Welcome,

IRONMAN updated its 2026 competition rules and made it clear that using a device to capture photos or video during the race can get you disqualified, and the wording leaves very little room to interpret it any other way. There is no soft language about being “discouraged” or careful.

No phones for filming.

No GoPros.

No mid-race selfies.

On the triathlon side, I don’t struggle to understand the reasoning. IRONMAN rules are a lot stricter than running, and you can’t even wear headphones (what are you even supposed to think about for 6…10…12…hours… I’m kidding).

Spend five minutes watching an age group bike course and you can feel how fragile the whole thing is. Riders are in aero and inches apart, handling skills vary wildly, and all of it happens at speeds where small mistakes compound quickly. The margin is thin before anyone adds an extra [dangerous] variable. A handful of near misses is usually enough for an organization to decide it has seen enough.

At the same time, finishing an IRONMAN is enormous for a lot of people. It represents years of early mornings, long rides, missed weekends, and a lot of dedication. Wanting something more than a medal and a professionally taken photo that may or may not capture the moment is normal.

Running is usually a lot less chaotic because you don’t have bikes descending at highway speeds and no one is balancing on a bike. Still, race starts do not look the way they did when I ran my first race in 2011. Back then, you might see a finish line photo or someone posing with friends afterward, and that was about it. Heck, iPhones weren’t even mainstream yet. Now phones are out before the gun goes off, while the gun goes off, and all the way to the finish.

Think about this: someone slows abruptly to capture a skyline shot and the pack behind them compresses, then fans out, and someone almost falls. People dart across the course to capture photos with little regard for what is around them. Is this everyone? Of course not, but there are more people doing this than a year ago… or five years ago.

At the Santa Monica Classic this year, I was almost clipped by a swinging selfie stick. I had to get out of their way as they filmed without them once looking up. At another race, I ended up running next to someone who had a crew on a one-wheel filming and cheering for them the entire race. It was one of the least enjoyable 90 minutes of my life because I didn’t want to hear it for 13 miles. Nothing “bad” happened, but what if we were both filming content and not paying attention? What if someone went down hard? I often wonder how many injuries have been caused due to filming on course. The answer is likely not zero.

Part of me misses when races felt less filtered and when the experience mostly lived in your head and maybe in a couple of slightly unflattering race photos that you laughed about later. None of that felt like it needed to be recorded. When I race, I want the same simplicity of purpose, where the focus narrows to effort and the calculation of how much longer I can hold it.

But the thing is, that’s me and what I want. It isn’t everyone’s goal for the race. I understand why people reach for their phones. Official race photos are inconsistent and expensive, and sometimes the only image you get from a goal race is garbage. I won a race last fall and the only photo they got of me “breaking the tape” was out of focus. It bothered me more than it should have, which makes it hard to pretend I do not see the appeal of controlling your own narrative.

But back to IRONMAN.

Is the IRONMAN rule for safety? Or is it for brand protection? IRONMAN is a business with sponsors and broadcast partners, and the images coming off its course have financial value.

Obviously reducing risk on the bike course is logical, but limiting uncontrolled footage also aligns with protecting a brand. Those motivations can coexist without canceling each other out.

Can that be applied to major marathons?

Move that prohibition into a major marathon and the practical reality becomes more complicated. A field of thirty or forty thousand runners stretches across miles of road, with the front pack closely monitored and the rest of the race unfolding in waves that are harder to observe.

Major marathons could write a strict rule into a handbook, and that would be straightforward. Applying it evenly across that entire field is not, and a rule that lives more on paper than in practice starts to feel arbitrary in a way runners pick up on quickly. Think about the stack height of 40 mm shoes. A shoe like the ASICS Superblast or adidas Prime Strung is illegal to race in, but likely that rule is only going to be applied if you are winning a race.

The behavior that truly alters a race is the kind that interferes with others in sustained ways, such as extended arm-out filming in dense packs, on-course escorts weaving through participants, or equipment that turns one person into a moving obstacle. A runner stepping briefly to the side on an open stretch to capture a memory does not carry the same weight, especially when the road is wide and the field has thinned.

Running has shifted over the last decade, whether long-time runners are comfortable admitting it or not. We are in a running boom. Races now function as competition, personal milestone, and social artifact all at once. Some participants care deeply about splits and pace. Others care about telling a story about who they are, where they started, and what finishing represents. Filming has folded into that landscape, and it is unlikely to disappear simply because of a rule about on-course filming.

I am not convinced that copying IRONMAN’s blanket ban would improve the marathon experience in a meaningful way, though I do think the current “anything goes” approach is a safety risk. There is a difference between capturing a moment and turning the course into a production.

Most of us would still line up if phones were banned on course because the clock would still tick, you’d still question your life choices at mile 22, and the medal would still end up in a drawer with the others. Your memories of the event would still live with you forever.

The more complicated question is how much of the race experience we want to relive through a screen and how many more rules in races we are willing to accept?

As always I love to hear YOUR thoughts.

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Welcome,

A more personal newsletter this week.

I’ve been running since 2011. I’ve had bad races, I’ve had races where I blew up and jogged the last few miles feeling sorry for myself, I’ve had races where I ran faster than what I thought I was capable of.

It’s not a secret that I didn’t finish (DNF) at The Marathon Project in December and since then I haven’t raced at all. I think what surprised me most is not that it happened, but how long it has just kind of lingered in the background of running since. To be clear, a DNF is not the end of the world.

I made it just four miles into the race then stepped off the course and that was it. It wasn’t dramatic but the I know it was the right call. During the first mile when marathon pace felt hard, I had the realization that the day I trained for 16 weeks for was not going to go as I hoped.

I know all the rational things about DNFs.

They happen.

They don’t define a season.

They don’t erase the training.

I would tell anyone else the same thing.

I ran my fastest 5ks and 10ks during that training cycle.

It still felt sad driving the six hours home. There’s something about training for 26.2 miles for months and not getting to say you finished that particular day that sits differently than just running slower than planned.

What I didn’t expect was how it would affect the weeks after. After I felt better, I toyed when the idea of running another marathon and most of January training actually pointed that I could race another marathon and be fitter then December. Then I realized, I actually just didn’t want too. I didn’t want to race another marathon and I didn’t want continue to marathon train. I was kind of forcing it because I felt like I needed too.

People would ask what I was racing next and I would give vague answers or say I wasn’t sure yet. It wasn’t that I didn’t have options. It was that I didn’t really want to pin a bib on and care that much again right away. So now it’s been over two months since I’ve raced and three since I finished a race. That surprised me more than the DNF itself because there are some periods during the year I will race [5ks] almost every weekend.

A DNF doesn’t give you closure in the same way a bad finish does. You can blame pacing or fueling or weather. When you step off, there’s a blank space where the ending should be. But this isn’t a newsletter to feel sad for me. There are plenty more marathons to be run when I want too.

Today I’m heading on a work trip to Alexandra and DC. I signed up for the One City 5k on February 28th because I couldn’t go to Northern Virginia without going to Southern...I’ve always wanted to be a part of that race weekend and I’m not feeling anything longer at the moment.

I signed up for the 5K, and what surprised me is how long I stared at the registration page before actually committing, because objectively there was no reason to hesitate. I like 5Ks. It’s probably my favorite distance to race.

What I kept coming back to, though, was the idea of caring again in a way that feels exposed. Once you register, even for a local 5K, there’s a shift even if you are doing something “for fun”.

You imagine how the first mile will feel and whether you’ll go out too hard. It stops being just training and starts being an event with an outcome attached to it, and after stepping off at The Marathon Project I think I’ve been avoiding that subtle shift more than I realized.

Once you register, even for something small, it shifts in your head. You start thinking about splits and you care a little more. I think I was avoiding that part. Training is mentally safe because your outcome isn’t on display. You can have a bad workout (LOL like I did yesterday) and no one really knows.

A 5K doesn’t give you time to sort yourself out...you go out hot and hold on. You’re either ready to sit in that or you’re not, and there isn’t a lot of room for mistakes. I’ve always liked that about the distance, which is probably why it felt like the right place to start again.

I don’t see it as redemption and I’m not pretending it erases the DNF. December still happened and that race still ended the way it did but I guess I am willing to put a bib on again. Maybe you can relate to that.

As always I love hearing YOUR thoughts.

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Welcome and happy (belated) Valentines’s Day,

A Valentine to 2011-Me

If I could find you, 2011-me who had just started running, it wouldn’t be at some cinematic overlook with a sunrise and swelling soundtrack. It would be in a parking lot after a local 5K, still wearing the singlet.

I’m going to tell you what I wish someone would’ve told me when I first started running in 2011.

You’re Not Broken. You’re Early.

You’re not broken. You’re just early in the lifelong learning curve with running.

I got injured a lot in my twenties. The combination of minimalist shoes and running too fast, too hard did not work for me, but I kept pushing until I literally broke bones. At the time I thought the runners I admired had some secret grit gene I didn’t. It wasn’t that. They just knew how to tell the difference between training discomfort and actual damage.

I didn’t.

I would have a niggle and think...it will just go away. You can’t outrun broken bones.

The truth is I run way more now than I did fifteen years ago. I handle more volume and I do harder workouts, but my easy runs are much slower. Sometimes 12 or 13 minute pace. I don’t feel embarrassed because I understand what those miles are doing.

When you stack stress on stress without recovery, performance slides long before you’re willing to admit it. Treat recovery like training. You won’t fully believe that until you lose seasons to something preventable, but that’s part of the education.

It’s Easy to Get Sucked Into Trends.

When I started, minimalist running was the big shiny thing. Zero drop. As little shoe as possible. For a stretch in 2015 and 2016, I raced in two ounce shoes because they were the thing. I pick up a pair of shoes that weigh 7 ounces now and I’m like wow these are light LOL.

Trends aren’t inherently bad. Sometimes they bring good ideas to the surface. The problem is how runners adopt them and we go from zero to 60 into a new trend. It’s also how many people got injured with carbon plated footwear.

That pattern doesn’t stop with shoes. There are trends in workouts, recovery tools, nutrition advice, whatever the industry is selling this month. You don’t need to be doing double threshold, buying thousands of dollars worth of recovery gear and taking 32 supplements to run well.

You also don’t have to prove anything by adopting every new idea..if something doesn’t work for you...that’s ok.

The Sport Will Change.

The sport itself is going to get faster and a little weirder. Times will drop in ways that would have seemed outrageous a few years earlier. Governing bodies will scramble to draw lines around what is and isn’t allowed.

It’s easy to watch that and feel like you missed something. Like everyone else figured out a shortcut. Like you’re behind.

The sport changes. Technology changes. Information changes. Comparing across eras as if none of that moved is a losing game.

Let yourself evolve with it. You’re getting older, wiser, etc, and the industry is also changing.

The Internet Is Not Your Coach.

At the same time, the internet is about to start training you if you’re not careful. Does anyone remember Dailymile? Running becomes public in a way it never was before. It rewards consistency, which sounds harmless until you realize it doesn’t know whether that consistency is smart or stubborn. It’s easy to praise someone who has had a running streak for 1000 days but that usually means they’ve run through sickness or some sort of injury too. (not all the time, but usually...)

I’m not anti-Strava. I actually enjoy the platform. I’m anti-making decisions because of Strava (My thoughts on Strava here).

It’s ok and even great to share your training but remind yourself you are running for you. Not for someone else and you shouldn’t adapt your training for the internet.

Stop Trying to Win Training.

You love being the hardest worker in the room. Most runners do.

The problem is you can win a week and lose a season. You can crush a workout and dig a hole you won’t see until something flares up two weeks later.

I always come back to this question: is taking a few days off to prevent an injury better than taking a few months off to recover from one?

The biggest win with running is stacking months that look boring from the outside. The runners who stay in the sport aren’t always the ones who can suffer the most in a single moment. They’re the ones who adjust before something breaks.

If you need to motivate yourself just to start the run, it probably isn’t the day for a workout. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone.

You’re Still Allowed to Want It.

Caring is not the problem and neither is wanting to improve and lining up when it scares you. Looking back, it’s strange to realize you survived your own bad ideas. The sport changed but you changed with it. You learned, sometimes the hard way, and you’re still showing up.

That’s the valentine.

As always, I love to hear your thoughts. What is something you would tell your past self?

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Welcome,

I’ve only run one Marathon Major, and it was New York. This was years ago, before social media was what it is today, before every race experience had to be turned into a Reel with a lesson attached, before every meaningful moment had to be packaged and captioned. It was honestly incredible, and it’s probably why I applied again this year even though I know the odds are bad and I’ll most likely be getting another polite rejection email in my inbox.

I lived in the Northeast back then, and my life was different. I like my life now, and I genuinely like living in the desert, so this isn’t me wishing I could rewind time, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss pieces of that version of my life sometimes. New York is tied up in that for me in a way none of the other races are, so here I am, applying again, fully aware of the odds, fully expecting nothing to come of it, and still doing it anyway...because why not.

At the same time, I have zero interest in most of the other Majors. Boston has never been on my list. I respect it, I get why people care, I understand the history and the prestige, but it does nothing for me personally. Anyway...

Every year when the World Marathon Major lotteries open, though, social media loses its mind. One day everyone is posting normal training content, and the next day it’s screenshots of rejection emails, soft music, captions about trusting timing, talking about how this race has been “on their heart” forever.

This is especially intense with the Majors, because they’ve been framed as the ultimate achievement for runners, the thing that supposedly sits at the top of the pyramid, with everything else feeling secondary. It stops being “I’d love to run this race someday” and turns into “this is my identity now,” which is a lot of pressure to put on a single event. What happens if the race doesn’t go well, you get sick, or something happens?

I understand the appeal. These races are cool. Running through New York or Berlin or Tokyo is different than running a local marathon, and it doesn’t make you shallow to care about that. The scale, the crowds, the atmosphere, the sense of being part of something massive, all of that is real.

What feels off is how quickly running one of these races turns into status.

People aren’t manifesting their hometown marathon. They’re manifesting one of these seven races, the ones that come with bragging rights, the ones that come with social currency, the ones that immediately change how people talk about you in running spaces. Instead of saying, “I’m trying to get in and seeing what my options are,” it turns into this whole performance about trusting the universe while also tagging races, brands, media outlets, and anyone who might possibly be useful.

Influencing is a job. Pitching yourself is part of that job. I don’t think that’s embarrassing. I think pretending it isn’t happening is. There’s a fine line to dance where people want the benefits of visibility and access without ever acknowledging that they’re actively working for it.

IE: People want the benefits and perks of being an “influencer” without acknowledging they are one. I could create a secondary post about that and not disclosing paid partnerships when legally...you should be.

There are very normal ways to get into these races when lotteries fail, and charity is one of them. I try and do a charity race once a year and it is both challenging and rewarding. I’ve mentioned a couple of times, but I didn’t get into Gold Coast Half Marathon. I didn’t realize the race sold out in a couple of hours and when I went to sign up after work, it was sold out. So, I applied to fundraise, I got in, and now I’m fundraising. It’s a lot of work and I’m at $915 out of $3000.

Charity means fundraising posts, reminders, awkward asks, managing deadlines, feeling vaguely uncomfortable the entire time, and trying not to annoy everyone you know. It can easily feel like a second job layered on top of training, and not everyone has the time, energy, or desire to take that on.

That’s where the privilege piece comes in. Chasing the Majors takes money, time, flexibility, support, and a body that cooperates for years in a row. It takes being able to lose money sometimes and not have it derail your life. When you actually add it up, between entries, flights, hotels, food, gear, and time off work, finishing the series can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, which is wild when you remember that this is supposed to be a hobby.

That’s assuming nothing goes wrong. No injuries, no illness, no burnout, no family emergencies, no work chaos, no random life curveballs. I’ve lost money on races, and so has basically everyone who’s been running long enough.

There’s also this unspoken hierarchy that forms around it.

Run a small race and people say “cool.”
Run Berlin and they ask your time.
Run Boston and they ask how you qualified.
Run all of them and suddenly you’re treated like running royalty, or at least feel like it.

But seven marathons is seven marathons. The work is the work no matter where you do it.

The Majors are shinier, more crowded, and better marketed. Meanwhile, people are lining up every weekend at smaller races, grinding through training cycles, chasing personal goals, and putting in just as much effort without the fanfare.

Running still gets sold as cheap and simple, and at its core it is. Shoes and road. But the culture around it now is layered with status, comparison, and consumption in ways that make it feel anything but simple.

I’m not anti-Majors. Not even close. They can be meaningful, motivating, emotional, and genuinely life-giving for people. If that’s your dream, I’m not here to talk you out of it.

I just think we should be more honest about what it takes to pursue them and who realistically gets to. Someone working multiple jobs and barely able to squeeze in runs may not have the same option as someone who has time, energy, and resources to run.

You don’t need a Seven Star medal to be legitimate. You don’t need to chase the same goals as everyone else.

It’s okay to want New York because it actually means something to you. It’s okay to not care about Boston. It’s okay to love your local race. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to not want to run a marathon at all. Running is personal. Your goals and why you run are too.

As always, I love to hear YOUR thoughts.

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Welcome,

Why does this have to be political.

Why are people bringing politics into running.

Can’t this just stay about the sport.

I don’t follow you for politics.

I’ve had my blog for 16 years, and for most of them, I was able to keep politics off the blog. But that’s not where we are now.

I understand the instinct behind that reaction, that running isn’t political, but I also think it depends heavily on whether the systems around you have ever made running feel unsafe, restricted, or conditional.

For a lot of people, running has always required navigating rules, surveillance, fear, or risk that had nothing to do with fitness. That didn’t start with the rise of influencers or people posting opinions. It has always been there.

Right now, we are watching people detained, deported, criminalized, and killed. We are watching laws change who gets medical care, who is protected at work, who is allowed to exist in public without being questioned or targeted. None of that disappears when someone puts on a pair of running shoes.

The simple act of running depends on public space, public safety, time, healthcare, and the assumption that your body moving will not be treated as a threat. Those are political conditions whether or not anyone wants to name them. A few months ago, I wrote an article about someone who trained but almost didn’t run the Chicago Marathon because they were afraid they would be pulled off course. Not everyone has to deal with that.

So when people say running should be apolitical, what they usually mean is that running has never felt political to them personally. That is not the same thing.

Should Influencers Speak Out?

At the same time, I want to be very clear about something that gets muddled online. Influencers are not required to speak out. Having a following does not make someone a journalist or an activist. Some people are not informed enough to speak responsibly. Some are just trying to survive their own lives. Some people could be reprimanded at work for speaking out.

Silence does not automatically tell you everything about a person’s beliefs. Does it usually tell you something? Yes. But it does not always, and that is something I have been working to remember.

It’s also worth naming that not everyone who stays quiet online is doing nothing. Some people are putting real time, money, and risk into work that doesn’t translate to posts or stories. This could be organizing locally, supporting legal funds or showing up in ways that don’t perform well on the internet. Those can be more important than posting on social media.

But following someone is still a choice.

When you follow, like, comment, and engage, you are supporting their platform. I’ve written before about how likes shape influencer culture. That is true even if they never post a single opinion and only share workouts or race photos. Attention is not neutral. It has consequences whether we want it to or not.

If speaking out is important to you, then you should consider who you are following. If that person hasn’t spoken out and you believe it matters, ask yourself this: are you really following someone for who they are, or for the ideal version you want to see?

So if speaking out matters to you, and you notice that someone you follow is consistently silent, you are allowed to decide that this no longer works for you. You can stop giving your attention to something that feels misaligned. You can unfollow, even if you’ve followed for years because when you give attention, whether through likes, follows, or comments, you are directly supporting them. You are supporting the metrics that can lead to brand deals and income.

Running doesn’t become political because someone posts about it. It becomes political when the systems around it decide who gets to move freely, who gets questioned, and who gets punished for existing in public. Ignoring that doesn’t make it go away. It just makes it easier for the people who have never had to think about it.

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