When Did Running Get Cool?
We bring in an expert to answer this heavy hitting question.
Welcome to the second edition of the Rabbitwolf Newsletter Without Steve. He remains at home with his infant daughter. Because of this, I’ve had to bring in another ringer. Would you like to be a guest on the Newsletter? Do you have anything interesting to say? Send me an email with a pitch and I’ll consider it (ryan@rabbitwolfcreative.com).
Alright. Today’s guest is Paul Snyder. You might know Paul from his blogging days at Citius Mag, or as the inventor of the Blue Jean Mile, or perhaps for his chapter in New York Times Best Selling novel, Upon Further Review or even for his viral tweets:
Paul’s other achievements include being one of my dearest friends, being a father, and possessing a truly beautiful mind. Today, he does laps around me intellectually as we try to make sense of the running scene in 2025.
Before we get to that…
This week, due solely to blackmail and a litany of threats I will not publish here, the Reader Of The Week is Eric Senseman. Congrats to Eric. I hope you’re happy.
Ryan: Hello Paul.
Paul: Hey Ryan.
RS: Thanks for joining the newsletter. I'm sure there's a good overlap of our audience that has read something you've written. But for the uninitiated, can you give us a one sentence introduction to who you are and why you matter?
PS: Thanks for having me, Ryan. I guess professionally you would say I’m a copywriter who moonlights as a running blogger, and more importantly, you and I are old friends.
RS: That's right. You and I have known each other since, what, 2012?
PS: Correct. We met in the Flotrack summer intern bull pen and immediately hit it off, completely alienating ourselves from our peers in the process. I remember our first interaction with what I am sure is a totally inflated sense of clarity - you strolled in with a rolling suitcase a few minutes after me. I think you were wearing jean shorts. We were talking about early 2010s Pitchfork-approved indie rock within minutes. The rest is history.
RS: Incredible. From the airport straight to the office. We both had amazing haircuts back then.
This is also a good way to kick off what we want to talk about today. Which is mostly dwelling on the past and talking about how much things have changed. That's right, we're two old dudes that are going to do some REFLECTING but also COMPLAIN about what the world has come to. Feel free to delete this email now.
Paul, what do you remember about running–as an activity and its cultural significance–back in 2012.
PS: Great question. I’ll get to an answer, but first let’s focus for a moment on something you just said: “we both had amazing haircuts back then.” Now, for your readers’ benefit, you were being sarcastic. Our “haircuts” were just the result of a friend giving us a buzzcut, then that buzzcut growing out. We looked unkempt, bad even, and we didn’t care. And that’s basically how I remember the running world operating back in 2012. Marketing materials hadn’t begun to borrow anything from skateboarding. Athletes on starting lines looked dorky. Nobody was paying for haircuts. Running was in no way, shape, or form cool, and if Vogue had published a piece about run clubs being the new dating app back then, I think it would have landed like a cruel joke.
RS: 100%. Running was for dorks. You couldn't find an interesting piece of running apparel if your life depended on it. Colors were neon or beige. Shoes were bulky and ugly in a way that is different to how shoes today are also bulky and ugly. The coolest thing in running marketing were those photos adidas put out of a woman taking a shit behind a tree. Other than that, I think the most visible cultural reference to running as an activity at the time was Andy from the The Office doing a 5k while his nipples bled through his shirt.
We were all ugly back then. Nearly 15 years later that's all changed. As Malcolm Gladwell would say, what was the tipping point, Paul?
PS: Is this an invitation for me to talk out of my ass?
RS: That's why we brought you here. The floor is yours.
PS: You’re going to regret this. Alright.
I think during my entire competitive running career, which spanned from 2005 until 2013, there were maybe 20 photos taken of me that were in-focus. Which is to say I could get away with looking like shit. If I showed up to practice with a rat tail, it was amusing to my friends and me, and that was that. So the modern proliferation of high-quality (or at least passably good) photography as part of daily life is huge. It’s only natural to become image-conscious when you’re constantly being observed and chronicled, as more and more runners now are. You’re going to want to pay for a real haircut. You’re going to want your running outfit to look nice. And with the yoga-led normalization of athleisure, you’re also going to want that running outfit to be something you could wear to a restaurant or the grocery store after a run. Naturally, brands hopped right on the demand and began shying away from neons and muscle-shirt silhouettes, and probably even fed the craze with increasingly cool-presenting marketing campaigns.
I’m going to cut myself off and just say that it’s hard to point to one thing that made running COOL, but there’s no denying that it is now, in fact, COOL. How do you feel about it all?
RS: Interesting. I guess if we're following this logic, do you think as a society we've become better looking or cooler? And is this because of cell phone cameras, the proliferation of social media, etc? Does this idea transcend sport? Is a more image conscious society a bad society?
PS: Better looking? Not me, personally, but most other people, yeah. Cooler? Eh, that’s harder to peg down. There’s a bunch of essays out there about the internet paradoxically bringing about the death of subcultures, and that feels relevant here, to an extent. The gist of the argument is that social media strips the context away from a particular way of presenting oneself to the world. I am NOT going to use the word “poser” here, for both of our sakes. But suffice to say that’s a concept that’s addressed.
Basically, it’s easier than ever to adopt aesthetic signifiers without having to “do the work” of engaging with the community from which they originate. In the context of running, I guess you could say that the aesthetic signifiers used to be looking really dorky, and probably being somewhat dorky, but now you can be a runner and look any number of ways. I’m grumbling, but that’s a really good thing. It does seem that there’s a much broader demographic reach to running now than 15 years ago, and as somebody who thinks running can be a good thing in people’s lives, it makes me happy that it’s seemingly more accessible than ever - or at least more inviting.
But still, there’s a small and sniveling part of me that has that “I LIKED THIS BEFORE IT WAS COOL” mentality, and that wishes running was achieving these inclusive ends without trying quite so hard to seem cool. Do you know what I mean?
RS: Sorry Paul. Sometimes when we're talking I start to remember how much smarter you are than me. Let me take a minute to gather my thoughts.
I know what you mean. You've put words to a feeling I've had for a while which is, I don't think I really need to be a part of the running community anymore, specifically as an athlete. I’ve simply aged out of it while also feeling like the old hipster you just talked about. I’m out there yelling “I LIKED THIS BEFORE IT WAS COOL AND WHY ARE YOU WEARING VAPORFLYS ON YOUR 4 MILE RUN?”
And maybe that makes me a bad person, but I like using a changing society as a scape goat for my bad opinion. Ultimately you’re right: a more inclusive sport is a better sport.
Anyway, I feel like there has simultaneously been a death of the Old American Monoculture and the birth of a New American Monoculture. Maybe we call it pre and post internet. I will not expand on that any further and simply ask if you agree with this assessment.
PS: As for the monoculture thing, yeah, I definitely agree. Everyone’s got their beef with the new, algorithmic version of it. And the old kind is easy to romanticize, but it was basically people in charge of making television and music and film all churning out crap that was as broadly appealing as possible. Most of it - like now - was pretty bad, but every once in a while something really great would break through the noise and unexpectedly resonate with basically everyone; something like Seinfeld, maybe, that on paper shouldn’t have been a near universal hit. That doesn’t even feel possible anymore, and that part is a bit sad.
Anyway, I like what you said about your place in the running community. Way more credit should be given to people opting out of things rather than gripping to them more tightly as they inevitably change. Are there other things you find yourself stepping back from with your hands in the air like an NBA player trying to convince the ref he didn’t just commit a foul?
RS: If you love something, let it go. I think for about 15 years I got what I needed from the running community and now it looks like it's somebody else's turn to make it something new that's fulfilling to them and whoever is a part of it.
I think the older I get the more I'm probably stepping back from most things that I used to give a shit about. I do think I'm having, in the most cliched sense, a midlife crisis that involves trying to figure out what my place is in this world and if any of it really matters.
Maybe it's time for Becca and me to have a kid.
PS: Ryan, you joke, but that would clear up your midlife crisis pretty darn quick. Having been a dad now for almost one year, I have never thought less about my place in the world. My days are filled with doing things with or for my kid. I do miss thinking, and assume that by not doing much of it I am turning my brain to pudding and causing irreparable harm to my sense of self that will become devastatingly apparent in about 17 years, but who gives a shit? That’s for me to deal with in my 50s. Maybe I’ll return to whatever the running community looks like then as a sort of salve.
RS: It's either joining a run club or buying a motorcycle. Pick your poison.
We've covered an incredible range of topics in 1,750 words. We started at Flotrack and ended at "you should have a kid."
Paul, I'm sorry I didn't have better follow up questions after reading what felt like a devastatingly intellectual take on how running got so cool. Before we go, why don't you drop a YouTube link to a music video you think all of our readers should watch.
PS: Hey, next time Stephen is on paternity leave and you can’t line up a better guest, I’d love to pick up where we left off here. Anyway, I was tempted to go with the Austin Powers cross-promotinal video for Madonna’s "Beautiful Stranger” because it’s such a funny bit of cultural detritus and a banger of a track, but given how insufferable I’m sure I’ve sounded, let’s lean into that and also go with this video of a post-punk band I love, Pile, performing in what looks like a toilet factory.