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The RunGnosis Speculator, Vol. I

By Steve Sisson in newsletter —

I don’t know about you, but it feels like the destruction of the world is right around the corner. It seems that it would be extremely useful to be able to outrun this destruction. My hope for this newsletter is that it will provide food for thought, techniques to explore & ways of becoming more capable of handling anything that washes up on your shores.

How can running help?

I think anyone who runs consistently has experienced the deep inner knowing that our bodies are necessary to further our inner growth & personal development. My writing is in exploration of this knowing &, paradoxically, the not knowing that running affords. Running is a path with heart & its value extends far beyond fitness, weight loss or competitive results. When we run, we tap into a primal awareness - the birthright of a body & its deeper connection to the whole of the natural world. When we run we are directly experiencing meaning.

No one talks about these aspects of running. The magazines focus on gear & tech & how the elite train to get faster. Books reveal personal stories of success, mental tips for improvement & nutritional advice to transform your running. Coaches bring the physiology & strategy for taking training to the next level. But what about our hearts & minds & souls? Who is guiding us to explore meaning & purpose or why we should even care about what pace the next rep should be or why one more mile will make any difference in how we relate to the world around us?

I will.

But c'mon! Not another newsletter. I know, I hear you. But let me meet your eye-roll with this vulnerable admission: I have something to say. I believe I have something important to say. Obviously you’ll be the judge of that, along with anyone else you turn on (or off) to this project. But I can make the solemn oath that what you read will be fucking interesting.

I’ll also admit that I am doing this as much for myself as I am for you.
Seriously. I need an outlet for all the crazy shit that runs through my head. I keep finding these topics spill over into my athlete meetings & I expect they get a little tired of my evangelizing running as a movement practice.  In my gig as a running coach, I am always providing workouts & content that I hope will have actionable results. People pay me so they can have a positive starting line experience, not for me to opine on esoteric theories & explore insights that may not actually pay off in PR’s. But I need an outlet that will allow me to share more of what I believe will allow us - as individuals & as a species - to become capable of “outrunning the destruction of the world.”

The Format
I am still working out the specifics of how I’ll format the bi-weekly newsletter, but it will include at least the following:

  • Discovery: A few interesting articles, essays, studies, blog posts or podcastsI feel have something worth sharing & sounding off about. It could trigger a rant, a cheer or a “holy shit” moment. Basically, anything that rolls up on my attentional shore that I feel is interesting & worth sharing. In most cases, I’ll post some of my thoughts or reflections. Expect a very wide ranging & eclectic assortment. I expect the main areas of interest will be philosophy, psychology, spirituality, science, music, art, books, etc. Like I said, I have a lot of divergent interests but as a lifelong runner, I feel I can bring coherence & curiosity forward in a way you’ll resonate with.
  • Performance, aka Pursuit: One aspect of the sport of running that I find extremely tiresome, is how our media exclusively focuses on the surface aspects of competition. She won; he lost; then move on to the next one. This attitude has seeped into the racing mindset of the rest of us who are not elite or professional athletes. I believe in a beautiful race & each race I run or watch becomes another opportunity for transformation.
  • Gnosis: Each newsletter will have some reflection on “knowing”, or gnosis. Gnosis is a Greek word that translates to knowledge. But our English term “knowledge” simply cannot contain the immensity & diversity of the experience of knowing that is communicated in Greek. Perhaps the simplest yet most encompassing definition of gnosis would be knowledge based on personal experience or perception. This anecdotal form of knowing is increasingly held suspect in our modern society where the importance of empirical evidence & scientific methods have lengthened human lifetimes & exponentially improved quality of life. But I’d argue that the process of reducing human experience to simply data does not hold up in the experience of most runners I know. We live our most meaningful moments outside, on the roads & trails & track searching for the line of flow out there just in front of us.
  • Books & Music: I spend a lot of time reading & listening. An admitted book hoarder, the Japanese have the amazing word tsundoku to refer to my many happy book pile, I am constantly curating reading lists for future reflection. This is one of the main reasons I am starting this project, to enforce any kind of positive return on the investment in all these books. I am also a very amateur music critic, but I haven’t written about music beyond the occasion year-end “best of” lists. I figure I can turn some of my attentional investments into interesting content for you to consider.
  • Other Interesting Shit: Basically this will be a short list of other things I found interesting but don’t have much to say about it beyond wow!

Cool. Well that’s the project. I hope you enjoy it. If you do subscribe! & then forward it to folks you think will enjoy it.

Below is the inaugural issue of The RunGnosis Speculator!

Discovery

Thai Richards (standing, first from left), the “consummate vibe curator”, becomes the face of the New York City Marathon.

The Revenge of the Stoned
I have been an enthusiastic practitioner of the spirit run for over 30 years. The very first time I got stoned - one hot summer evening in dirt lot in San Antonio - I had a problem. I had to get home from a party I was not supposed to be at & didn't have a car, so I did what has always come naturally...I ran.

I will never forget the way running transformed my chemical disorientation into a smooth, rhythmic flow & connecting my mind & body.

Being high has never been the most enjoyable experience for me. I mean, to be sure, it never stopped me from burning one down, but the actual physical sensation of my mind firing down a thousand dead ends has always been unpleasant. But if I can go on a spirit run, the attention moves away from an incessant mental/emotional regurgitation to a flowy, stream of conscious sensation I can only describe as being at home in my body. As a teenager, my body was a mass of confusing mixed signals. Running should have provided a sense of relaxation but the responsibilities & pressures of being a competitive athlete combined to create more confusion. On this first spirit run I experienced a feeling that, until then, I had only experienced running on single track trails surrounded by wild nature. Here I was running in Girbaud jeans & ropers, down darkened suburban streets trying to get home before curfew, & a luminous, glowing oneness & rightness permeating my soul.  Unfortunately this sense of goodness was always tinged with the illicit.

I use the word revenge in the title because I feel like weed is finally getting its moment & has become en vogue. I am so happy cannabis is finally being legitimized. I don't partake (much) any longer, but it's always seemed so ridiculous that alcohol is celebrated & while weed was stigmatized. America is a society of seekers of altered states, & runners are especially so. Even five years a go I could not imagine an article like this in Runner's World...or even Trail Runner, but I am so happy that Thai, the "consummate vibe curator", has this platform to celebrate the full experience of his life as a runner.

One Man’s Lifelong Quest to Destigmatize the Way We Think About Weed and Wellness

A few random things l resonated with in this really well written article:

  • “The stigma around cannabis as we know is changing yearly due to science and motherfucker’s like me who showcase anything is possible with the right lifestyle. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”
    Preach, my friend, preach!
  • “You know the suburbs. Either you’re doing sports or you’re doing drugs or you’re doing both."
    Sounds familiar to me.
  • “Running through the woods changed my perspective immediately.”
    More truth. While I was always a very competitive track & road runner, my true north star was a single track trail.
  • Those Bang Bangs sound awesome!
Lead Photo: Kent Horner/Getty Images for Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series

Study: Physiology of Fast Runners
In November THIS STUDY of the physiology of very elite marathoners (sub-2:10) provides some very interesting takeaways for those of us slower than these amazing athletes. The study itself is, like most scientific literature, a challenging read. I checked out Amby Burfoot's Outside/Podium Runner reflections on the study. I did not always agree with his point of view, but it is a highly interesting read.
Below are  few of my quick takes:

  • Combination, not Isolation. I have been preaching this for many years as I saw it play out with my athletes: you cannot isolate aerobic capacity or lactate tolerance or economy. Humans are living systems, not machines, & there is a spectrum of variables at play that are critical in how they interact or combine to make great performances. Then we train a whole living system...not a specific physiological variable.
  • Technology is not Neutral. Expect to see more & more scientific innovations in nutrition & shoes. Since the difference in elites is less physiological, faster times will come from innovations in these areas, rather than training theory/implementation. How you consider implementing these innovations is really important. Over the last 40 years, I have seen an unbelievable uptick in the technological advantages available for runners. In the last 10 years, especially with smartwatches & shoes, these advantages are beginning to fundamentally change the way we run & the way we think about running. I know I'll sound like a curmudgeon here but I am very concerned. I think we need to be wary of losing the joy, the beauty & the pleasure of running. Technology is not neutral. It has the potential to reveal, as Martin Heidegger says, but we can can get trapped if it begins to do the opposite by concealing our humanity to us. This is something I think about, a lot.
  • Train Old School; Race New School. I want to throw something out here on a specific point: your best bang for your buck is to train consistently & systematically with old school gear & bring out the fly shit in a few key workouts & races. When you train with all the innovations, you become accustomed to those benefits. I think it is best to save those extras for the big days, not for everyday training.
  • Kiss My Ass! I HATE statements like this:
"And it remains true that one of the best ways to succeed in running is to choose your parents carefully."

I get that it was tongue in cheek & injecting a little levity in a dry topic. But in my experience, for athletes at our level, the best way to succeed in running is to train consistently & effectively, working a variety of systems & pathways to develop the most integrated & co-evolved living system possible.
There is a sense of fatalism in that quote that I just cannot abide & is detrimental to our common cause of striving.
Kiss my ass, Amby!

What are your thoughts?

Pursuit

There is so much going on in the track & field world right now. The NCAA Indoor Championships two weekends ago & the World Indoor Championships is this past weekend. The upcoming Outdoor World Championships are in July in Eugene & this will be the first track & field world championships ever in United States.
Two results from this weekend I want to discuss & then a few reflections on last summer's Tokyo Olympics.

Ajee Wilson's First World Title
After years of disappointments, Ajee Wilson, the face of the US women's 800m for so long, finally gets her gold. In a masterclass of 800m tactics, she beat back years of almosts with an emphatic finally.

Wilson, who will likely be considered one of the greatest US 800m runners ever, has fought back from so much disappointment. She has won multiple wold medals but had never had the national anthem played for her performance. Years of intersex wrangling & her controversial drug suspension, culminated in this win.
Perhaps most impressive though, is the way she won this gold. Known for her front running tactics, Wilson sat just behind the leaders for 500m before making a decisive & commanding move with 300m to go. She hit the bell laps in full flight & shattered the pack behind her. No one could mount a challenge & she accelerated all the way through the finish line. An impressive race.
Some will mention the fact that two of the favorites (Athing Mu & Keely Hogkinson) were not in the final but I think they both would have had a hard time matching Ajee in Belgrade. Of course, we can't wait to see what happens at the World Outdoors in Eugene in July.

Isaiah Harris' Anchor Leg in the 4x400m Prelims
You might be wondering why I would highlight a preliminary round & failure to qualify for the final's moment. But the level of courage & sacrifice that Harris displays in this race really inspires me. I have always been a fan of Isaiah's as he has continued to compete at the world level in the 800m. Seeing he & Donavan Brazier on this World 4x400m team was really exciting. But the way this final 150m goes down is so painful to watch.

Unfortunately, the US did not make the finals. I hope Harris is able to recover from this hamstring injury in time for the US Championships this summer.
The antithesis of encouraging is the rancor & decisiveness shown on THIS LETSRUN.COM thread. Heroic or not, let's celebrate self-sacrifice for a national team effort on the largest stage. This thread reminds me how small people can be sometimes.

TOKYO REFLECTIONS

By Golly, Miss Molly for the bronze!

THE MARATHONS
I mean could we have asked for more excitement & drama?

The Women's race was a classic showdown of the worlds fastest marathoner & the world's fastest half marathoner in atrocious conditions - & that wasn't even close to the most interesting narrative. Molly Seidel just stole the show with her incredibly courageous run. How does a person with a PR a full 10 minutes slower than Brigid Kosgei convince herself to run shoulder to shoulder with her & even take the lead a few times late in the race? Someone who tells herself she belongs. Someone who has been in hell & has battled back. Someone whose character - being her aspiration - carries the day. In short, someone who is a warrior.

No matter how much someone is struggling or where they’re at, just knowing deep down that it can get better is so important. You can get through it. And you owe it to yourself to be fully mentally healthy as well as physically healthy. Once you can sort that out, anything’s possible.

-Molly Seidel

& speaking of warriors,  in the men's race the GOAT did it again. As inspiring as Molly's race was, I found Kipchoge's to be equally so. The way he dominated the race was astounding. He controlled everything from the front & its like he just went about his day at the office.  The majesty of those final 6 miles: the power & the command, I will never forget. It is unbelievably hard to stand & deliver when the entire world expects it. Look at Simone Biles & her struggles through the pressure. We take champions for granted & sometimes fail to realize the challenges associated with being the greatest. Kipchoge does it over & over & over.
He produced another masterclass on being a champion.

The race for silver & bronze in the men's race was also inspiring as two training partners worked together to secure silver & bronze. Abdi Nageeye & Bashir Abdi were not names anyone would have picked to win a medal, but they had run fast times & garnered enough results to get them to the starting line.  These two Somalian refugees & teammates train together yet compete for their adoptive countries. In the final 10K, they found themselves together in the chase pack as Laurence Cherono tried to blow the race open. But he couldn’t get away from this pair. In the final few miles, Nageeye was encouraging Adbi to stay in the race - he was experiencing hamstring issues - with gestures & verbal encouragement. This continued all the way through the final 200m, as they both eeked past Cherono in the final sprint. Racing on the world stage is sometimes devastatingly brutal.

Marcell Jacobs & Gianmarco Tamberi

DOUBLE GOLD FOR ITALY?!?!
Within minutes of each other, two Italians win gold medals & embrace in a SPONTANEOUS HUG on the track. Neither was expected to win & both did so in dramatic fashion.
Gianmarco Tamberi tied for the gold medal in the high jump after his competitor, Qatar’s Barshan decided they would share the medal rather than having a jump-off.
Marcell Jacobs shouldn’t even have been in the final. No one expected him to win & yet he did.
I love these kinds of serendipitous occurrences. They make me feel like there is a hand guiding our seemingly meaningless & purposeless lives. I won’t wax philosophical or spiritual here, but I do feel this sense of rightness in the world when these kinds of synchronistically charged situations occur.

Of course there was outrage at this beautiful accident: ties aren’t supposed to happen in the Olympics or any Italian 100m gold medalist must be a doper, etc. I shake my head at the angry little bubbles these haters live in. Life must be so meaningless for those that lead with cynicism & skepticism. Listen, I appreciate their point of view & can’t deny that I had a sense that perhaps ties aren’t the best option in the Olympics - but who was harmed here? Will anyone else be harmed in the future? I don’t think so. & as for Jacobs being a doper, well that tired old attitude is killing the sport these haters must love. Doping is the silent killer of our sport’s beauty & magic. I am not naive, but I chose to be enchanted - not disenchanted - by amazing feats of power, grace & endurance. Okay, I am stepping off my soapbox now.

Another happy moment happened for Jacobs as he won the World Indoor 60 meter sprint gold in a very tight finish with Christian Coleman.

Gnosis

A BEAUTIFUL RACE
To inaugurate this newsletter, I thought I would highlight an essay I wrote that encapsulates the heart & soul of the RunGnosis project.

A beautiful race is a unique, indelible experience of running in a way that aligns with our purpose, our identity & how we derive meaning out of our unique human experience.
-Steve Sisson

I hope you enjoyed volume 1 of The RunGnosis Speculator.
Please subscribe for more & share with others.