Happy New Year! 🎉
I cannot be more excited to write the first edition of Five Things Running for this wonderful new year!
I went running in the snow! Well, mostly I took pictures every kilometer because it all looked so beautiful in white. Soon it will all be nasty slush, but on Sunday it was magical outside.
And one quick remark regarding the 66North Polartec Alpha fleece zipneck that I got from my wife for Christmas: that thing really is warm. They say it is a baselayer, but I honestly don’t want to experience an environment where I have to wear this thing as a baselayer. But it is so wonderfully warm and comfy, I wear it all the time, not just for running.
If you could pack just one thing from 2025 to carry into the new year, skip the prettiest medal or the race where you felt like a white Kenyan. Too easy. Those are the cover photos—but running is built on dark, rainy Mondays.
Take with you the memory of that one awful run. You know the one. The one where your legs felt like concrete, your breathing was off, cold drizzle stung your eyes, and every cell in your body begged for a bar stop and a croissant.
But you didn’t stop. You finished it. Slowly, grumpily, swearing under your breath—but you finished.
I always feel best after a run when I go running even though I came up with a million reasons why I shouldn’t go running.
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Customization was super hot this year, which imbues a bit of your personality into your shoes or clothes. If you work on it, you feel more connected to it. It’s an expression of you.
With apparel sliding towards earth tones, blacks, and factory made sameness, AI taking over, and screen times at an all time high, people are looking to slow down and get offline. There’s a lot of gear out there, and I feel sentimental about almost none of it.
I love all these running fashion roundups. It is so wonderful to see how fashion and running go well together - and also people don’t have to wear crappy neon performance apparel anymore.
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The one semi-legitimate reason not to do easy runs the way the best runners in the world do them (i.e., actually easy) is simply not caring. After all, a runner can improve while remaining in the moderate-intensity rut; they just can’t improve as much. There are plenty of runners out there who, faced with a clear binary choice between improving more by slowing down and improving less by not slowing down, will choose the latter, which is their right.
Odds are you’re currently among the ninety-plus percent of runners who do every single easy run too fast. If you wish to continue to impress your STRAVA followers with your blistering “Lunch Run” paces, be my guest.
Oh yes, guilty. This is what I really want to do better this year.
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For runners, that resolution is often strength training. You have likely read countless articles and listened to just as many podcasts claiming that strength training will make you faster, more resilient and less injury-prone. The message is consistent enough that it has become almost self-evident: if strength training improves performance, then committing to it, especially as a structured, time-bound resolution, should logically lead to better running.
But does it? And more importantly, even if strength training does work, is it the best thing to focus on during the year ahead?
Ok, great, I wasn’t planning on doing that anyhow. Accept for some kettlebellswings.
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Trail running has a funny way of demanding acceptance of things you just can’t control. Stuff happens on the trails, and the dirt doesn’t care how determined you are to stick to your well-crafted plans. If the weather changes, you have to adapt. At worst, you learn what gear to take next time. Technical descents demand your full attention, and if you aren’t fully present or concentrating, you will fall. Progress zigzags, just like the trail.
And that’s the lesson.
Trail running is so much better than running through the streets. It’s magic.
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Thanks to COROS for supporting this publication!
If you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here:
Now, go running!
— Nico
🏃🏻♂️
