on.

Kramerplateau Flow

A few days ago, I had a run that showed me this predicament perfectly. I left home without much of a plan, just a handheld bottle of water, decent legs, and the kind of hot summer day that still feels friendly. I ran over gravel paths toward the Kramerplateauweg, climbed up, followed the rolling path for a while, came back down into the valley. Meanwhile, I listened to just the perfect playlist, cruised at an enjoyable 4/10 effort, and thought surprisingly little about my knee.

For more than an hour I was simply running again, in a way that felt close to ordinary. That was probably why it hit me so hard afterwards.

When I got home, there was this small physical and emotional sense of relief. The after-run-bliss. You all know it. For a short while, I was content.

Then the day went on, and my mind started its work.

• A year ago this would have been a regular easy run, now it is a highlight.

• I want four or five of these every week.

• I want a longer one, too.

• I want more distance, more downhill, more speed, more confidence, more proof.

• I want to stop treating ten kilometers like something precious.

• I want to run without checking the next morning for consequences.

The run itself had not changed. I had changed my view on it.

Grateful, Still Hungry

I want to be grateful. And I want more.

Both are true.

I want to honor the fact that my body is giving me running back in pieces, and I also want to grab the whole thing at once. I want patience to feel noble, and at the same time hate it. I want to celebrate the small wins more and want them to carry me longer than they do. I want the feeling after that Kramerplateau run to stay with me.

This is where my “how-to” conclusion should go but I do not know how to make that happen.

Outsiders probably have a few clever tips to offer, but they’re no use to me if they don’t come from within me.

So for now I am trying to catch that Kramerplateau moment before I ruin it.

I wish I could live there longer.

I cannot, at least not yet.

But I was there.

Everything Not Running

And then there are the things that really matter in comparison. Unfortunately, Harry isn’t doing so well. After an extravagant dental surgery and several vet visits, we’ve finally figured out why he could rarely keep his food down and would spit it back up right after eating. A lymphoma is pressing on his food pipe and blocking access to his stomach. Even worse, that wasn’t the only tumor we found during the examination; other organs were affected as well. Basically the same situation as with his twin brother Toto.

At this point, I’d normally write about how sad we are and how helpless we feel in this situation, but there are two reasons why I’m not doing that.

First, we’ve found a great treatment that allows Harry to live out the rest of his life with dignity and comfort. With corticosteroid depot injections, the lymphoma shrinks for a while and he can eat normally again. The injection lasts about two weeks and then needs to be repeated. This has worked three times already, and we’re hoping for many more times.

The second reason is denial. Our grief over Toto is simply still too deep for us to be able to fully confront the fact that Harry won’t be with us much longer either. Especially since he’s in such good spirits – waddling into the bedroom in the morning, hungry and wide awake, letting us pet him (and purring), chilling on the balcony in the sun, and occasionally working on the scratching post.

We’re enjoying this time as long as he’s still doing well. We’ll have to deal with reality soon enough.

On Repeat

You guessed right. Honor to whom honor is due.

Waren zwei harte Wochen für Running. Wahrscheinlich geht es vielen so, aber ich habe wirklich große Probleme mich den Hype- & Empörungs-Wellen zu entziehen die gerade über die Lauf Bubble herein brechen. Ich kann mich dem ganzen einfach nicht entziehen, einfach weil mir das Laufen so viel bedeutet. Dabei ist es “nur Laufen”, wie mein Trauzeuge Chris immer zu sagen pflegt. Wer hat am Ende recht?

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Das Z Letter zur Folge

• ON REPEAT: EYES OF SALT “Flower of Pain”

• ON REPEAT: CANCER BATS “Stay Stuck”

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

I’m honest here. Everyone who writes wants to be read. I will never pretend otherwise.

Still, I mean it when I say I would have preferred that kind of response for another article of mine. A more personal one, or one that had less to do with someone else’s marketing campaign and more with the depth of running I usually try to write from.

The truth is, I did not even want to write about Circle Pit at first.

I already felt uneasy before I wrote the first sentence. The whole thing had that familiar internet vibe: something weird (in that case cringe) appears, irritation gathers speed, jokes harden into takes, takes harden into positions, flanked by memes, and a few days later everyone moves on, mildly annoyed, mildly amused, oddly unsatisfied, and already waiting for the next thing to happen.

I know that process very well. We all do. A large part of me wanted to leave it alone, close the macbook, go outside, and run.

In the end, I wrote my piece because something felt absent. Parts of the discussion came too easily. Yes, 300-dollar shorts are absurd, and yes, influencer marketing has been overdone to death. That alone, however, is hardly a revelation.

What irritated me was the way a subculture aesthetic gets put on a marketing mood board and then sold back to us as attitude and anti-mainstream.

But why do I even care?

Because I do.

That is the simple answer.

I care because, for me, running has never stayed in the clean, harmless corner of sweating, clearing the head, getting fitter, and passing time.

It has always been more to me.

From day one, running became a gravity my life formed around. It gave me a language, a community, a body of work, and a way of understanding myself that I did not see coming when I first tied my shoes and went out for a really really horrible and painful run.

So when someone says, “It’s only running,” I know they are right. In fact my best man Chris says that all the time.

And still, the sentence misses something.

Never Just The Thing Itself

Music was never background sound to me. Writing has never been the simple transmission of information either. Some things enter my life and quickly become more than what they appear to be from the outside. They become places like home. They become lenses, my way of viewing myself and others. They become ways of moving through this weird world.

That is how I seem to work: When I give myself to something, I do not give myself halfway.

This can be exhausting. When things get charged with meaning so quickly, they do not only bring joy and fulfillment. They also create friction.

For some people, running is a sport. A beautiful sport, maybe even an important one, yet still something they do. For me, it has become one of the places where life explains itself. Let that sound dramatic to you, I can live with that. I have learned too much from it, built too much around it, and met too much of myself through it to treat it as neutral.

That is the gift. That is the trap.

Because once something means that much, you become vulnerable to it. You notice when its language changes. You react when it gets flattened. You feel protective even when nobody asked for protection.

This is the part I have to watch.

I care too much sometimes. I probably always will.

It Is Only Running

So maybe there is more to this sentence: “It is only running.”

A necessary correction.

Running can become too heavy if you let it. It can carry so much meaning that the simple act disappears underneath everything you have placed on top of it.

That is when the sentence can save me.

It brings the whole thing back down to earth. It reminds me that running does not need to do something all the time.

I can let it become smaller again: put on shoes, leave the house, let the body take over for a while.

The deeper meaning can wait. The argument, too. The irritation – and also the inspiration – will either still be there afterward, or it will have lost its importance somewhere along the way.

Running does that.

It gives things meaning, and then, if you are lucky, it also takes some of that meaning away again. It lets you care deeply and still return to the simplest version of the thing.

A body moving silently through the world aka Only running.

Thank God for that.
Atheistically speaking.

Everything Not Running

Shoe Talk? Shoe Talk.

For my knee comeback, I have been looking for running shoes that feel simple.

Firm, direct, light enough, low enough, with as little “technology” underfoot as possible. I am not looking for a huge stack, a soft ride, a trampoline feeling, or a carbon plate that turns every step into a little engineering project. A few years ago, this would have been a pretty easy task. These days, it feels almost impossible.

Most modern running shoes seem to be built around comfort, bounce, protection, or some kind of forward-driving sensation. There is nothing wrong with that in general. I understand why people like it. I liked some of it too, before my knee became extremely sensitive to every force that travels through my body.

And force is force. The energy from the ground has to go somewhere.

When I run in a firm and direct shoe, I feel more of the impact in my foot and ankle. That gets tiring at some point, of course, but in my body those structures seem to tolerate quite a lot. When I run in a very reactive shoe, especially a carbon racer, the whole system feels different. The shoe returns energy directly to the knee. Ouch.

When healthy, that is totally fine in reasonable doses. Right now, I am trying to keep my knee load as deliberate and predictable as possible. I do not need extra surprises from below.

The funny part is that I am not looking for anything special. Quite the opposite. I am looking for the kind of no-frills running shoe that used to exist everywhere. Simple, direct, not overbuilt, not trying to impress anyone. Can’t find it, though.

On trails, I am currently getting by with the Adidas Terrex Agravic Speed 2, although even that one feels almost too bouncy for what I am after. For the road and treadmill, I eventually ended up ordering an old Adidas Adios 8 from some slightly sketchy reseller shop, in a truly horrific violet-blue colorway with neon yellow laces. The shoe has basically disappeared from the shelves 3 years ago, but I love it. I went through at least four pairs of it and ran my fastest marathon in one.

If you have tips for firm, direct, lightweight road or trail shoes that still exist in 2026, I am very open to suggestions. Serious recommendations only. My knee will be grateful.

On Repeat

Eyes of Salt is a new hardcore band from Denver, CO. So far, so unremarkable. And yet, somehow, they sound different from almost every other new hardcore band I’ve heard in recent months. More urgent. More piercing. More emotionally sincere.

These qualities are particularly evident in the song I’ve picked, “Flower of Pain.” The fact that Eyes of Salt managed to stretch this simple hardcore song — without a piano intro or outro, or movie quotes — to over five minutes without ever being boring for a single second speaks volumes.

The album “Collapse the Infinite,” released in April 2026, features a whole host of outstanding guest appearances. On “Flower of Pain,” for example, the singer from the band Dead Hearts makes an appearance. A band I’d almost forgotten about.

Pro tip: Keep an eye on Eyes of Salt.

running wylder

Thoughts While Running #38

I have another half baked version of this post where I talk about how collabs are dead but I realized that’s not true when I got an email yesterday granting me early access to the Ganni x Melissa collab and I clicked immediately. My J.W. Anderson x Diadora Equips are somewhere en route between here and Italy…

Read more

2 months ago · 31 likes · 2 comments · Katherine Douglas

Salt & Flickers

Calling It Cringe Lets Them Off the Hook

On May 16th, Adidas x Satisfy staged a performance in the desert. To say the backlash was immediate still makes it sound like the discourse arrived in slow waves. It didn’t. It detonated…

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2 months ago · 49 likes · 14 comments · Howie Goldklang

Running Supply with Cole Townsend

Running Supply #80: When A Niche Brand Goes Mainstream

Thoughts on SATISFY x adidas “The Circle Pit,” cultural divergence, and what could have been done differently…

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2 months ago · 54 likes · 18 comments · Cole Townsend

Notes from JL.

The internet had a fit.

I found it hard to move past the sight of a gong next to a bitumen pump track in the Arizona desert…

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2 months ago · 17 likes · 5 comments · Josh Lynott

Not A Conversational Pace

The Rise Of Performative Running Culture

The term “grifter” has been increasingly thrown around in online communities, and I never actually knew what it meant until recently. I feel that now is the perfect time to educate myself on this term, why it’s relevant in run culture, and provide some commentary on what I’m seeing. This topic has been brewing in my mind for quite some time, and I was i…

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2 months ago · 40 likes · 16 comments · Allison

At first, I did not want to add anything.

The event had already done what these things do now. It split the internet for a few days. Selectively invited and paid influencers posted they had a “great time”. A large part of the running community reacted with mainly two words I kept seeing in comment sections over and over again: cringe and corny. That was before comments and posts started to disappear, get cleaned up, or be replaced by polished, streamlined brand footage.

There are many reasons why this event WTF’ed a lot of people. But the main reason it bothered me so much has not been discussed yet:

A Life Before The Look

I am not a scene gatekeeper. I am genuinely happy for every person who finds punk, hardcore, Straight Edge, running, or any other thing that gives their life more direction, language, friendship, hope or friction, like these things gave me.

I also do not think I know everything better. I do not claim that my own running brand, Willpower, does everything right. That comparison would not even make much sense. Willpower comes from a completely different place, with a completely different scale and purpose than Satisfy, let alone Adidas.

I am writing this because this disturbing brand theatre in the desert moved something personal in me.

Punk entered my life when I was seven or eight, shortly after my parents got divorced. My life was loud and angry, and so was the soundtrack. Hardcore and Straight Edge followed when I was sixteen, and I mean it in the most literal sense I can: they saved my life.

I had started drinking heavily at twelve. Without hardcore and Straight Edge, I probably would have become another small-town fuck-up, and certainly an alcoholic.

Instead, punk and hardcore gave me a clear mind (not always a pleasure), lifelong friendships, ethics, an outlet for anger, a way into the world, empathy, self-reflection, political instinct, and a foundation for almost everything good that came later in my life, including running.

So yes, maybe I take this a little personally.

No Holy Scene

I have no interest in romanticizing hardcore as a holy place. It never was.

The scene has always been too white, too male, and in large parts painfully superficial. Some bands have absolutely nothing to say and some shows would probably be more honestly announced as amateur MMA events.

There is plenty of shadow in that world.

Still, compared to many other subcultures and music scenes, hardcore has held on to a surprisingly stubborn agreement around a few things that make sense: community, DIY spirit, equality, positive thinking aka P.M.A., animal rights, self-criticism, social criticism, and the very basic understanding that Nazis are shit.

That does not make hardcore innocent. But it makes it worth defending from those who want the look without the weight.

Fashion Wearing Hardcore

[This Paragraph has been updated]1

This is where Satisfy bothers me.

Brice Partouche may have his own history with punk, hardcore, and Straight Edge. But Satisfy as a brand does not operate like a punk or hardcore project that somehow found running. It operates like a fashion brand that moved into performance running and repeatedly reaches into punk and hardcore for underground credibility.

And that difference matters.

Personal history does not automatically make every commercial use of that history accountable. Knowing the reference does not mean carrying the responsibility.

Because the issue is not biography. It is behavior.

It is what a brand does with the things it claims to understand. It is whether it contributes to the culture or only uses it as an archive of underground credibility. It is whether the people, bands, shirts, codes, and histories remain part of a living world, or get turned into expensive proof that a product has edge.

Hardcore has always had a simple, imperfect rule: everyone can become part of it, as long as they show up with respect and give something back. You do not need a perfect biography. You do not need permission from the other kids. But you cannot just take the symbols, the shirts, the language, the tension, the dirt, and the danger, filter them through fashion, price them like fashion, and sell them back as culture.

That is not appreciation. It is exploitation.

The Pit Was Already Dead

My whole point is already revealed in the event title: “The Circle Pit”.

Yes, this comes from punk and hardcore. But let’s be honest: the circle pit has not been truly dangerous, weird, or exciting for a long time. It has become the most common crowd animation trick in heavy music. A standard move for big festivals, reunion shows, arena concerts, and bands that have long outgrown the small venues that gave them meaning in the first place.

When someone yells for a circle pit today, it usually feels cringe or corny, unless you are shit-faced enough to mistake choreography for a real mosh pit.

Paid In Credibility

At least the bands at The Circle Pit brand activation were not random. Drain, One Step Closer, Jivebomb, and Upchuck brought the one thing Adidas and Satisfy obviously could never produce on their own: scene credibility.

I am not going to get too deep into why a band would agree to play a gig like this, knowing perfectly well that it has nothing to do with a hardcore show and everything to do with marketing. That is thin ice for someone who has had their own tour bus loaded with Monster Energy drinks and once played at gamescom. And yes, that was actually cool.

Suffice it to say: the average hardcore band fee is probably less than what the Adidas marketing department spends at Starbucks during their lunch break.

Straight Edge For Sale

It is worth mentioning that The Circle Pit was not Satisfy’s first reach into this world. Of all their punk and hardcore rip-offs, their Straight Edge2 capsule pissed me off the most.

They sourced vintage (my friend Andy calls them “OG”) Straight Edge tees, many of them from the prime era of the 90s, overprinted them with Satisfy branding, and sold them through the Satisfy universe, with a Satisfy price tag, of course.

I own most of the shirts that were up for sale. They are in my basement and have most likely, unnoticed, upgraded themselves into homegrown MothTech by now. I still have them, despite all of them being size XL, because that was basically the only size available in the 90s. And the reason I never sold them to Mills Vintage is exactly this: I do not want anyone to make 190 dollars from them, and I do not want anyone to pay 200 dollars for them.

Those shirts carried real meaning for me. Wearing their message gave me strength and confidence when I needed it most. They were not just merch. They were proof that you had shown up, supported the bands, and become part of the world those words came from.

Straight Edge was never a trend, and it was never fashion. In fact, it was not even a subculture or a scene. It is a decision. A deeply personal one, made for a lifetime. And after more than 30 years, it still holds. At least for me.

Taking that depth and meaning, printing a brand logo over it, and selling it back as premium running culture to rich kids is already cynical.

The fact that Satisfy released a 420 stoner-themed collection only a few weeks later makes the whole thing almost too perfect as a symbol.

One drop, Straight Edge. Another one, weed culture. Whatever makes Satisfy appear edgy and underground. Whatever can be turned into a product.

Bridges, Not Campaigns

As I mentioned before, I am not a gatekeeper. In fact, running and hardcore merge surprisingly well. There is a real bridge between them. One that allowed me to move from one passion to another, and one that offers the same possibility to anyone, in both directions. I wrote about that overlap in #28:

But real bridges are built through people, time, care, and contribution. Fake ones are built through campaigns.

Since I do not want to be that grumpy old hardcore kid only complaining from the side of the room, here is an example of how this can be done well: Diadora’s Squadra di Corsa.

The punk and hardcore references there feel authentic because they appear through long-standing relationships, not brand theatre. Bridges built by people who are actually connected to that world. The president of Diadora USA, Bryan Poerner, comes from the hardcore-punk scene, and you can feel the difference between someone carrying a history and someone shopping for one.

And that difference matters.

A brand can touch a subculture with care. Or it can walk in, steal the symbols, book the bands, pay the influencers, film the pogo dancing (cringe alarm), sell the shoe, and call the whole thing underground culture.

That is what The Circle Pit felt like.

And people exposed it. Runners and hardcore kids alike. They decoded it because something real was being used to sell something expensive.

That is where corny turns ugly.

The problem was not a bunch of influencers running on a pump track. The problem was the exploitation of a subculture that stands for everything Satisfy and adidas are not.

Do not write about Arda Saatçi.
Do not write about Arda Saatçi.
Do not write about Arda Saatçi.
Do not write about Arda Saatçi.
Do not write about Arda Saatçi.

Damn.

There are many things about this whole Red Bull desert-running spectacle that heavily irritated me. Mostly the way how ultra running was portrayed clean, loud, big, hyper-masculine, and broadly consumable as a giant marketing machine wraps itself around it. The Cyborg thing did not exactly help. And the biceps flexing. But that one is personal.

I could write that version of this Das Z Letter.

I could become the exact guy I promised my friends Flo Neuschwander and Martin Grüning I would try very hard not to become: the grumpy old man of running, standing at the side of the road with folded arms, mumbling about how everything used to be more honest when people still carried paper maps, ate Minnesota Mashed Potatoes, and brought their families instead of a production crew to an ultra race.

And honestly, that grumpy guy lives in me. He has opinions.

But the truth is more complicated, and probably more uncomfortable.

Arda Saatçi inspires a huge number of people. Literally millions. Many of them will find their way into running because of him. They saw someone move through something absurdly hard with joy, drama, emotion, exhaustion, humor, and visible belief. Enough inspiration to buy running shoes for the first time.

That is great. It really is and I do not want to talk it down. Arda Saatçi is a running hero for many people. A role model. A source of inspiration.

For me, he is none of these things.

What he does and how he does it does not make me want to run. It does not reach the part of me that running reaches when it goes deep or hits hard. It does not give me that feeling of: yes, this is why.

And that is interesting. Because it raises the following question:

Or do they choose us?

The mirror we follow

It would be easy to think running heroes are simply the people who did the biggest things, the most crazy sh*it, or simply win all the races.

The fastest, the strongest, the most fearless. The ones with the longest resume, the wildest race history, the most impossible-looking photos from impossible-looking places.

This idea seems legit. It is also false. At least for me.

Most of the runners who shaped me did not do so because they were impressive on paper, even though many of them were. They shaped me because they gave form to something I was already looking for without knowing it: Depth.

Scott Jurek reached me because Eat and Run showed me that greatness did not have to be loud. That you could do extraordinary things and still carry them with calm, restraint, humor, and a certain softness.

Kilian Jornet reached me because over the thirteen years of my own running life he somehow managed to become more inspiring, not less. The more he won, the less the winning seemed like the whole point. His running, his understanding of the human body, his environmental work, his curiosity, his relationship to mountains and community, all of it grew into something far bigger than athletic dominance.

Zach Miller reached me because, I mean, look at YaboyZachMiller! There are athletes who make suffering look noble. Zach makes it look like he is wrestling a dinosaur in a parking lot and still somehow having the time of his life.

Courtney Dauwalter reached me because she makes dominance look almost suspiciously light. Candy, weird shorts, an unbreakable smile, and pain tolerance from another planet. She makes running ultras feel human.

François D’Haene reached me because even as a full-blooded elite runner, he always seemed connected to a life outside the sport. Family first and a passion for his wine estate. The vibe that training is part of a life, not a hostile takeover of it. No offense, Zach.

Nicky Spinks reached me because she made age, injuries and illness look like bumps in the road, not the end of a runner’s story.

Martin Grüning reached me because he taught me the art of the marathon. He also explained to me why humility matters, and why a lack of it will ruin everything. It took me years to fully understand.

The Willpower Athletes reached me because they reminded me that running can be brave, slightly stupid, playful, and deeply alive. A playground, not a military training camp.

My wife Lisa reached me because she showed me what it means to give yourself to a race without holding anything back. To enter it fully. To let it take what it takes, because otherwise you never find out what is really there.

And my dad will always remain the standard for keeping the love for running alive into older age. No campaign or running book about aging could manufacture that. A life spent running says it all.

I could continue this list for a long time.

There have been many people who influenced my running life. Some famous, some close, and some almost invisible to the outside world. They impressed me, carried me, irritated me, taught me, corrected me, and pulled me forward.

What connects them is not spectacle. It is depth. Depth in their relationship with running. The long arc of staying with something.

That is what I have always searched for in running: Hold.

The inspiration industry

This is where the social criticism enters, unfortunately wearing very expensive sunglasses. Because our current culture does not gently introduce us to heroes. It builds them, packages them, ranks them, edits them, monetizes them, and pushes them into our faces and forces us into admiration.

The modern running hero is rarely just a runner. They are a content engine, the top of the algorithm, a brand and the brand’s products.

This is the part that makes me suspicious. Less the person. More the marketing choreography around the person.

But it obviously works. And I know why it works. We want to feel something. We want to believe in something. We want someone to make running feel enormous, like a miracle.

I just do not need running to convince me of its power anymore. I know what it can do. I know what it can give and what it can take. I know how seductive it is when suffering starts to feel like identity. I know how quickly a big goal can become a black hole you throw yourself into.

So my problem is not that someone runs far through the desert. My problem begins when the whole thing arrives already pre-interpreted and with a trending hashtag: courage, freedom, strength, grit, dedication, you name it. As whatever we are supposed to feel before we even had a chance to feel anything ourselves.

That kind of heroism leaves very little room for doubt. And doubt is where running usually becomes interesting to me.

The heroes who stay

This could be my answer to the question “How do we choose our running heroes?” – I do not choose my heroes by what they achieve. I choose them by what they expose in me.

Some people make me want to train harder. Some make me want to think clearer. Some make me want to stay softer. Most of them remind me that running is a lifelong negotiation rather than a thing you conquer once.

That is a very personal filter. Probably an unfair one, but it is the only one I have.

Arda Saatçi does not pass through it. His running may be huge, emotional, impressive, and important to a lot of people. To me, it arrives with too much volume and spotlight around it. Too much certainty. Too much ready-made greatness. And no depth. I look at it and feel the machinery before I feel the running.

Probably not even Arda’s fault. It only means he is not an inspiration for me.

This could be the whole point. Running heroes are not universal. They are private distortions. We do not admire the same people because we do not need the same things. One runner sees bravery. Another sees branding. One sees freedom. Another sees a business model with legs. One sees a reason to start. Another sees a reason to step back.

None of us watches from nowhere.

We bring our hunger, our wounds, our vanity, our history, our fatigue, our age, our taste, our unresolved bullshit. Then we call the result inspiration.

So, how do we choose our running heroes?

We point at them.
And reveal ourselves.

Everything Not Running

Has anyone actually not seen the mountain rescue documentary In höchster Not yet?

The second season just came out, and somehow they managed to make it even more gripping, more thrilling, and more heartbreaking than the first one. No Hollywood mountain drama comes close, because Hollywood still has to make things up. Real life apparently tells the best stories.

The drama pulls you in, but the warning is what stays.

Social media has made the mountains look accessible, picturesque, and weirdly harmless. In other areas, that distortion is just annoying. In the mountains, it can become dangerous very quickly.

I have written about humility and respect for the mountains many times. But those words only land properly when you see what happens after one bad call, one wrong turn, one weather change, one moment of overconfidence.

In höchster Not shows exactly that. Free to stream in the ARD Mediathek.

On Repeat

Have you heard of the Cancer Bats? Well, you should. As someone said recently: “The most Canadian-sounding Canadian band ever.” That about sums it up.

Unmistakable lumberjack vibes meet hardcore, metal, and rock ‘n’ roll. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing. The Cancer Bats’ mix is a sure shot for anyone who likes it raw and heavy.

New album “Give Me Dirt” coming in August.

Was ist eigentlich diese Running Culture? Steile These: Nicht (nur) das was uns auf Instagram angezeigt wird. Fernab der Profis, Runfluencer, Celebrities und Online-Coaches gibt es nämlich noch den Rest von “uns”. Die breite Masse ohne Sichtbarkeit. Menschen, die einfach nur laufen, ohne sofort jemandem davon zu erzählen… Sagt der, der jede Woche über das Laufen schreibt & erzählt.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Das Z Letter zur Folge

• ON REPEAT: COUNT ME OUT “What We Built”

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.

Most runners will never become visible.

They will never be interviewed, sponsored, photographed at sunrise, added to a brand campaign, invited on a podcast, turned into a case study, quoted in a newsletter, or followed for their motivational quotes. They will never build a platform around their running, never explain their routine to strangers, never post the long run, the comeback, the finish line, the failure, the new beginning.

They will simply go outside, move through their neighborhood for a while, come back sweaty, shower, eat something, answer emails, pick up their kids, call their parents, feed the cat, continue.

That’s the running I trust the most.

The Missing Majority

It’s a fact: the largest part of this sport is almost absent from its public image. What we see every day are the professionals, and of course we should. We also see the almost-professionals, the coaches, the creators, the lifestyle athletes, the celebrities who discover endurance as an exciting personality extension (for a while), and the fictional runners built by brands to tell us how running should look, feel, and sound like. And of course which shoes and shirts belong to which identity.

There is nothing wrong with any of this. It is part of running. It becomes a problem only when we start mistaking it for the whole thing.

We’re at constant risk of letting the visible world replace the real one. We begin to forget that most running happens without any witness at all. No audience, no proof, no one waiting for the story.

That is not the edge of the sport but its center.

Inside The Machine

I honestly admire the people who do not turn running into a subject. There is something deeply sane about that relationship.

These runners seem to ask less from the sport, which might be the reason it can give them more. They do not need running to hold their entire identity together. They do not need every week to look committed from the outside. No approval from anyone. Their love has limits, and those limits protect it.

This sounds a bit uncomfortable coming from me. I write about running all the time. I have written articles, books, newsletters, captions, and long emotional weather reports about what running does to a person. I own a running brand. I have turned a private obsession into public subject so often that I sometimes wonder whether I still know how to experience something without immediately analyzing it, and sharing it with the world.

Some honest tension here. I am part of the visible side, even if only in a small weird corner of it. But writing helps me understand things. To understand myself. It gives shape to my inner mess and also to the beautiful part. It also connects me to people who recognize themselves in the same tension. I do not want to pretend otherwise.

Still, I admire (sometimes even envy) the ones who can leave the run where it happened.

They finish, and nothing has to be extracted from it. The run does not become a metaphor or have to carry a message. It can simply be a run.

Better Boundaries

Sounds like a healthy form of devotion: loving something without forcing it to explain you.

Running becomes dangerous when it has to do too much. When it has to make us feel worthy, interesting, disciplined, healed, special, untouchable, different from everyone else.

I know this because I have asked too much from it myself. I have wanted running to make me strong when I felt fragile, alive and inspired when the rest of life seemed flat. Sometimes it did. But other times it collapsed under the weight of what I needed from it.

The invisible runners remind me that running works best when it stays connected to the rest of life.

In Good Hands

When I write about running, this is what I hope survives underneath my words. I hope the running is only the doorway. A way into questions that belong to far more people than only runners: what we do with longing, how we handle comparison, where we place our hunger, how we continue when the body changes, how we keep something alive without turning it into a public performance.

The runners we never see understand this.

They are not outside the culture. They are the culture. They are the reason running remains much larger than the people who explain it, sell it, document it, and dress it in meaning. They are the foundation under the spectacle.

With them, running is in good hands.

Everything Not (?) Running

Speaking of being invisible: I reactivated my Strava profile yesterday. I’m not exactly sure why, it was just an impulse I acted on without thinking.

I probably felt like I’d crossed a certain threshold with my running that justifies this visibility. I’ve been dreaming for a long time of running about 10 kilometers three times a week, and recently I’ve even added occasional mountain adventures on top of that (yes, still without any downhills).

I’m pretty sure that outsiders don’t make nearly as big a deal out of this small change in visibility settings from “Only you” to “Your followers” as I do. Many probably didn’t even notice that I suddenly disappeared from Strava in January.

What’s different now? Not much. I’m happy to get a few Kudos. However, those aren’t for my outstanding athletic achievements but rather for quirky cat photos, or a little “I’m glad you’re running again.” Plus, I see my weekly stats graph tentatively trending upward. Whether that’s really a trend remains to be seen, but right now my body feels good, and more importantly: I’ve started trusting it again.

All with reservations. I’m not usually the type for on-off relationships, but with me and Strava, it could be over just as quickly as it began.

On Repeat

I still remember very well how I started writing my own songs in the mid-90s. Or at least I tried aka “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Songwriting is a fine art, and it takes years, if not decades, to understand all the rules and, on top of that, be ready to follow them. Or, alternatively, to consciously break them.

Anyway, I always wanted to write a hardcore track like “What We Built” by COUNT ME OUT. Not too much of anything, not too little of anything, 100% on point, full power ahead, pure spirit.

Even today, “What We Built” would still be the blueprint for the ultimate hardcore song.

Of course, it is not normal. It is still absurd to travel to a remote place, put on a small vest, eat wild amounts of food, and move through mountains, forests, heat, darkness, weather, and doubt for days and nights.

Ultra running only feels normal because the language around it has changed. Everyone seems to do it because we see it everywhere. Instagram has flattened the exceptional into the everyday. Once something becomes visible often enough, it starts to look available.

The same thing has happened to moving through alpine terrain.

Somewhere along the way, it became silently expected that if you run trails, you also move through the mountains with natural confidence. That steep descents, exposed ridges, loose rock, river crossings, snowfields, ladders, chains, scree, wind, wet roots, and narrow paths above consequences are simply part of the package. Part of the aesthetic. Part of the fun.

And for some people, they are.

There are runners who seem to belong out there with their whole body. They read rock like a language. They know where to place their feet before they have consciously made the decision. They move lightly, calmly, almost indifferently, through places that make other people’s stomachs drop. I admire that. I really do.

I also know I am not always one of them. I can openly say that. It is not a confession of weakness. It is the kind of knowledge you need in places where pretending can have consequences.

The Illusion Of Being Fine

Fear itself is rarely the real danger.

Fear can be useful. Fear is information. It tells you that something in front of you deserves your full attention. Yes, sometimes it is exaggerated, misplaced, or connected to an old memory rather than the actual situation, but it is still a signal.

The real problem starts when we pretend the signal is not there.

Mountain running has a way of producing a very specific kind of performance. A performance of ease. Everyone wants to look like they are simply flowing through the terrain. Nobody wants to be the person who freezes before the exposed traverse, hesitates at the steep descent, or quietly admits that what they are facing is more than they expected.

So we smile. We joke. We keep moving. We act casual.

Sometimes that works. Sometimes the body follows the act and finds its confidence again. Other times, the act becomes a liability. You override something that deserved to be heard.

I know this from myself.

There are days when I move surprisingly well on terrain that would have made me nervous at another time. My feet are awake, my eyes are sharp, my body feels connected to the ground. I can read the next few meters, solve the small problems quickly, and stay relaxed enough to even enjoy it.

Then there are other days: same person, similar terrain, completely different reality.

Suddenly I feel clumsy, slow, and a little stiff. My steps get louder and my focus narrows. I start thinking too much about every foot placement and do not trust myself in the same way.

I have learned to acknowledge and respect these moments.

Risk assessment starts there for me. With weather, route, exposure, gear, daylight, and escape options, of course. But also with the less obvious inventory: How awake am I today? How steady? Am I stressed out? Am I in danger of becoming a victim of my own pride?

Turning Around Is A Skill

My rule for days like this is simple: I turn around.

Definitely not a heroic rule. It does not sound especially adventurous and it will never make a good caption. But it’s the most important principle I’ve set for myself in the mountains.

When I feel unsafe, I stop trying to convince myself that I am not.

First, because it ruins the reason I went there in the first place. I do not run in the mountains to spend hours in a state of silent tension, pretending that I am having a deep experience while my body is in permanent alert mode and my mind is busy calculating possible failure.

Second, because insecurity changes how we move. The hesitant step is often worse than the confident one. The stiff body reacts more slowly. The anxious mind sees too much and too little at the same time. You start avoiding risk in a way that creates more risk.

And third, because I have nothing to prove there.
To others, yes. That should be obvious.
More importantly, I have nothing to prove to myself.

Experience Is Not A Vibe

Difficult terrain is often discussed as if confidence were mostly a matter of mindset: Stay calm. Trust your feet. Commit.

All of that can be true. It is also super incomplete.

Moving well through difficult places takes experience. A lot of it. Repeated exposure, hundreds of moments where you were scared, handled it, learned something, and slowly became less surprised by what the mountains can ask from you.

You do not become comfortable on exposed ground because you watched enough reels of people skipping over ridgelines. You do not become safe on technical descents because someone sold you a shoe with the perfect outsole. You do not become mountain competent only because it is expected from you as a trail runner.

You need experience. And experience enters the body slowly.

It is built through awkwardness, mistakes, better judgment, small recoveries, bad weather, wrong turns, unexpected snow, loose stones, wet roots, trembling quads, and all the unglamorous moments nobody films because they make everyone look clumsy and uneasy. Or in other words: ordinary and human.

This is where the current culture around trail and ultra running is dishonest.

We have normalized the image of the alpine runner without normalizing the long apprenticeship behind it. We show the ridge, the summit, the long descent into golden light. We rarely show the years it takes to know when a ridge is a ridge and when it is a place you should leave alone that day.

Racing Changes The Question

Everything becomes more complicated in a race.

On a training run, turning around is rather easy. A bit annoying maybe, disappointing sometimes, but easy. You can choose another route, shorten the day, go for coffee, call it a smart decision, and move on with your life.

In a race, turning around usually means that your race is over.

That changes the emotional pressure completely. You have paid money, traveled, trained, told people about your great adventure, imagined the finish, maybe built a whole season around this one day. Then you arrive at a section that asks more from you than you can responsibly give. Behind you, other runners are approaching. In front of you, people are moving through. The markings are clear: This is the way.

A terrible setup for honest self-assessment.

Most races are organized for a broad audience, and most race directors do a serious job of making difficult terrain manageable. Dangerous passages are often secured, marked, staffed, rerouted, or removed entirely. That work is important. It allows many of us to experience landscapes we might never dare to enter alone.

Still, a marked route does not turn a mountain into a theme park.

A difficult place stays difficult. A narrow passage does not become easier because fifty runners are breathing behind you. A wet slab does not care that you are wearing a bib. A gust of wind on a ridge is not softened by the fact that an aid station is only four kilometers away.

That is why organizers carry responsibility.

If a race is made for a broad field, the course has to respect that field. If it contains terrain that requires real alpine competence, the race description has to say that clearly. No romantic code words. No vague talk about “technical beauty” when the actual message should be: you need to be confident and experienced in exposed mountain terrain.

Runners also carry responsibility, of course.

We have to read the information honestly. We have to stop confusing desire with ability. We have to understand that finishing a race is never proof that every decision along the way was smart.

Still, the responsibility cannot be pushed entirely onto the runner. Race organizers shape the frame in which decisions are made. They know what pressure does. They know how hard it is to quit inside a system that is designed to move everyone forward.

The Thrill Is Not The Point

I do not go to the mountains for the thrill.

That may sound strange coming from someone who runs ultra distances and has chosen plenty of objectively questionable ways to spend a weekend. I understand that from the outside, mountain running might look like thrill-seeking by default.

But for me, it is almost the opposite. I go there for release.

For the feeling that my head finally has enough space. For the way the body becomes occupied by something immediate and honest. When the world gets bigger and my own problems and negative thoughts shrink.

And I do not need complicated terrain to feel that.

A simple trail can be enough. A forest climb, a runnable ridge with room for error, a downhill that that makes you feel like flying instead of falling. The mountain does not become more meaningful just because it shows its dangerous side.

At the same time, I know that the mountain alone decides what it gives.

A route can look harmless on a map and still change completely. A landslide can take part of the trail away. A fallen tree can force an awkward detour. A storm can arrive early. A dry path can turn slick. A stream can rise. A strong wind on a ridge can turn a beautiful day into a nightmare.

That unpredictability is part of the agreement.

Running in the mountains means entering a place that does not organize itself around us. The mountain is not hostile, but it is indifferent. It gives nothing just because we came prepared. It owes us neither safety nor drama. It simply is.

A Different Kind Of Courage

There is courage in going on.

Everyone in endurance sports understands that. The long effort, the bad patch, the climb that does not end, the race that slowly strips you down until only stubbornness remains. We have built a whole mythology around continuing, and I understand why.

But there is also courage in stopping.

This kind of courage receives less applause. It often feels terrible in the moment because nobody gets to see the accident that did not happen, the rescue that was avoided, the bad decision that wasn’t made.

Good judgment rarely gets a high five. Maybe that is why it matters so much.

Everything Not Running

I keep thinking about how often adulthood rewards pretending.

Pretending we understand things we only half understand. Pretending we are comfortable in rooms that make us feel small. Pretending we know where life is going while we are feeling completely lost.

That is why I have become more suspicious of confidence that arrives too quickly.

Real confidence comes from having been wrong before. It knows how quickly things can change, how easy it is to misjudge yourself, and how little a strong pose is worth once the ground gets serious.

The older I get, the more I trust people who can say:

“I do not know.”
”I am not sure.”
”This might be too much for me today.”

There is dignity in that.

On Repeat

I managed to hold back for a week, but when the number of repeat plays skyrockets to record levels, it’s clear this is a worthy and long-overdue track for ON REPEAT: 100 Demons – “Meat For The Beast”.

Yes, I know, we’ve already had 100 Demons on ON REPEAT, and I’m usually very hesitant to feature bands more than once. But in this case, it’s simply unavoidable.

Not releasing an album for 22 years and then, against all trends, simply picking up exactly where you left off? Not every band can do that. 100 Demons don’t even try to sound modern or reinvent themselves. They know exactly what their strengths are and exploit them ruthlessly.

100 Demons are back, and “Meat For The Beast” makes it unmistakably clear exactly why that has to be.

Verletzt sein ist kacke. Die Schmerzen sind aber nicht das eigentliche Problem, sondern die Ungewissheit. Sie frisst dich von Innen auf, raubt dir jede Hoffnung und nagt an deiner Liebe zum Laufen. Wirklich so schlimm? Ich bin da mal eingetaucht.

LINKS ZUR FOLGE

• Passender Das Z Letter zur Folge

• ON REPEAT: MASSIVE ATTACK & TOM WAITS “Boots On The Ground”

• ON REPEAT Playlist: Apple Music | Spotify

• Sprachnachricht supporten ja geil 🖤

Die Das Z - Sprachnachricht ist kein Lauf-Podcast von Chris Z, dem Gründer der Laufsportmarke Willpower und Autor der Bücher Runhundred und Hundert-Meilen-Herz.