One month out
A quick hello from peak marathon training—and perfect running weather.
Hi everyone,
Whew, it has been a very long while since I slid into your inboxes. But the Kick is still alive, I promise! I’ve been training for Boston for the past several months, and we officially hit the one-month-out mark this weekend. One of the strange but lovely side effects of all the races delayed by the pandemic is that so many major marathons are happening so close together this year. I love looking at my Strava feed on the weekend and seeing so many people in the meatiest parts of their marathon builds at the same time. Today, I ran half of my long run with a friend who’s training for London and then at the end I passed by a friend who’s training for Chicago and felt a little swell of camaraderie. (Or maybe I was just happy to be finishing my long run.)
We’re also entering the indisputably best time of the year for running. (Forever known as cross country season, no matter how old you get.) I’m a particular baby about summer running, and this is my first time doing a real marathon build in the depths of New York’s muggy season. We’ve finally started to get some reprieve in these past few weeks, and it’s always fun to remember on those cooler days that the hard, sweaty work from July and August has been going somewhere.
I recently revisited this ode to fall running by Fritz Huber that I edited several years ago for Outside, which includes this perfect line: “When the cooler weather starts to trickle in, post-equinox, the effect is pure magic. You are faster, and it all somehow feels easier. Fall is nature’s EPO.” Not the worst conditions for the final push of a training cycle.
Some links to hold you over
I’ll be bringing this newsletter back at a more regular frequency again soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share a few stories that you may have missed during my hiatus:
This piece by Christine Yu, on running’s cultural reckoning with abusive and negligent coaching, took many months of reporting and editing and is one of the stories I’ve been most proud to publish at Outside.
Even though Aliphine Tuliamuk’s Olympic marathon last month didn’t go as anyone would have hoped, there’s a whole lot more about her in this profile by Latria Graham that is worth reading if you haven’t. Latria really wanted to tell Aliphine’s story in a way that felt different from the previous profiles of her, and she delivered. (This piece is also in the summer print issue of Outside.)
From the recent archives of Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science column: on how your menstrual cycle affects your injury risk, how exercise affects pregnant women, and what determines which marathoners get heat stroke.
Today was the 40th anniversary of the 5th Ave Mile. Fritz Huber wrote about the history of the race here. Earlier this week, he wrote about some Gen Z runners who want to bring some fresh energy to running media.
If you’re also in the final weeks of a training build, good luck and enjoy!
Drop me a line
I want to hear from you! Tell me about what you like here, what I missed, and what’s going on in your running life. (You can also follow the Kick on Twitter, and on Instagram. And I’m on Strava here.) Thanks for reading, and enjoy your miles.
Molly