It Is Only Running
Why I can’t leave running alone
I am glad my thoughts on the Circle Pit campaign made the rounds.
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.
“Es ist nur Laufen.”
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.
I run roads mostly in the Brooks Ghost because it's the "firmest" and most "direct" shoe in their line. I'll switch to something squishier once or twice a week because I believe the variety is good for the lower legs. Keep 'em guessing. Any luck finding an insole that works? That's another way to take out some of the squish. I like Superfeet blue (the thin ones).
As to, "It's just running," there's a lot of emotion in that statement. I catch myself tempering my real feelings about running because I don't want to sound like a lunatic. But at the end of the day, we bleed for this.
Appreciate you!
Hallo Chris, danke für den tollen Artikel, ich lese deine Beiträge immer super gerne. Und danke auch für den Tipp mit der ARD Doku In höchster Not, hab ich die letzten Tage mit Grippe gleich durchgebingt 😅.
Ich mag die Schuhe von Altra sehr gerne. Meine Lieblinge sind der eher dünnsohlige Lone Peak und der etwas bouncigere Timp. Beide ohne Sprengung und super viel Platz für die Zehen.