The Rich Roll Podcast - Knox Robinson On Why Running Is An Act of Rebellion

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

What is running culture? I suppose the answer depends upon whom you ask. For example, Sanjay Rawal's perspective will likely vary from that of Shalane Flanagan. If you ask Knox Robinson, his definition will have little to do with splits and podiums — and everything to do with movement as an art form. Running as a means of personal and philosophical expression. The physical voice of literature. Poetry. Music. And Politics. For Knox, running as an act of rebellion — a means to unshackle oneself from pressures and expectations both external and internal. Freedom from the lies others tell us. And liberty from the lies we tell ourselves. This week he explains. You're not going to want to miss it. Based in New York City, Knox isn’t just a great runner and coach. He isn't just a great writer. And he isn’t just the co-founder and captain of Black Roses NYC — a diverse & heavily tattooed collective of amateur New York City runners who routinely gather to hammer out intervals through downtown Manhattan then go slurp ramen and spin vinyl. Inhabiting a space in defiance of labels, Knox is the kind of human who, when asked to describe himself, effortlessly pulls the perfect quote from the poetry of Amir Baraka: “[I am] a long-breath singer, would-be dancer, strong from years of fantasy and struggle.” It follows that Knox's relationship with running also fails easy definition. Despite his father's passion for local 10K's, Knox showed little to no athletic promise as a youth. Nonetheless he notched his way up to national caliber at Wake Forest University. Then he walked away from the sport altogether for the better part of a decade. He studied black history, art, literature and poetry. He pursued a career as a spoken word artist. He worked in the music industry managing artists. And he served as editor-in-chief of Fader – the ultimate print destination for all things hip hop, indie music, urban style and culture — jet setting to Fashion Week parties in Paris and penning thoughtful cover pieces on everyone from Kanye to The White Stripes. It was his son's birth that compelled Knox to dust off his trainers and revisit his connection with athleticism. Expanding his relationship beyond the scope of performance, he began to imagine new horizons for his role in sport. With this epiphany came a new life. And a mission: to leverage movement as an art form — running as physical manifestation of both individual expression and communal cultural identity. This is his story. One of the more intimate, earnest and layered conversations I've had in recent memory, I left this exchange better for having had it, thinking more deeply about my own relationship with running, and how I can better impact others. My hope is that it does the same for you. Peace + Plants, Rich

Running is one of our oldest tools and it's there for all of us at our disposal to feel and feeling is free and feeling is freedom. It's a way to throw off all our pressures and all our expectations and all the sort of like lies that other people have sold us and all the lies that we tell ourselves. All our self-hatred and our self-doubt and all our minimizing whack relationships and bad dates and like mistakes that we've made in the past. Whether that was last night or last year or 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Running is a chance to do something new. Running is a chance to do something new.

And so that is rebellion when given the choice between running and succumbing to that vortex. That's Knox Robinson. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about running culture. But what specifically do we mean when we use that phrase? What are we trying to connote or convey by virtue of those words? And I would imagine, I would suspect that the definition is gonna vary depending upon who you talk to,

where that person is coming from. For example, Sanjay Rawal's perspective on running culture, well, that's gonna differ a little bit from that of say, I don't know, somebody like Usain Bolt, for example. But if you ask Knox Robinson, his definition of running culture is gonna have very little to do with things like splits and podiums

and everything to do with this idea of movement as art form, movement running as poetry and politics, as this expression of both individuality and community. And I would say that in fact, for Knox, running is an act of rebellion. My name is Rich Roll. This is my podcast. And today, today I'm basically ecstatic

to share what I think is one of the more intimate and one of the more profound conversations that I've had. It's a conversation that is fundamentally about running, of course, but also about so much more. Based in New York City, Knox isn't just a great runner. He isn't just a great coach and a great writer. He isn't just the co-founder and captain of the Black Roses NYC Run Collective, which we're gonna talk about today. It's this crew of tattooed amateur New York City runners who routinely gather to hammer out intervals

through downtown Manhattan and then go eat ramen and spin vinyl and drink beers. This is a guy who, when asked to describe himself, and then go eat ramen and spin vinyl and drink beers. This is a guy who when asked to describe himself, quoted the poet Amiri Baraka, quote, "'I am a long breast singer, would be dancer, strong from years of fantasy and struggle," end quote. And I think I'd agree that that quote rather beautifully captures the essence of this ardent purveyor of running culture, how he thinks and how he lives.

a collegiate running career at Wake Forest, stepped away from the sport altogether for the better part of a decade. He went on to study black literature and poetry. He pursued a career as a spoken word artist. He worked in the music industry, managing artists, and he served as editor-in-chief of Fader, which is kind of the ultimate print vortex of hip hop, indie music, urban style, and culture.

And it wasn't until Knox's son was born that he basically rediscovered running and this new life, creative expression and community building through running began to unfold. A few more things I want to mention about Knox before we immerse ourselves in his world, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and

the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. Thank you. disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery

is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, we did it. We got through that. I appreciate you guys sticking with me. I love my sponsors. I really do believe in all the products that I mentioned

and their support and more importantly, your support of them makes the show possible. So gratitude. So this conversation spends very little time in the shallow end of the pool. Knox is deep. His story is compelling. His storytelling even better.

I did my best to keep pace with his insights. And I'm not sure what else needs to be said other than that I just love everything about this exchange. And I think I'm just going to leave it at that. I was very moved by this human. And I think you will be too. Let's do this. No, man, great to meet you. I'm excited to be here. I appreciate you taking the time. We're in a little rental conference room here.

It's a little bit echoey, but we're just going to have to live with it, man. No, this is cool. I think it'll be good. Slide up on that a little bit more like that. And I wish usually when I do these at home, I video them now. I've been capturing them on film. Now I wish I had a video camera so we could all see what you're wearing right now. Cause like, I don't know what that is, but you're rocking some serious fashion. It's humid today. So I've made sure I had to wear like an African shirt just to breathe out a little

bit. I know. And what was the, what you, what you were wearing? Like a, like a, I don't even know what I would call it, like a shawl or like a kind of wrap. There's, yeah, there's, there's, I got it in Japan on this last trip. I was over there and, uh, you know, there's a technical name for it. I'm not going to call it a kimono cause it's not, it's not, it's definitely. And it's, nor is it a Yukata, which is like the summer kind of like wrap full length, but it's like a two-piece linen, you know, like it's kind of like a Japanese version of in the hood, which you call a short set, the baseball short set. Yeah. But it's, yeah, it's linen and not as breathable as you'd think.

So I'm a little saucy after walking around today. Well, I think it's thematically consistent. You're wearing an undergarment that's African, an outer garment that's Japanese. And I think that's fitting, given that you, for me, represent... You're like this person who's right at the vortex, like the eye of the storm, at the intersection between running, culture, art, poetry, music, politics, like all of these threads kind of inform everything that you're about and everything that you do and how you express yourself. Vortex is the right word, right? because the vortex is intense and uh and can be crushing an intersection is just kind of like robert johnson like sticking his thumb out waiting for the devil to come by to

sell his soul so he could like right that's a passive yeah like i'm cool like crossroads i'm cool with the intersection i'm cool with but a vortex definitely when you bring all those axes together it can it can be a lot. And, uh, but at the same time, once it's like part and parcel of how you literally see things and how you interpret things, it's at least for me, it's tough to think about a really hard run, um, without like certain lines of poetry coming up, you know, or like a forgettable country music lyric that you wish you never learned coming up, you know, so it's these things all exist inside of us. about Zhuangzi once was dreaming, had a dream about being a butterfly. And then when he awoke, he didn't know if he was like a man who had had a dream about being a butterfly or if he was a butterfly now dreaming that he was a man. It's tough to really know if running is like everything

and it makes me think about poetry or if I'm like running a lot because I'm a failed poet, you know? Well, I think any one of those kind of topic headings is something that can either, well, I was going to say can unify us. I think they can also, I mean, with politics, they can also divide us, but poetry, music, and certainly running. These are like things that we can all share in kind of a collective consciousness that bring us together, right? If that's a consistent thing and you use running really not just, it's interesting because, you know, you're a coach and, and, you know, you're a 230 marathoner and like a 110 half marathoner. I mean, you're a fast runner.

And, you know, in your club, you've got people who are interested in performance, but it's not really about that. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's tricky because, man, you could sit people in Black Roses down, you know, at the Mexican spot after a session. in black roses down, you know, at the Mexican spot after a session. And yeah, the conversation doesn't really like always kind of lean or tack towards racing or performance. And certainly not. It's so refreshing. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Cause I know you know, you've been with where it's not like that. It's all about, you know, splits and your garment and Strava and all that nonsense. Yeah. Um, especially rather than like the people, uh, that I've been hanging out with, it's more like different eras of time. Like I feel like as a youth in the nineties, I feel like I learned, um, formally, I learned a lot about running and, uh, multi-sport activities from, like, an empirical perspective just because of a couple coaches. And it was that era of, like, data, that 90s kind of thing.

And then, yeah, you've seen that kind of come back and forth in different eras. the weird friendships I have with elites and gold medalists and silver medalists or world champs or whatever, um, is actually super similar to the relationship I have with just everyday passionate athletes. And like these people aren't really taking that empirical thing and pushing it all the way out. I mean, I,

you know, I was trained with, or staying in Mo Ferris camp. Yeah. No, I want to get into this. You were training. It's okay. You can say it. I'll say it for you. It was propositional.

I was training around next behind. I definitely wasn't training with Mo Farah, but his training partner, Abdi, did invite me out to the camp, and so I was afforded this opportunity to go out to the camp and stay for three weeks. In Addis Ababa.

Yeah, with the guys. Man man these guys weren't talking about no science no marginal gains you know it was like arsenal transfer rumors um you know virgil shoot virgil off-white releases and uh and then their sessions, how they organize their sessions. This is like to watch, you know, one of the greatest runners of all time, like at the office is, is crazy, you know? Um, it really took me back. And then I learned. So walk me through that. Like, I want to hear more about that experience of, I mean, you're here, you're with, you know, two of the best guys in the world and the guys they train with who are also, you know, you've never heard of these guys, but they're probably, you know, some of the best runners in the world. Sure.

They live a very simple life. Their approach to training is regimented, but also very, I don't know what the right word is. I don't know what the right word is. You would know it better than I, but it's sort of a natural flow approach to how it's based on feel as much as anything else, right? Which is so what you would not think in this quantified self era that we find ourselves in right now. Feel is the only thing that's going to get you through. feel is the only thing that's going to get you through. I mean, when you're standing on the starting line of the New York city marathon and whether you're in the front line or you're in the back,

like no watch is going to like get you through no data, no Britney Spears, power song playlist is like get you through. You got to know what's inside of you. You got to know what you, what you got. And, and if you'd like to look at these elites,

when it comes time to battle when it comes time to go for the gold or to to grasp that cup like they're reaching inside for something that they have they know it's there and they know they're confident that like other people don't have it you know in some ways otherwise they're sometimes they're just like reaching for theirs and going for it. And you can just see that that's what the preparation is. Like how much weightlifting can you do, you know? But when you see someone enacting a plan at the Olympics on the last lap or in the final round, you're like, it's incontrovertible to see them do that because you know they've been preparing for that move one move for three years right like when galen and mo did that like in the last lap of the 10 000 in london you know they had been you could just tell they've been talking about that for every day for three years

right so when you're there in ethiopia and you're watching these guys train like you know what is it tell me what that that experience is like it's a major freak out because you're like what am i doing you need to do you have a cool life man you get to go and like hang with some pretty badass people yeah it's it's cool until you're like in the this is like everything i've ever done it's like this was a cool idea until then you're in the i mean like honestly yeah everything i've ever done is like oh yeah this will be cool and then you're in it and you're like what uh-huh and that was even happened was absurd. You know, like it was just to backtrack. It was, uh, before the New York city marathon, I wrote out with the sub elites, I like skirted

into the sub elite bus. Um, but the sub elite bus gets the same near the same treatment as the elites and everybody's chill. So nobody really cares. So we go out to the start line on these elite buses. We're held in like a complex, a warmup track indoors. We have all the same amenities and it's like, well, I go and do my meditation. I'm on my headspace wave. I'm doing me. And then I have all this time to kill. And I'm like, well, I'm not friends with any of these local elites from new york who like all work on wall street and like have like sharp haircuts and are like on there it's just a big cultural gap um so i was like let me just go

sit by the brothers you know who cares and uh it was Meb, his last race, you know. Abdi, Cameror, who won. Wilson Kipsang jumped in after dropping out of Berlin. So I was like, all right, I know some of these guys at whatever level. And then Abdi is super chill. So I'm hanging out, just trying to mind my own business. I'm not trying to fraternize, whatever. And Abdi's'm just like hey man um why don't you come out to Ethiopia uh I'm gonna be there with Mo helping him get ready for the London Marathon I was like yeah cool yeah you don't

say no to that so you're trying to be all cool about it yeah I was just like yeah cool and he was just trying to be cool he was just trying to make conversation in front of his friends yeah with like the regular homie from new york he's trying to like have common with his new york homie right in front of the other guys right right right i know new york yeah yeah oh yo what's up hey man um come on out oh yeah cool i will i just showed up yeah you were there for a couple weeks right i was there for like three weeks because i'm not gonna go i mean you know you gotta go and you gotta uh you gotta take the whole trip you know um and uh yeah like one of the first experiences and apologies for being a little discursive but one of the first experiences i had with uh going to an elite camp um i was friends with leo manzano um and trenear moser and folks in that john cook group in the in the days leading

up to the 2012 olympics and uh i was starting this running magazine it was gonna be cool and i was used to coming from like that journalistic practice of like the fly in 36 hours. Get the story. I'm out. Right. You know. And so I was like, you know, Leo, I don't want to disturb the camp. I'm just going to come in. Photographer takes some pictures. I'm starting this magazine. And he's like, hey, man, well, why don't you come and just stay the whole time? He's like, you know, you might learn something about running. stay the whole time he's like you know you might learn something about running and i was like yo bro i'm starting a magazine about running like what do you try to like obviously i know about running or i thought i did and yeah he was just such the face punch that i just went to like

altitude in mexico and like live with Leo, you know, in this cycle before he got the silver in London. Wow. You know, so you got to like call people's bluff. You know what I mean? Well, also just to embrace the experience rather than like the result of like,

okay, how am I going to get a story out of this and just be, you know? I mean, that's always like a journalist tree and what i worked as a journalist uh and as an editor at this uh like a kind of fader right fader editor in chief i was editor in chief of the that's such a badass job man there's so many layers to your life it you had to i had to treat it like it was a badass job i mean it was badass yeah um you got to interview kanye i was, did Kanye's first cover.

Like, yeah. I mean, wild anecdotes about Kanye early on. A lot of folks in that time. And yeah, I had to treat it like it was a badass thing. Obviously that's how you sow the seeds of your own dismissal. So I did, I was, you know, run out of town on a rail after a while, but what are you going to do? Like go and be editor in chief and then like play it safe. Or are you going to go and just like start lighting shit on fire on the first day? Oops. Yeah. Yeah.

So when you're at these elite running camps, like what are the, you know, what's a day in the life of these elite runners in Ethiopia? Well, everything's disorienting right like with within most camp like all the easy runs were done in complete silence and like almost like military like martial regimentation um it was really tense and then when they'd go to like these epic workouts on the track with the coach and the pacers and like all the gear laid out on the track and multiple spike changes and all the fueling and the hydration i showed up to like check out this epic workout and he's playing like a drake playlist off of off a beats pill or something you know and i was like first of all how can you listen to drake and then perform like drake is

like that makes you soft you know you listen to drake you're texting your girl like i miss you this dude was like turned up listening to drake i was like okay who knew so he's turned up listening to drake and he's just like obviously tearing through his pacers and of course his pacers are like olympians his best pacer bashir just got uh silver medal at the european championships a couple weeks ago obvi obviously all these young guys so yeah it was like listening to drake and like having a good time and then halfway through the session i'm just like on the sidelines and he's like mate could you go in my bag and um could you take some pictures on my phone you know just like i have them later for instagram and then he gave me like the password to his phone right i was like

this this guy that y'all all this around this guy and like he asked me to go in his bag take out the phone gave me the password and then asked me to take pictures yeah that's crazy so of course i'm a new yorker i was mad that he had the better phone all i cared about was like i knew i should have got the iphone he's got the 10 or something he did he had two 10s and i i was like i didn't want to get the 10 before i went because i didn't want to break it or lose it or get robbed. So then I show up and like, Mo has two tens. Right. Humiliating.

Yeah, but he's Mo. Yeah, but still I'm from New York. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's interesting. I mean, obviously you'd think it would be the other way around. Like the easy runs would be jocular and they'd be telling jokes and having a good time and then super serious on the track.

So, you know, what do you take from that? Like, what is it about their approach that's different from our approach? And how is this, you know, what do you take from that? Like, what is it about their approach that's different from our approach and how is this, you know, feeling and benefiting them in a way that maybe we're missing? Man, it was so basic as to almost be embarrassing, but just the whole idea, the training is going to be what it is. The competitions are going to be as intense as you'd imagine they're going to be. That level is so rarefied. I was almost embarrassed to watch these guys create a each other when they're messing up the pace and like yelling at each other from across the track it was just like it was incredible and i was like whoa just creating the vibe

just creates in turn this mindset this whole energy field, you know? I mean, they call it collective efficacy, you know? But it was wild to watch, you know? And they don't know what their workout's going to be until the day, right? Well, that's another thing, too, that I have observed that from, like, my own training with elites or being around elites, but also my training partner where I live up in the woods, um,

outside of New York city is went to two Olympic trials in the marathon in the, in the nineties. And, uh, when I first met him moving up to this town, he's the truck driver guy, right? Yeah. Um, great, great athlete, great, great, uh, lifelong competitor to this day. Um, but I, I just moved to the town to like hide out from New York. Um, dude didn't know who I was. The guys in the little training crew didn't know. They, they never asked what I did. They didn't care. And I just showed up at the track on Tuesday, like when, when they said to show up and showed up at the track on Tuesday, like when, when they said to show up and just proceeded to get it cracking. And that was amazing. Like, you know, in New York, everyone's always like in your business

all the time. I saw you at this party, who's making this money. Why'd you get fired from the fader? You know? Um, but like up there, it was just about like lacing up and, and, and, and tearing up the track or like, you know, battling each other in the long run. And so that's similar to what I've seen in elites. Like you don't have to like have the three-month training program. It's about that. So when I was out there with Mo, this day, they're building up to the session and like coach had like dropped some red herrings, what it's going to be. session and like coach had like dropped some red herrings what it's gonna be but the excitement like the boyish excitement that mo has like the night before a big run or like days in advance

he's like chomping at the bit and there's like lights in his eyes he's having gosh like what's it gonna be and the coach will just like fake him out or whatever and he knows that's not it ah no okay okay cool so you think i wasn't around all the time. So you'd think the coach had emailed him or whatever. Man, we were out at this one training grounds. They do their warmup. They do all the activations. I'm sitting next to the coach. And then after it's all over, Mo comes over and is like,

so what are we doing today? And I was like, oh, that's crazy. First of all, no one does that. These try hard runners out here, much respect to all the coaches out there on the internet, sending immaculate plans, six months of a PDF. Got it. But you got to think what it means if Mo Farah is getting the workout in the moment. That means obviously he spent the night thinking about it. He spent time narrowing down the possibilities for what it could actually be because he's trusting his coach, right? So let's say he narrows it down to three scenarios. So then he's played out all three workouts.

That means he's already psychologically prepared for three different caustic scenarios. The coach chooses one and mows into it but just think about what that means in competition he's already cycled through what 90 95 percent of like eventualities visualize alternatives and then adapt every moment and sometimes that means he's racing kipchoge so he's thinking about that but Mo probably might not even think about that. He might just think about like what could actually happen on the day, you know, that's real coaching though. You know, I think as much as we want to know, you know, every day, what we're doing and have it all mapped out. Like if you really want to perform at your peak,

you got to be malleable and adaptable. And if you have a coach who really knows you, that workout's going to change based on, you know, what that coach's perspective of how you're warming up. Like, you know, when you're totally in tune with your coach, the coach knows, you know, a good coach will know, okay, I got to back off or today's a day where I can really hit it hard. And making those micro adjustments in the moment is a huge differentiator. And we're so programmed to want to know exactly what we're doing every single day. And when you get into that automaton kind of schedule or routine, you're removing the possibility for some, you know, marginal to pretty huge performance gains by learning about that, like mind-body connection. For sure. You know, the more experience you have,

you're super experienced, you know, you don't need a coach, you know what you need. And I'm sure you adapt day to day based upon, you know, that internal barometer that you have about like, what is going to best serve you. Yeah. It's fascinating. I i mean it's almost like you can learn again no disrespect to anyone's bookshelf out there but you can learn a lot from like listening to jazz and reading poetry you know um just because like you can read the same poem short poem like over and over for 20 years and then like on the 21st year, something's going to happen. We were going to understand like another level of meaning to a word choice or like a line break or the rhythm in a line of poetry, just in the same way that, you know, this new John Coltrane,

a new old John Coltrane album just came out over the summer. And it was the last time he, it was like his second attempt to go into the studio and record the energy of this amazing composition called Impressions. I think ultimately the analysis is he felt they were both attempts or failures. But man, you're thinking about like John Coltrane, like tried to capture this amazing live song in the studio, failed, went back and did it again. Still an epic piece of recorded sound, but what are the aesthetic choices that he's like making not only on the day, but minute to minute. And that's more instructive for, for me, that's also very instructive for executing a marathon as much as,

you know, reading about like, you know, whatever kind of like, like well once you know the basics of what you need to do right these new runners though they don't want to know the base they and i call it abr like people do anything but running and i'm like because it's easier to sit around and procrastinate well should i do this workout or should and you trick yourself into thinking that you're actually doing something right i'm just all right i'm just gonna do cryo instead i'm just gonna like lift weights instead i'm just gonna do this and it honestly i don't know i'm not an expert i'm not a certified coach but if you go to africa if you go to africa look i'm just saying run i'm just saying yeah what i saw was it comes down to hard long runs and it comes down to long tempos yeah like every you got

to build to those things but like i feel like a lot of new runners or emerging runners or a lot of like even experienced runners they don't want to know that like i and i had to learn i and when i was living in new york i was like blazing up these like 18 mile long runs and finishing all fast and like slapping high fives at the end with my homie and all that like 18 mile long run finishing fast on adrenaline ducking taxis that's like the worst thing for your training because you get into a marathon it ain't no taxis and it ain't 18 miles no yeah yeah the run, that's a different approach, but I love this idea of, of looking to completely other, completely different forms of expression to learn how to become a better runner. Like, and this idea of jazz is amazing because jazz is all about

like great jazz is about being present and listening, like being so tuned in to what is happening in the moment that you can respond with the appropriate note. And in many ways, that's kind of like what we're talking about with running, like that connection with self, so you know what the next step is. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be ageist, but in that way, it is like sometimes like a game that you unlock with the intervening years like when i was a kid my dad listened to jazz i had a problematic relationship with my dad so i hated jazz right but i used to wonder you know when he was like

listening to it and he was a runner too he was a runner right so i was like ah right um but i used to wonder how you could like tell who was playing an instrument just like listening to it if there was you couldn't tell by the sound of their voice now that's comes like almost second nature to me just because i've listened to like a lot of music um you'd never mistake tupac's voice for Kanye West's voice, you know, well for a lot of reasons, but, um, yeah. So, so in that sense, it's, it's interesting. So you're listening to voice, but then you're also thinking you're also like unlocking like what they were trying to share. So you're experiencing that on your own,

but then you're also thinking what they were trying to do in the moment as they were arranging it and recording it and like that's also a trip there's just a lot of levels to it it's cool well let's uh i want to track it back yeah let's go back let's go back to your problematic relationship with your dad he gets mad he gets mad he went to the doctor's office the other day and was like i was was on the cover of like Outside Magazine. So he was like, ah, yeah, the doctor's flipping out. Oh, my God. Oh, I read this. I keep the copies in the office.

That's your son. He's doctor's flipping out. So my dad's like, yeah, let me go and read. And I did the usual thing where I just like diss my dad. Oh, in the article? Of course. What am I going to be like? Oh, you're not gonna print

that's not printable oh my dad's my greatest inspiration boring yeah so i just was real and then my dad's like yo why you gotta like talk about my running so bad i was like well you wasn't you you wasn't really putting it down i thought you were but you know i was four yeah but when i see i mean i've read up on you know some of those articles and whatever your relationship was with your dad you're very clear in saying like you looked up to him he was a hero you got excited for his races and you know he was all about you know he was all about running at that time sure um i learned yeah i learned those early lessons from him. Not only like the community aspect, the vibe, like it's something you did with your homies like on a Sunday or whatever, family's out or whatever. But also I learned the melancholy because like, you know, you think your dad's going to win the race, you're four or five.

And then when he doesn't like win, then I was like distraught which i was embarrassed that my dad didn't win the race but he was he was a middle-of-the-pack guy so now i look back and i'm like man i was learning lessons early on like oh my god or if his best friend beat him you know and i had a crush on like the best friend's daughter then it was like double heartbreak i got it yeah but you didn't take to running right away no i i uh i had like yeah i had other pursuits and uh on an athletics level cycling actually was one of my first passions i didn't know that yeah yeah i went deep i people asked me like how it and i think i saw the movie quicksilver yeah i remember that kevin bacon at his best yeah of course which is

tough to say because that's a lot of there's a lot of best so it's kevin bacon but in the beginning scene he has that race impromptu race with the bike messenger yeah the bike mess who flips him off and like spits on his cab in the end right the bike messenger was nelson vales the olympic medalist oh i didn't know from the streets of new york who started off as a bike messenger went to the highest heights of competitive cycling on the track um black dude badass black dude and i was like yeah that was like that's what's up okay so i got into got into cycling, got a beater bike, rode around my town, upgraded, upgraded, got into, you know, biathlons, didn't swim very well. But then one summer I crashed and flatted and like all my races like flipped, Peloton running me over.

And people are like, yo, you got to running kit because you're losing too much blood right so that was it then that was the cycling career ended yeah i still i still love it i still follow it i still kind of like fantasize about it i was was like, ah, next big check. I'm going to go and get the 7-Eleven team bike. I'm going to just ride around in the 7-Eleven kit. It was all about the 7-Eleven team. Of course. So much so that, yeah, I still follow all those guys on Instagram now. They're kids or whatever.

Who was it? It was Bob Roll, I think, was on that team. Eric Hyden was my dude. Yeah. Because that guy just dominated speed skating and then went right into pro cycling and rode for 7-Eleven for a while. Yeah. That was the era when they were just like that American approach. They were pulling in like anybody. You know, they're like, oh, Ned Overend, you know, like, or, yeah.

Davis Finney, I think. Yeah. Was on that team. And now his son is like doing his thing too so and then hamston was just free to be like the glory boy like amazingly when he drew to tell you so all that stuff was a cool moment and then running after that yeah yeah yeah i mean the reality is like didn't make the basketball team. Didn't make the volleyball team. Yeah.

It must be said that like my school. First of all, like, was this in San Diego? This was like in the suburbs of Buffalo. This was later on. So this was like not even like nothing. I mean, you had to be the only black dude on a bike. Yeah. Oh, of course.

Yeah. But like once you're like the only black dude doing like anything, you cease to forget it. So now when we're in like kind of like a resurgence of like, I kind of rather disparagingly call it like Negro firsts. Like, okay, I'm the first black guy to step into a Starbucks today. Like, okay. So I don't know. I'm acutely aware of like those politics and like those are part of my politics as well. But I wasn't really thinking about that because when you're getting your ass kicked or you're getting dropped on a hill, like you're either going to care about being black or you're going to care about like catching back up, you know? And like the times where you kind of like take on and this

happens to now i talk about it runners with runners now the time like you allow some of that other emotionality of of of of being black to come in while you're running or racing it's it's too much yeah you know i mean this happened to a woman in black roses very strong sister from from brooklyn very strong personality black woman and she went to a 50k trail race and uh it was tough it was wet it rained you know and it was a tough race because when she fell and like cut her knee or just like hurt her hand or whatever after like the second or third time like she just started thinking about being black i don't know i've talked to a handful of folks about you know black folks who are involved in the outdoors and it's not so much like yeah i don't know it there's weird nuances to it you know it's not so much like

there's no one black on this mountain or like everybody in the tents are white it's like okay that's maybe for some people but there's like a watery emotionality to you where like your racial consciousness can like bubble up probably due to lack of oxygen but it can just bubble up and you're acutely aware you know so anyways So anyways, being like, well, I mean, it's, it's interesting because within the universe of running, there's all these subcultures. And, you know, I think you, I heard you say one time, like running is running is profoundly black, right? Which I want to explore that idea with you. And I think that's true for a variety of reasons. And if you go to, you know, track and field and marathoning at the elite level, you know, it's a black sport.

But you go to trail runs, you go to ultra marathons, and there's like no black people. It's a totally different subculture. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. It's cool to take a break cool it's cool to take a break it's cool to take a break no but uh you know i i think you know trail running in some ways is is a little bit newer i think it there are there have been like filters of access obviously historically and all that kind of stuff i think through framing it up on social media has like kind of increased accessibility or like creating the idea in people's minds and I just also think that I don't know how

I really feel about an activist approach to being a race director no pun intended but um I just kind of think sometimes i see these fields i was looking at like a field of an elite mile and it was like they're just like every time every field is like white white white that's cool but like that's not really like what i'm seeing i'm seeing like there's there's a couple folks and i don't just mean like you know naturalized africans or american africans africans in america i mean like, you know, naturalized Africans or American Africans, Africans in America. I mean, like, there's like black Americans out here who are speaking to distance running and speaking to trail running. You know, and they don't always have to be like whatever we all would perceive blackness to be, you know.

But I just think just the tableau, the look of something, the feel of something can shift a be, you know, but I just think just the, the tableau, the look of something, the feel of something can shift a lot. Yeah. So when you say running is profoundly black, like, what does that, what does that mean? I, I, I just have to say that because obviously like the roots of running are in Africa. Um, And indeed it was running coming together in the human toolkit and a lot of analyses anyways, that precipitated the species explosion from, from Southern Africa, but also all the way through, there's just been like, there's been black folks all the way through, you know, there's, there's been Ted Corbett, you know,

at the Helsinki Olympics in the fifties, there's, there's through, you know, there's, there's been Ted Corbett, you know, at the Helsinki Olympics in the fifties, there's, there's been, you know, um, Daryl general, you know, kind of like winning Marine Corps and being like a legend in the DC community. Um, but also I think my frame of reference is, is, is a little fracked, but just growing up in San Diego at that time, my dad and his friends had Afros and short sheds and mesh singlets and Nike waffle racers and were out there doing it. And they did it in a soulful black way. time like you know i'm a collector of like ephemera but these sort of you know chapbooks and little manuals published by runners ruled another kind of like small publishers in the in the 70s like the covers were always black dudes you know what i mean like the art all through them is always like black dudes wearing like amazing track suits talking about like

marathon workouts i was like incredible hair yeah i was like really long run with that afro like okay you know so so that's cool and then like obviously that just immediately connects to like the the dominance of of the africans on the distant stage which again is also cultural i think much more than you know genetic or whatever like that wasn't a fait accompli like if you read the the actual history of like africans at the world level it just happened just now yeah you know if you talk to herman silva mexicans were running running in the 90s you know africans were just trying to steal in there and get a win when they could but like mexico was turning out like the best in the world for that and then things shifted

you know what what do you think happened that that produced that shift um because it's i mean at the marathon level i mean africa just dominates yeah the depth i mean like obviously the the pre-existing conditions for for that are there has been studied like soft surfaces and altitude carbohydrate that's always been there yeah but now if you're like have you know agents going in and you know supporting people support for sure and so then like what's whether it's the return on investment or the low overhead what it takes to sort of like sustain and pull one champion out you know that's it's the economics are kind of there and then what one champion or what one system or what one program can do to sustain a cultural economy and then to say nothing of like the corruption on like a structural level, how much money

there is to be made from being corrupt. Yeah. But well, I would also think that, you know, guys like Mo and Elliot, these guys have to be rock stars, you know, back home, right? That's got to like create interest in young people. And then, you know, suddenly everybody wants to be a runner. And then the structure comes in to support that elliot's from kenya he trains in kenya he's lived in this camp his entire adult life mo trains in ethiopia we were staying we were training on

kenanisa bekele's track like they're not friends they're competitors and uh yeah so to see mo get so much love in ethiopia was crazy because he's from somalia you know they're you know orthodox christian or coptic church christian there's some muslims there but like mo's muslim whole the whole training camp is muslim they were just saluting Mo up like he was like one of theirs. It was crazy. And he just gave love back. So it was really kind of like a real pan-African vibe. It really felt like this is crazy.

I hope he doesn't. No offense to you. I hope he doesn't hear this. I doubt he listens to this. Mo doesn't listen to the original podcast. But it was almost like a Bob Marley thing. You know, I just felt like he was such an ambassador for like African excellence and black excellence that like people were just like hollering his name out in the street as they drove by out of a truck. Yeah. It transcends any kind of national border.

Why do you think he would react negatively to hearing that? I don't know if he likes Bob Marley. He likes Drake. react negatively to hearing that i don't know if he likes bob marley he likes drake um but yeah it was like a like a yeah like a classic classic figure in that way and it was also interesting him giving that love back and you know him speaking you know amharic to people in the streets and then the other thing is this really kind of tripped some people in his camp out or the coach or whatever. Like while Elliot's off in this camp living in this kind of like monastic environment, like Mo's, the camp in Ethiopia was like right in kind of a busy town with a commercial roadway. It drove the coach crazy because as soon as you'd leave the complex he was like right out on a highway running

and then again if more comedy the coach would like load up the truck and like i'll meet you at the training grounds you run up for three warm up for three miles and i'll meet you there and just to think that this multiple like gold medalist is like stepping out running in traffic around like oil trucks on the highway it was crazy at the first opportunity he will duck off into like the coffee stand and just sit and he had to have like two cups of like strong Ethiopian coffee before the workout while the coach is like or if the coach was with him or we'd be going out to the long run get up at like 5 a.m drive out to the other side of the city had to stop for Ethiopian coffee but Ethiopian coffee.

But Ethiopian coffee is not like in the Pacific Northwest where you go through the drive-thru. This ain't Starbucks. This is like they making it there per cup. Like toasting the beans. It's a whole thing. Right. You're there for a while. A while.

We got to this one. And there's like a whole authenticity. We got to this one roadside nondescript shack. The woman couldn't figure out the electric cords were burnt out, so she couldn't get the hot plate working to toast the beans. So while Abdi and Mo were trying to figure out the wiring, she was putting fresh grass branches down on the dirt to like recreate the floor of a traditional home this is like every day wow the coach saw her putting down the grass and he's like oh no we're gonna be here forever and we were there forever for one tiny cup of coffee but he had to have it yeah he one time he said it you know i'm sure he like he does present

himself as like the the the true true true gentleman but like one time he like stepped into a coffee shop he's like i need that real shit not that machine shit give me that real shit i was like yeah exactly real shit they're literally roasting it there yeah and like per cup roasting the beans and then like beating it right with by hand with a metal stave like right no grinders anything and uh and then they'll pour for you he puts tons of sugar in it and then he's like okay now i'm ready to run like four minute miles like at altitude like yo i'll have two cups too right yeah because that's a crazy elevation up there in addis ababa right it's like eight thousand eight yeah eight i mean the long runs would be at ten thousand feet like it was that's comparative to like boulder or something

like that or even mexico city that was it's a little extreme yeah all right let's go back so you you get into you get into track and field in high school right i was the slowest kid on the team my mom always says that like they were turning the lights out on me when i was finishing the two mile the other kids were on the bus with the engine on ready waiting for me to finish and then i would like fall down at the end like it was like the feat of exhaustion i have a hard time believing that. This is real. Like I'd so humiliated.

Just create a little empathy for your dad after this experience. Why didn't you tell me? Yeah. And I was just like a try hard. I don't know. I just, you didn't get too discouraged to quit. Like what kept you in it?

I guess it just felt real to me. I guess it just felt like failure was real. Failure at my own hands was real. But a one-second improvement was real. Finishing, this is terrible. This is not the mindset of a champion. But finish second to last is an improvement from the previous week when you were lost. Well, yeah, there's a self-determinatism to it. And you start to be able to do that math of, if I do this work, then I improve. And you're responsible for that. Yeah. And the other thing that I've had to come to understand later, and this is a little tangential, but I think I loved, for someone like me who's very qualitative, I think I love the quantitative aspect of it. I loved the time in your performance. Because when these days we're understanding fake news so much, bandied about on all sides, from all directions.

I'm now realizing that the black kid in me growing up around white folks in the 90s, where you'd be out running and people would just scream racial epithets as you were running out in the country training, that that was just people racially harassing you in your school or whatever. Or people accusing you of stuff that you didn't do like projecting racist stereotypes on you that like you had no idea even existed I think I was really attracted and enamored with early on the uh the time next to your name like I did that you can say whatever you want about me like in the hallway or you can say like i did this or i did that but like the fact is like right here with numbers and letters is like that's real

you know and then like after a while once i got better your name's in the paper that i think that like really crystallize it to like, wonder what else is possible all the way along through my running. Also just, we're talking about Mo Farah these days so easily, but like, I've, I've had like similar experiences with that, like my entire running career, but also my life where i've at any given point in time i've always been around someone who was the best and so i feel like since i was maybe 16 um i used to train with these guys some of these guys still hold records in new york state you know guys running like 414 miles eighth graders or whatever to to see that psychology very different from my own but to see that psychology very different from my own, but to see that good, bad guys who are burnout self-destructive, but just to see what it means to be the best and like how you got to be the best. I've seen that from Leo Manzano, Abdi and Mo. I've seen that with my training partner, Mike Slinsky up in Beacon, New York. And I saw that in high school. And then in college, I ran

briefly for a D1 program. And when I walked into the locker room for the first day as a freshman, three of the guys in the locker room were on the junior U.S. cross-country team. Like half the U.S. team was in the locker room, like my teammates. So, you know, I was just used to like seeing the kind of best. And I think the writer in me observed it and took notes on that and kind of like, you know, internalize that in some ways that now comes out as storytelling. Yeah. So there's a comfort with being a small fish in a big pond on some level because it affords you the opportunity to rub elbows with greatness and learn from the best. And that seems to be this is like a pattern of yours. Yeah, I'm definitely attracted to that.

I love watching. I mean, I love like being in the mix and, and on a fly on the wall and all the things that go into that. I love dialogue. I love the musicality of people's voices. I love perspective. I love the sudden revelations of someone's character. I mean, just to like be around Mo as just a recent example only, or around Elliot Kipchoge, like I had like a weird experience with Kipchoge, the opposite of Mo.

Like after I was in Ethiopia, I went out to work on a Nike project in, in Kenya. And with all this commotion and all this stuff going around Mo and three photographers and a videographer, like somehow it all just stopped and everybody was elsewhere. They were scouting, they were in the woods. And I just like sat with Elliot in the camp, just both of us next to each other for like two hours, just vibing, silent, nobody around. Bizarrely, I was sitting there by myself. He comes, picks up a lawn chair and like brings it over and sits next to mine and then just like sits down next to me. And we just chill.

Like that kind of like quiet kind of vibe is equally as intense as kind of like, you know, studying Mo's character in Ethiopia. And being comfortable with the silence and not feeling like you have to hit him up. And that's exactly what you're thinking. You're like, now's the chance where I can ask him how to run a good marathon. And then instead you're just like, what's up? Let's see what happens. You know, it's crazy. And you ended up going to Monza right you were there you were on site for the breaking two and all of that yeah that was uh incredible to watch visceral experience man i uh

it it was it was tough to watch like when you say vortex i mean he was in a vortex in that experience and bizarrely i i cried at the end like as a father the father in me like was like watching someone else going through such a difficult experience and watching it and knowing there was anything you could do to like help or reach out and be like it was like watching your own kids like have a tough experience, you know, where were the tears? What was that about though? I just think the fragility of, of being human. I mean, that's what it was.

There's a lot of levels to that from like Nike levels to production levels, to science levels, to quasi science levels, but the human level of this guy, I don't use the phrase, this guy just doing it, you know, or very, very nearly just doing it, um, was like, hit me right in the heart. And like, as he was finishing, i just was like i was lucky it was raining i was like i had sunglasses on because i was crying underneath the sunglasses like yeah i'm cool it was impossible not to be moved by that you know i went into it a little something not really jaded but kind of like all right like what is this you know it's and then the more i watched it i was like i was all in you know it was incredible

everybody's like that everybody from the nike side i'm not here to tell tales or whatever but like it wasn't like a belief system on the ground in the days leading up to it it wasn't like pacers it wasn't everybody around like oh yeah we're gonna do this this is a nike moment everyone's like uh yeah well let's just see. Right. And it was kind of like the only person who thought he could do it was Elliot. That was bizarre to watch. So close. I talked to Alex Hutchinson. You know Alex, yeah.

On the podcast, he was there as well. And he was expressing the same thing. Like, it was just so incredible and moving to be witness to that event. And there was a lot of production that went into that and a lot of showmanship, but at the same time, on its like purest level, like this is a guy who's trying to do the impossible, and he came so close to doing it.

And forget about all the bells and whistles, like just at a very base level like it's such an amazing thing to watch yeah you know nike because of the production i mean they they they created the the uh the semblance of having a tight grip on everything and then they they did but also you know it was a totally speculative endeavor there was drama in the pacer camp a couple pacers cracked the times that the pace fluctuated here and there like that there was probably you know kind of panic at the controls at a certain point in time so you know behind the scenes i'm sure that it was definitely a fraught environment yeah and like just kipchoge at the center it was just like a vision of calm you know right and then you got

to go pace ed caesar right was that right after that or it was the day after the next day yeah for his book um yeah i get to have the experience on the track on the track and then yeah they had to pace cars and everything they just basically set it up exactly the same way exactly to run a half marathon like for his goal pace and uh that's that's a crazy thing too because like that's you know on a nike level or on a media level that's like a high level asset, as you'd probably say, like in an espionage circle. So couldn't mess that up. But at the same time, if you're an experienced runner or if you're, yeah, like experienced athlete, like, well, how are we going to mess this up? We're going to mess this up by like following the plan that they have.

So at a certain point in time, I was like, cool. What do you want to run? Cool story, bro. This is what we're going to do. You know, like I would like to do this. I would like to do that. I was like, yeah, we were leaning into the pace. Yeah. And it went off well, right? Yeah. Huge PR for him, um, on a writerly level. Cause he's such a, uh, incredible writer. Um, so for people that don't know, he was covering the Breaking 2 story throughout. Was he for outside? For Wired. For Wired, that's right.

And then he's put together this book. This incredible book, Two Hours. That's good. But even in the Wired coverage, and this is why I was really edified to be asked to run with him, the Wired coverage was weird in the way that I like weird things edified to be asked to run with him. The wired coverage was weird in the way

that I like weird things. He'd be like properly skeptical of Nike's swoosh talk and innovations. He'd be reporting on like the lives of these athletes in a beautiful, elegant way. But then he has these passages where he injects something personal and very emotional. And I was like, that's real writing. I mean, this guy's writing for Wired. You don't have to put in this kind of melancholy side note. No, they were like real think pieces. Yeah. And so I was just kind of fanned out over that. But then writer to writer, I was annoyed because as we were finishing,

it starts raining halfway through. He gets to take his shirt off. He's leaning into the pace. And then as we're finishing, the sun comes out. We have a lap to go. And then in the distance, we're in rural Italy, some church bells start tolling.

Not even ringing. No, like tolling. It's like riderly providence. I was like, this guy gets everything. A Tesla. And then all of a sudden they were just like, don't, don't. And I was like, this is whack. These writers get all the luck.

I got to like, I got to like get drunk and get thrown through a window to get a story. Then he starts to wax poetic about it in his book and people think it's not true right now right it's like there's no way it happened like that yeah i was i was mad well speaking of of being sort of reasonably skeptical of Nike, not to go on a tangent here, but because it's so timely. Yesterday, Nike announced its new campaign with Colin Kaepernick, Just Do It. And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot being written about it and a lot being discussed at the moment and super interested in, in kind of your perspective on that. Yeah, I guess. Um, I mean, Nike is classically disruptive. Um, I'm like a black dude on the left, so I didn't think it was disruptive. I saw the ad. I was like,

Oh, when's that? I didn't know. I looked at it and I was like, okay, that's cool. But like, maybe they should have done that a year ago. Like if it can't, maybe it would be a little more edgy if it was last fall or last winter. Right now it seems like, yeah, okay. Got it. But then I saw like, then you're reading like, oh wow. Like there's a whole thing here, you know? Right. People going crazy. I would have met, like, it would have been amazing to be a fly on the wall in their creative meetings around this. Because I have a suspicion that perhaps this campaign did come together last year. And maybe there was some people who were like, let's do it now. Just do it.

Let's do it now. Like, well, maybe the board was like, well, let's wait a little bit. You know, it seems a little, it's because to me, it seemed safe to do it now. Yeah. Like, well, maybe the board was like, well, let's wait a little bit. Yeah. Seems a little, it's, because to me it seemed safe to do it now. Yeah. Almost too safe. Yeah. Obviously not.

Like I'm misreading the culture, I guess. Right. Yet again, like if we've learned anything from the past couple of years, it's like we're misreading culture left, right, and center. Yeah. That's super interesting. And obviously like the crazy media reactions or the reactions that have been reported the media like people burning their shoes in the front yard and all that kind of stuff cutting their socks off and stuff like yeah okay that's intense but

um i can't yet the trials going forward i mean the the lawsuit that's big yeah so if anything um it's interesting that nike would like drop that after like such a crazy event. Like what, yeah, what was the, what was the dialogue in inside the berm, as they say, like, what would be the internal dialogue and Nike to, to go through with that? It'd be really interesting decision-making. Yeah, so I guess it's more provocative than I would have imagined. And I think, you know, it is a company and a culture that began as a disruptive, you know, movement. I think one of the things about Nike, at least from my perspective, from what I've observed. Do you work with them professionally or you're just like a, are you like an ambassador? I, man, I don't think anybody there would ever say I've behaved professionally. Um, but I, I definitely have like, I've, I've been a consultant.

I definitely was a founding coach of Nike plus run. Great. And then my group black roses, NYC is, has received support from, from, uh, from the very beginning since we started in 2013. So I'm a, I'm a friend from the very beginning since we started in 2013. So I'm a, I'm a friend of the brand at least. Yeah. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I just think it's interesting that, um, they're also very provincial there. They are, what I like about them is they are, they're a young company, you know, even though they're like a global, you know, sort of a global multinational corporation. They are very rooted in this Pacific Northwest ethic, as befits the founding genius, Bill Bowerman. Bill Bowerman. So a lot of their decision-making and a lot of their vibes like come out of like that, that point of view. And so I keep thinking about this reaction. I haven't thought about it.

Super problematic, but like, I don't know if like the people at Nike care so much about people burning their stuff, like Nike cares about like Nike people and everybody else can, can, can burn in any way, shape or form, you know? So, well, the brand loyalty for, you know, people that love Nike is unparalleled. Yeah. And I, and I guess, but also, I mean, like on a political level, on a racial level, I'm not here saying that like Nike like loves black people or Nike's like a champion for like what black people are trying to do in America. I don't even know what black people are trying to do in America, like cohesively.

So I'm not saying that Nike in 2018 is an apology as a corporate apologist for like the efforts of black America but I think that they care about their people you know and they care about themselves so I think that's what I'm getting you know yeah well it'll be interesting to see how this plays out yeah you know more will be revealed, I guess. Once the street closes, right? Yeah. Because as of midday, stocks are taking it. Oh, are they?

I was bad. Oh, I didn't know that. I was bad. Oh, wow. That's interesting. I'll bounce back. Yeah. I think it was a, you know, I applaud the move, man. Yeah. You know, what side of history do you want to be on?

Yeah. I guess that's a question that I would love for a lot of us to ask. Like, that's a real question, you know? And, you know, I was in New York City. This has nothing to do with anything we've talked about. So, full disclosure, this just is like a experience that's as you might relate under under the skin of a lot of new yorkers i was here on 9 11 and um watching it with your own two eyes watching these towers come down and just like remembering what happened on the day

you were watching history yeah sure ob Obama's inauguration was history. But this was a before and after of history. This was like a side of history. Or in some senses, in analyses at the time, this was the end of history. And so I think once you've been around momentous experiences or occurrences, you very much have to keep your eyes open, right?

That's kind of like a 60s idea. Keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes on the ball because you really have to understand everything for yourself so you know which side you're going to be on because 20 years from now, it's going to be a very different analysis or understanding from what's happening day to day.

Yeah. Where were you in New York when 9-11 happened we were supposed to shoot lenny kravitz for the cover of the fader just a few blocks from the towers and i didn't want to be around lenny kravitz looking jacked up so i went barbershop, got cleaned up at the barbershop and I was walking down the street in Brooklyn and, uh, and heard the boom. And then, you know, Brooklyn crackhead came around the corner and it's like a plane just crashed into a building downtown. I was like, Oh, again, because the month before a Cessna had crashed, right. Like clip the bank tower and down. right right so i was like oh god traffic you know um and then again then the world kind of ended or at least like stopped and went in a different direction um that was sort of my facile understanding of it now we know that it's

much more complex um but yeah so i went over to sort of my co-workers place we we were watching it from Brooklyn. Then we went up on the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, watched it. And then, bizarrely, we got on bikes and rode to Ground Zero. Oh, you did? Yeah. They let you cross a bridge and everything? There was nobody not, there was nothing.

I mean. Early in the day. Everybody was just shattered and shocked. Like law enforcement, God bless day, everybody was just shattered and shocked. Like law enforcement, God bless them. Everybody was just shattered, you know? So it's like, we rode right up to ground zero after they fell. Yeah. And like smoke everywhere, all in the streets and like just flicking away with our little

35 millimeters. Like we didn't even know her. She was just crazy, crazy day, you know? Wow. You must have amazing photos from that day then we've never seen the photos I don't think Mike I don't think we ever developed the film really yeah just because you couldn't you couldn't bear to I mean I I remember months I didn't ride the subway for months after I rode my bike, like, you know, to, to work like through all the way through December. And then I remember like, but once I was on the train, I was reading like something that, uh, Paul Oster wrote in the, in the New Yorker about it. And I made it like two paragraphs in and I just burst into tears.

And I was like, I can't even handle this you know mmm so anyways weird side note yeah no but I think I think about like what what side of history we're on in various moments you know yeah I think you know it's something that I that I'm always thinking about in terms of like how, how I manage social media. Like, do I participate in this? You know, it's like I don't want to be on the sidelines and say nothing, but I also don't want to, you know, get in all sorts of arguments that go nowhere either. You know, and I probably defer too much to not saying anything because I don't want the aggravation of like a bunch of nonsense coming into my field. But I think it's imperative that we all think long and hard about where

do we stand and what side of history do we want to be on? Because we're at a pivotal moment right now. There's a lot at stake. Things are super crazy. They're probably going to get crazier. And where are we headed collectively as a culture? I think we can argue about politics, but on some level, there's a crisis of consciousness happening right now. And we need to raise the floor on how we comport ourselves and how we treat our fellow man. It starts with our own individual behavior. I mean, I definitely have grew up with an activist ethic. I definitely, you know, have shut down, like, my college campus

with a megaphone on the steps of my good hour. I definitely, you know, I definitely have notched a couple, you know, silly forays into politics. So it's not frustrating. I'm super engaged now on a personal level. But again, since you brought up social media, what I'm doing with First Run is almost exclusively running. Yeah. almost exclusively running. Yeah. Cause I feel like, yeah, as much as I want to weigh in,

as much as I want to post a funny meme or I got cute kid, like as much as I want to like post that, it's just kind of like, I kind of feel like in a crisis, if people are like going through their phone and they're just seeing like this dude running every day that I feel like hopefully that that's a constant and that can provide people inspiration. You know, I've not put myself at the level of greats, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but that's always the that's kind of a polarity in the black community. Not everybody. You don't get that.

You don't always get to choose which side you're on the king or the or Malcolm like for me I'd love to be in the mix maybe but For whatever it is like there's a running boom. I have like something to offer I'd like to think and so I got a I got to stick with that. I got a like that's my wheelhouse well first run is very specific and it has a certain aesthetic. And I think when you visit that page, like, you know, OK, you kind of know what you're going to get. And you're very conscious and making sure that you curate that experience to kind of serve that idea. But what's beautiful about that is it is it does produce this unifying effect.

Right. Which is kind of what you're all about. That's the editorial approach. I think, like, my own appetites when I was a writer and an editor, I loved small-town newspapers. I loved police blotters. I love gazettes. Police blotters. Yeah. My mom still cuts up the police blotter and, like, saves the scraps.

So when I go on a visit, she's like, okay, read this one and just, okay, now read this one, you know? So I just love, I love that. And I love the idea, you know, even America's greatest writers were like shoestring reporters, you know, whether it's, you know, Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson, like in Puerto Rico, Zorno Hurston and Langston Hughes traveling down South and filing dispatches back to newspapers in Harlem. Those are kind of always like my aspirations. I love just like getting off little pieces, little vignettes that kind of make people think about something and go in a different way, talking to town or, you know, that, that, those are, those are my appetites. Those are my tastes. So if I could just tell stories and kind of like have people fall in love with running, if someone's training for their first marathon and the little stories I'm telling, whether like running is so hard or running is revelatory or running is beautiful or running is a good excuse to get to the beach. If that's making their first marathon journey easier, that's cool.

Because when you're training for your first marathon, you're like pulling everybody into your drama. Yeah. And you're looking for that inspiration and those nuggets of wisdom everywhere you can. Right. And your roommate doesn't understand and your boss doesn't understand it and all that. And it's all new to you. It's all new.

So you're like burning bright. And if you can just kind of like connect with sources of inspiration and like, ah, this person gets me, you know, as runners get one another, then I hope that that's part of what's happening. Well, your writing is beautiful in these posts. And I'm wondering why you haven't written a book yet. Well, you did that. You worked on that one Africa soccer book, right?

Yeah, I did. I did work on that. Essays. A book, yeah. But your own book about running and your aesthetic and like this idea of running culture. Come on, man. I would love that.

I mean, I'm a writer. That book would be the bomb. I'm a writer. I know. The book could be a piece of hot garbage and I'd still be proud. You know what I mean? So I don't, I don't even, I'm not even, you know, I'll send you this poem later by W.S.

Merwin about John Berryman. And Merwin obviously lives in Hawaii now, still alive. And it was at this time where he was a tutor for Berryman's kids on Mallorca or something. Berryman was an alcoholic and spinning out of control in his life. But Merwin asked Berryman for advice, you know, on how to be a good writer. And Berryman's like, gives him a bunch of crazy shit,

like paper your walls with rejection slips, save every single one and just like absorb it all and get down and pray to the muse. And I mean that literally, like and pray to the muse and i mean that literally like pray for like the muse of poetry but then at the end of the poem spoiler alert i'll ruin it for everybody who's not going to read it anyways but he says he says how can you be sure that what you ever write is any good and berryman's like you can't you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing if you have to be sure don't write so so are you hanging on to that as yeah for me i don't care right listen if there's a book out

there with like sketches on a cocktail napkin and it says nox robinson on the cover i'm good with that yeah so get it together man yeah get these cocks this cocktail. No, I think you have a, you have a great book and you jokes aside, I would love to write. And so, you know, not as a call to action to your listeners or whatever, but I definitely, um, having worked as an editor before I could use the support of, of, of someone to come in and be like, Hey, let's sit down and like have a coffee. And I think like you can move in this vein or you can move in that. Or if I could just like pitch three concrete ideas for someone to walk it in. The other thing is too, it's just like in the music business, people releasing mixtapes and stuff like that. I would take like

10 grand and print up my own book and just like sell it at races. We're going to talk after this podcast. I'm going to get you whatever you need to get this going because I want to read this book. What do you think it would be? Because on one hand, it could be like a broken training. I think there's a lot of different books that you could write, but I think the book that I would want to read from you would be a book that is sort of part running primer for that first time marathoner. And it's not a training plan book, but it's sort of inspiration and perhaps a little bit of guidance. But what you bring to that conversation that nobody, it's like, what do you have that no one else has? What can you say that no one else can say? And what you bring to bear is this perspective on culture. And it

goes back to being, you know, this vortex at the intersection of art, culture, poetry, music, and running and how running unites all, how all of these things relate to each other in the context of running to inspire this sense that running is more than just your time or, or, you know, crossing the finish line at a race, but that it is, it's, you know, I want to say lifestyle, but that's not even, that doesn't really describe what I'm trying to get at. It's an ethos, right? It is a way of life, right? And you're, the prism through which you perceive that and live it on a daily basis is unique and your ability to express it is beautiful. So I think it would be a gift for you to find a way

to really channel the best of all of that into like this primer, you know, that people would, and you know, it could be, you know, it could have beautiful photography in it. It could bring all of that experience that you had, you know, being an editor in chief at Fader to create a book that's unlike any other running book that's ever existed. I would love that. I mean, I draw inspiration from other books, you know, on running, for instance,

that are unlike others that have ever existed. So I would love to kind of like be inspired by those, but it does resonate. People want that cultural aspect. I, uh, fact of the matter is when I was in this camp with Mo Farah, like I, did not get along well with his coach, this amazing coach. Um, and it got to loggerheads by the end of my time there. It's pretty caustic experience, but, um, what was the beef bad? He, we're just from different worlds. Like, obviously, like I said, I just showed up.

I'm like, who's this guy's getting in the way of my vibe here? I'm just like a black dude from New York who's showing up with like the prototype Nikes and like all black everything clothes and like luggage and like a photographer sliding into me. And like the guys are cool with me. It was just everything. I realized if, if you've been in a certain world, this guy's like been an elite athlete or around elite athletes, that's his experience. You're meeting like a guy like me in your training camp. And, you know, obviously it's like a little disruptive. But it came down to like one of the many amazing accusations that he made was that I was going to leak the workouts either to let's run or like leak, leak, leak. The reality is I was taking copious notes because it was fascinating to watch, you know, but I'm not going to like leak. Um, but the whole time I was in Ethiopia, nobody ever asked me in my time since nobody's ever asked me about a single

workout. I didn't get a DM, nothing Instagram. What were they doing? Like all anyone ever asked was the recipe for this peanut butter tea that they made at the training camp like my phone's still hot like yo you you better come with that recipe yo like that's all i need but that's culture yeah so what you're saying is we are at this moment where the the interest is in culture the culture transcends the performance agenda i I think also, yeah, I also think what's happened and this is kind of what I, I guess maybe I hope to do in the beginning. I think running has been dragged into culture or like, uh, we have like a cultural analysis of running when before it was sports, you know, it's like now all we hear is like culture,

culture, culture. You don't hear the word sport so much, you know it's like now all we hear is like culture culture culture you don't hear the word sport so much you know um and so it's just amazing that two words that didn't even remotely coexist in the same space running on culture can now be fused in a hashtag or like seen in a way like even major brands the bereft of ideas are still like running culture like trying to sound the words out like awkwardly well a great example of that is the work that you're doing with jaybird right now these these this run wild series is insane like the latest one i i emailed you about this like the tokyo video is off the hook it's so well executed and it just gets you so jazzed up. Like you want to join one

of these running collectives in an urban environment and just run the streets and they're, they're beautifully produced. And that's like the perfect vehicle for you to travel to these places, immerse yourself in the quote unquote running culture and find out, you know, the commonalities and the differences all across the world. Yeah. It's, it's been amazing. I mean, it's a credit to the director, Tim Kemple, obviously from Camp Four Collective, who is just... That guy knows what he's doing. Yeah. Like he's, he's seen it, but I was just laughing today. Like this guy is like jumping out of a helicopter and shooting on Chamonix. But last week...

That's his background? Yeah. He's a world-class rock climber. Oh, wow. I thought he must have been like a music video director or something. Nah. Wow.

This is a world-class rock climber trying to make a music video. Oh, wow. And he's coming to me like, my whole idea is we're going to just shoot this thing like a music video. And I'm coming out of the music business

and it's like, I don't want to shoot a music video, B. I'm trying to do, like, I want you to shoot some rock climbing shit in Tokyo. So it's like i don't want to shoot a music video b i'm trying to do like i want you to shoot some rock climbing shit in tokyo um so it's just awesome to see like all that energy come together and then to watch him as like a filmmaker work to watch an artist at work his process is very different from other filmmakers that i've had the opportunity to work so he's awesome jaybird team is awesome they're they're open to so much open to

to damn near anything so that's cool and uh the music guy in me and the music obsessive in me loves you know them as like a music company like they're always like ah the product is awesome but um they're you know, running, running. I was like, let's talk music. You guys are a music company. And like everybody at the company has like a weird music background or has that passion inside too. So that's cool. Yeah, we were talking just before the podcast because I've been talking to those guys as well.

And they were expressing the same thing. I was like, wow, you guys are like a content company. Like I always thought you were a hardware company. expressing the same thing. I was like, wow, you guys are like a content company. Like I always thought you were a hardware company, but they're everything that's coming out of them is all about like creating an experience that transcends just the technology of what they're selling, which I think is pretty cool. And, and, you know, you see other brands getting out, we're going to make this video series or whatever, but they've really, you know, taken that idea to a different level. So are you going to a more city?

How many episodes of this are you going to do? Well, I just came to New York. And so then I was super stressed. They came to New York. And I was like, OK. Tokyo is incredible. London, my homie Charlie Dark, the icon of global running. And that was, was that in Shoreditch?

Yeah, he was on a rooftop at dawn, mixing mixing off music beats, like playing to the city. I was like, oh God, I can't catch a break. Then I got to come to New York and I'm just going to be like eating a slice of pizza, waiting for like the bus or something like that. What am I going to show you in New York? And we took him into like deep culture. We took him into like deep Brooklyn with a couple of women, you know, running down Flatbush Avenue.

We definitely, we got to see some performance aspects of black roses um so people did do a long run finish at exhaustion cursing and like passing out on a track in extreme heat so that's part of our dna um there was like a dj set at our rooftop playing some records so there was there was some some uh there was some it was definitely accurate vibes it's cool and you are you gonna go are you traveling to more cities for this or yeah i don't want to reveal i don't want to jinx slash reveal with this next one but the one yeah they had a couple things options and i've just like bided my time and then like when the time was right they're like hey remember that that such and such place you mentioned? I was like, yeah. They're like, do you have connections there? I was like, yeah.

So hopefully in October, we're going to be jetting out to see something really, really special. That's dope. Yeah. So when someone says to you running culture, I mean, this is, this is almost a phrase that you've helped coin or if not coin, like introduce to the culture, like coin or if not coin, like introduce to the culture, to the culture at large. So what does that, what does it mean to you? Like, how do you define that for yourself? You know, I could be more sophisticated, you know, if I had a graduate degree or something, but if you think back to like the anthropology class that you like took when you went to college, like 101, and culture was this tribe, this nation, the Yanomami in the rainforest in the Amazon, Napoleon Chagnon's perspective on it. And like, this is what culture is. This is what society means.

That's my definition of culture. What are the attributes and like the ways of living that a particular group of people share? Now, it can be the Yanomami Indian. It could be the Gitche Gullah folks living off the coast of South Carolina in the Sea Islands. So what commonalities do runners have? Because what happens after you like fall in love with running and become a runner? after you like fall in love with running and become a runner, I love watching it happen. No matter how different you may be from, from me or you like that transformation, that transfiguration that,

that happens that renders you defunct from like dating certain kinds of people, having certain kinds of jobs. Once like a lot of your life is scuttled or subjugated to your dreams of running, then like you're a lot of your life is scuttled or subjugated to your dreams of running then like you're a prisoner of culture you know to paraphrase this this book by jean genet yeah you're you're a prisoner of of the culture and you find yourself an acolyte and an inherent of um you know the commonalities a certain set of agreed upon parameters.

Not even agreed upon, right? They're just, those are the parameters and you find yourself like. In the ether that we subject ourselves to consciously or unconsciously. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And I love it that it's deeper than like, you know, which hydration you're going to use. It's so much deeper than like which shoe you run in. Like all that kind of stuff. oops sorry brands but like i don't even feel that relates to the culture at all i kind of feel like there's so many levels under that yeah um that there's a

frequency and that's where the culture is uh-huh so let's talk about black roses we just we actually we just like skipped over like a big part of your life. I mean, basically like you ran in college, you ran at a certain level, you were training with like super fast guys. At some point you were no longer the last or second to last guy. Like you competed at a pretty high level, but then you put running in the rear view, right?

And you moved to New York, you're thinking about your career. You get a job at like a museum, at an African history museum through Maya Angelou. Like Maya Angelou is like your teacher or something. Yeah, right. So yeah. I mean, break that down because how does that work? Well, she was on faculty at Wake Forest University where I went to school.

She was literally your teacher. Yeah. That's crazy. Like, yeah. And that was, yeah. So, yeah. She was teaching poetry, obviously? She was, I don't want to be crazy, but she was bigger than poetry, right?

Of course. But I'm trying to think of the class that she she was just like teaching the human experience so what's your job man i'll teach the human experience like she she taught the human people to pull that off but she's one right and it would be everything i mean so it was all her works it was like everything from like a two-line uh utterance uh from a a slave in the roman empire all the way up to you know something that was written in the 2000s also i was um was the guy it wasn't too many brothers in the class it was like the kind of thing where it was just like the good meaning good natured white kids like were like flocking to this class like you know so um but i was i was like helped her down the stairs into her car like after every

class so it was like i kind of had like a special you create a little bond little bond and i violated the bond like every semester class, she cooks dinner at her house. So it's like a big thing to like go to Maya Angelou's house where she's chefing. Man, the day it happened, one of my favorite poets was making a rare appearance on the East Coast. He's a West Coast beatnik guy from the 50s 60s who never comes out east and he was in another part of the state and like me and this woman from just drove there and saw it and like i skipped dinner at my angela's house to go see gary snyder read that's a crazy dilemma favorite beat poet versus poet laureate

dinner cooking your dinner yeah cookie how do you make that decision i feel like she would appreciate the decision that you made or does she take it personally yeah she took it personally so you saw that poet i was like right here i think i'm good i'm the i'm the young i'm the young poetry brother. Like helping her to the car every, after every class, skip the dinner, snubbed her, snubbed the dinner. And then, um, come back into class the next week. And she says, Mr. Robinson, your presence at dinner was greatly missed. Oh, class.

And I was like, all I could say was like, That's devastating. I was humiliated. And I was like, I greatly missed the dinner. That's all I could say. I just like,

like sunk down in my chair. Did you tell her what you did? Yeah, of course. And think about it. Maya Angelou, like knows all these guys she was like before she yeah she was a living she was a beatnik yeah you know if you talk to the protege or the real thing right well she was around all these guys in the 50s in san francisco so i told her like who i saw and she's like uh-huh okay right um and then i think i think i like passed out in

her basement after graduate on graduation night that was awkward i'm a narcoleptic like a vague narcoleptic not not because you drank too much no i was i was i was pretty straight-laced in school um so yeah so it wasn't it was it was it was, it was, it was, it was fine. We, it was, it was great. She definitely had, had a lot of affection for me. And then, yeah, it got me my first job in New York, like in a really bizarre episode where she just called the director of this museum up from her desk phone as I like sat there, like, and just told the guy to hire me. Right. So of course the guy does. Yeah. But without anything to do so, of course, the guy does. Yeah.

But without anything to do. So, again, I just show up on the first day. They have a desk. But, like, I didn't have. All I did for, like, a year of working at this museum was make, like, white wine sprinters at events once a month. And then, like, I just went in the archives and I just read so I spent a year reading like unpublished manuscripts of like lengths and hues I spent a year like going into archives and looking like Basquiat paintings that have never been displayed before I just like would be able to go into like pull out actual physical copies typewritten

manuscripts of like my favorite writers I I just spent a year reading. Did you have this, you know, deep interest in the history of black culture prior to this, or did that experience in the museum and the access to all of that material, did that like sort of provoke that for you? The best thing was I was like, it was an era in New York and indeed in the world that was like a renaissance in black arts and culture so it was there in the music and spoken word scene and and all that and so I was definitely came to New York as an aspirant to like join that scene I thought I was gonna have a spoken word seed out the CD that was gonna be your thing right like poetry um the best you say that you like you're you're you're dismissive of yourself when you know that you are, right?

Why? Just own it. You can still do it. You do it in your writing already. I was at open mic nights. I was getting on the mic and second to last on the microphone. Yeah, but look what you did in running, man. It was the same experience.

Just showing off. It was excruciating. Yeah, it was crazy. So the best thing happened was that I kind of had like a very, what I would probably say today is like a middle class understanding of black culture. Like, here's the politics. Sure, I was on the left. I was like more Malcolm than Martin. Here's like the canon this is what i

think and the amazing thing about the diversity of all of our world cultures and all of our experiences but the amazing thing for me was that at this first year in new york i just got to see all the weird stuff like all the third stream stuff i got to see amazing writers who wrote two books in the 70s and never published again because they couldn't I got to think about you know not John Coltrane versus Miles Davis but I got to think about Sun Ra like as a third stream artist so it was my first time and then at the same at that time I was also hanging out in downtown and clubs in New York and seeing like black indie rock bands like jump off the stage into a crowd of like three people, you know? And so I just had this whole experience where I just was reading and looking

and seeing like black folks living like any kind of way they wanted to. It was incredibly inspiring for me because I was just, it just freed me up from like any sort of preconceived notion. You know, when you read about like my favorite writer, Amir Baraka, when you realize he was, again, a jazzy, no pun intended, beatnik poet and was writing his opinions on jazz music and blues and white critics will never understand it. There was one moment where he was at a party being super intellectual

and talking all loud, andles mingus is behind him and mingus just turns and it's like funny he thinks it's about him and just like the humbling experience of recognizing that it's not about you um as a running note sonia richards ross's one time told me that her dad always reminds her the same thing, that there's no one person bigger than the sport. There's no, even Usain Bolt is like in the firmament of what all of our hopes and aspirations are. And so for me at the time, it was just really humbling just to be a fly on the wall, just be a kid in the mix mix like watching something amazing watching magic happen or like finding a book that i didn't know existed you know and and reading about it and and loving

it taking it to the heart but some sense that you wanted to pursue some type of career that that would place you at the center of like this culture yeah i mean you definitely want to make it in your young so you want to like, yeah, it's New York. You want to be famous or whatever like that. But again, I had all these like bizarre experiences. My first day in Brooklyn, one of like my idols at the time was like a dude who was on the first season of Real World, became a writer, became a famous hip hop journalist. And he was like eating a slice of pizza at this pizzeria i sat down next to him he started talking to me and i was like holy shit this is kevin powell like my idol um and he said uh first season of real world yeah when they had that dope apartment in new york of course i remember

that right yeah so all of a sudden i'm sitting next to Kevin Powell and he's like, oh, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm here. Right. He's like, listen, for the first six months, do everything. Go everywhere. Go to every show. Go to every open mic. Go to rock everything possible. And then pull away from it and forget it all and just like do you.

Now, I just took that as like the best advice. Yeah. And it's curiously enough, like a Czech writer gave the same advice to Langston Hughes in 1925. He said, hide and write and study and think. And between those two sort of piece of advice, that's kind of like what my acumen is as a writer and as a journalist and probably even as a runner. But before the journalism career cropped up, you did this tour as a manager, right? You were managing bands? After.

Oh, that was after. That was after Fader? Yeah, after. Oh, wow. So I was at Fader and was just sitting around and, you know, you're hot, you know, you're hot when you get fired, you know? So a super amazing music label from London, one of the most reputable indie labels came and kind of like forced a label on me. Like, what do you want to do?

You can do whatever you want. Put out the music you were writing. I was like cool to be an anr guy you mean just to be yeah anr sure but also like to like have my own label oh wow you know but without caught up in like the the business structures and all that kind of stuff i can just put out whatever i want on my own imprint let's say uh-huh um but Fader, I kind of resolved that I didn't want to be anyone's boss ever again. And I just didn't really take to like coming in the office and checking in and reporting and all that kind of stuff. So I did one amazing reggae compilation of Roots music from Kingston and Brooklyn, but

I didn't really have like the bandwidth to pursue it but anyways after the label thing didn't really take off i found this band that i really wanted to put out and it was like a cosmic jazz brass band of like eight blood brothers from the south side of chicago who are like they were hard rocks. They were like young dudes. Their dad was Sun Ra's first band leader, and they kind of grew up, they were the youngest sons of 27 kids that their dad had in this sort of cultural context, black cultural nationalism context of Chicago. So they grew up totally Afrocentric, totally vegetarian slash vegan, only playing their father's music.

It's not even like they would play like jazz standards. Once they started writing music, they only played their music. And the only music they ever studied growing up was their father's music. And they studied before school, went to public school. But then, of course, imagine you're like South Side of Chicago, vegan. Your dad's like a weirdo musician you're yeah that road gets narrow right so they went to school and like became rappers so they could all rap and they wanted to be like a rap group but they came to new york and they started playing in the street in chicago and then playing in the streets of new york their own

compositions that are like this incredibly like addictive, they're called hypnotic brass ensemble. And that's the word for the way the music sounds like that very North African gypsy Aeolian mode, but with like a pulsating rhythm that is just so enrapturing. So I was trying to put these guys out. And I ended up kind of just like helping them out like they were like playing in the street making two three thousand dollars a day like and splitting it up every night and then like going out and playing again i was like hey

this could be bigger like we could put out something they went to europe i always remember i ran the new york city marathon, and then like jumped on a plane and went to Germany to like catch up with them for their first tour. And just, they played in the streets and made a lot of money. And I had pressed up some records with my own cash and we were selling them in the street. It was just a very mercantilist like retail operation. So from there, the economics were finite, like an eight piece band means like eight plane tickets and hotel rooms. Yeah. So then I was like, okay.

So then I managed a four-piece. Guys who are like prog rock from Soweto in South Africa. That was four guys. And then you'd be on tour and you'd see like a DJ just walking through the airport with like the laptop and a carry on. And you're like, ah, that's what I need. And so then I ended up managing like an emergent rapper, kind of like a post Kanye rapper named Theophilus London, who was like a great kind of impactful artist at the time. And of course, within six months, he wants to play with a band. This is killing me.

So shout out to all the guys. Are those guys all out there doing it now? Yeah. They're all still touring the world. They're all still crazy. I just went to South Africa to run Comrades. Oh, you did? Oh, you ran Comrades.

Yeah, I ran Comrades. And then the day later,'m like back with the guys in the studio they're like we're in the studio let's hang out and i was like i just ran 56 miles and we're in the studio you guys are like taking three hours to like tune the drums like i'm gonna stick with this running shit i can't go back to the music business at all so you did that for a while. Yeah. And then, I mean, the inciting incident seems to be when you had your first kid, right? Because you weren't running at all. You're partying and doing whatever, right? Staying up late.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the experience of watching my son, Raul, come into the world was just super affecting. son Raul come into the world was just super affecting. You know, like as adults and now more than ever, we sit around dragging our knuckles about the state of the world and how bad everything is, rightfully so, tearing each other's eyes out. But then when you watch a child being born, you're watching like one of your own species, like demand their place in the human

community. And there's no other way I know how to talk about it. Uh, it's just so powerful and it requires such a singular unity of like body and mind and spirit that I just thought, man, when was the last time I ever did something? Yeah, everything's cool. I'm an editor-in-chief of the magazine. I got an expensive Amex. I'm flying in and out of Rio with Diplo or whatever. But it's like, when's the last time I did anything with that singularity, that unity? And the only thing I could think of was running.

And so the very next day, I started running in this you know park across the street from my house like one loop then two loops and three loops how long had you taken off uh probably 10 years yeah yeah not really any running at all zero running i think the only time i thought about it was when the marathon came through the neighborhood every year and then also there's always like that one day in the fall that smells like cross country or the leaves are changing and you have like a flicker of like remembering what it was like to run as a kid. I listened to an interview recently with Davi Diggs from Hamilton. And I didn't know that he had been like this killer hurdler. Like he was like top flight, like Olympic trials, like super fast. And when he

embarked on his career, he kind of put it in the rear view mirror. And I can't remember, maybe it was Mark Maron. I can't remember who was interviewing him, but the question was like, why didn't you just keep running? He's like, because you go to the gym and people are trying to lose a little bit of weight or they're out jogging. And he's like, because you go to the gym and people are trying to lose a little bit of weight or they're out jogging. And he's like, when I went to the track, it was like I was working on my superpower, you know? And once you kind of let go of this idea that you're going to be a superhero, he found it difficult to like have a different kind of relationship with running. have a different kind of relationship with running and that's kept him from pursuing it is that a similar is that something similar to your experience or was it just i'm done with that

um i think in a specific sense maybe my own departure from running as distance running is is tough in a different kind of way but it was was, it was kind of super poignant. So I didn't really revisit it or didn't really choose to revisit it. But I do always think about that, that scene in like probably the first Superman where he's all washed out and he's like got a five o'clock shadow and he's drinking in a bar and all that kind of stuff. I feel like that, like even Superman having a bad day is like going to the dive and it's like, I'm going to be here. No one knows who I am, you know know and like he's not even clark kent he was just like dirt the uniform was like

dirty and he's drinking whiskey in the back of the dive and i was like oh that's real you know like even if you have your superpower you can sort of like it can come and go, you know, the muse visits you, you come and go. So, so yeah. So Raul's born, you get back into running. Yeah. Did you have a sense that you wanted to make, I mean, when did it, when did it occur to you that this could be like a path for you beyond just being in touch with running as something enjoyable. Yeah. Well in shorter, I mean, I definitely like threw myself into it. I still had like the reference point of like an NCAA D one bro,

where I was like, Oh, my first marathon, I go out and run one 15. I qualify for New York city automatically. Oh, cool. I'm going to run two 30 in my first marathon. Cool. Comedy ensues i'm training i'm training i'm training whatever whatever but uh i had life changes and everything but i i moved up to the country uh yeah it was it was in new york city marathon in 2011 i had gone to south africa uh with this rapper i was managing acted crazy there then we went to paris for some shows and like fashion week right and hanging out with kanye and virgil

and then like more trouble there so i was definitely like burning like real trouble or you're just i mean uh yeah i mean you know what's real what's i don't know what's we can go there if you want. No, it's in the past. But you're, I mean, you're blazing a bright light, right? I mean, it sounds super cool. Who doesn't want to go to Fashion Week with Kanye? You know, it sounds like you're like living the life that everybody, you know, wishes they had.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, it's not sustainable uh-huh um so anyways i hadn't been running whatever and so the marathon came up but you had to get out of the city you're like i need a i need like a little purge here well it wasn't it was like my kid and his mom moved to seattle all like the kind of landmarks and touchstones that i had were kind of like too filled with like memories of young fatherhood. So I didn't want to like deal with it. And then I was traveling so much that I was like, let me just put my stuff up in the country and like a safe house instead of like an overpriced apartment in Brooklyn.

So when I come into town, I can just like hide out in the woods and then like go back out on the road again. Like a safe house, like safer stuff. But also like a legit safe house. Like I'm getting out. No, of course. I'm going to go hide. Yeah, of course. Of course. So yeah.

And it's just like Superman. Like I tell you like one night like in the safe house. Like in this town. Just like revitalize me. I could come back like dangerous the next day. I'd be like, I'm back. And it's still it's still that way and that's where you meet that dude yeah that you start training with just running one day

i was out i was lonely i didn't didn't and i just saw these guys like half a block away but of course you can appreciate it like we were running the same pace so i wasn't catching up on him right i had to like that's not supposed to be happening. Right. I'm like, ah, these guys aren't getting any closer. So I had to like drop the hammer to like catch up to these dudes. And then just imagine like, there are these white dudes and all of a sudden like a black dude just comes up to you,

like all sweaty sprinting. And it's like, uh, uh, I didn't know what I was going to say. I was like, yo, I was following you.

And they're like, so, and, um, so yeah, fast friendships were formed in the instant. But, um, yeah, so I came back from, from while and out, uh, on the road and then ran New York city marathon and like guys in the industry or guys in the streets in Brooklyn were like, well, what are you going to do? I was like, yeah, I'm going to get top 100. And I got 100th place. And the 100th place is the last name. When they print all the results of the New York Times, it's the last name on the first page. Yeah.

That's a big deal. That's all anybody looks at. Right. You look at the first 10 names. It's the Billboard 100. And I got 100th. And my name was right there on the front page. So, yeah.

So, after that, like, things shifted. Like, people around New York and our kind of little creative community or even in the running, urban running community that was kind of like, again, hanging out on the sidelines. Just tossing back margaritas. People are like, yo, you got 100? I thought you were just like a guy i thought you were one of us and i'm like no i'm one of us look we're drinking i got seven inch shorts on everything's cool and they're like nah nah nah nah what's up with this yeah so 800 workout is that for real and i'm like nah man that's fake so all of a sudden like dudes

men and women were kind of like coming up for advice yeah and i was like begrudgingly you know started kind of like giving it a little bit and then also at the time i kind of really had this idea to start a you know a premium running magazine called first run and i ended up taking the last little bit of money that I had from the music business and spending it all to like shoot 80% of this magazine, like flying in a photographer to shoot like Olympians at altitude in Mexico and like all this kind of stuff. And then when it came time to push the button print, you know, at the print house or whatever, it was just kind of like instagram was more fun like i didn't want to like get tied into like selling ads and like you know chasing

checks and like another meeting in detroit trying to crack big auto for an ad you know yeah magazine business is tough yeah it's got to be tough really tough now yeah i would go in you know shout out to anybody out there i would definitely go in and like edit or, you know, publish, co-publish a magazine because I still love it. And I like know it like in my heart of hearts. So really a running culture magazine, like looking at this intersection that we've already spoken about. And there is no magazine that exists like that. Cycling has a few magazines that mimic that, some of which still exist and some of which have gone away. Like Peloton, that was kind of like in the vein, right? Does that magazine still exist? I don't even know.

I don't know if it's still around. But there isn't anything. Nobody has created anything like that for running. Yeah. And more people run that for running. Yeah. It's awesome. People run and run and ride bikes. Yeah. And again, if you just think if you had this publication like on your coffee table as you're training for your first marathon or your 50th, like a publication that feels like, yeah, this person gets me i have to say like in light of like political shifts and stuff

coming to the fore like in the me too era in the past year that i definitely see now is like my idea for a magazine was super limited it was gonna be you a loose lush like older bro lavish premium experience for like rich dudes it was an idea that's not me but it's in terms of like who could i shovel this idea off onto you know uh it wasn't like a super pluralistic thing, you know, but those are my references at the time, like Purple Magazine and Olivier Zahm and just kind of like these figures in like fashion and publishing on an editorial level. I wanted to create that, what I perceived to be that romance and that glamour that I also felt was running. Like if you hear about like Leo Manzano training at a high altitude training camp and he's like in the sauna afterwards or he's in the cooling jets, like that's an experience that like you feel a rich dude is trying to have as he's training for his marathon.

It made sense to me. Nike was coming out with their premium collection design in Japan and, you know, watches were getting more expensive and having features. There was just all these kind of things. And then you could also bring into cultural element to that. Obviously, it's something that Monocle magazine is probably always cooking up because it's very much that was part of the inspiration. And Tyler Brulee, I guess, apparently is a big fan of runners running and has always said he wants to like do a running magazine. I think he's bringing a literary

flair yeah sport yeah and also like a little fashion and style too like being a little transgressive like shot leah wallace for the cover of the first issue and she was just kind of like you know what let me introduce a running magazine and let me put this like empirically beautiful black woman on the cover and wearing like a usatf sweatshirt in the middle that does and use like proper fashion photographers sure to shoot elite athletes yeah you know again another in fact i like i wish that magazine existed i would i like i'd definitely buy it yo because my fashion friends my fashion friends are like what are you doing and then elites are like what are you doing? And then elites are like, what are you doing? It was definitely oil and water.

Missing every, yeah, I gotcha. And everyone dug it. And I like to think that, you know, that early thing kind of like helped proliferate some images and some visual language out there that I think people have picked up on. Yeah, I think they have. And so you make this decision not to go forward with the magazine. You put it all into Instagram, which is super cool. What you're doing with that is amazing work. And then with sort of the dispensing of advice with all these people who are like,

tell me what to do, you start to cobble together just this group of people that ultimately becomes Black Roses. Yeah. A lot of us, a core of us were running with New York City Bridge Runners, the legendary crew that kind of like kicked this whole movement off. Shout out to Mike Sace, the founder. But yeah, like it was a running boom. And in that era, people just had questions.

People had a thirst for knowledge and they were either going to get it from the Internet and they were either going to be running Yasuo 800s and then like crashing out in a marathon. Or you could kind of like give them at least what I sensed was training. And so Black Roses NYC, when we started, wanted to have our cake and eat it too. It definitely is set up around a conservative, traditional training schedule on a weekly level. But our conversations and our calculus is definitely at least half informed by culture. Yeah. And you don't call it a club. No, don't even call it a club i mean yeah it's funny you're like what could else no but yeah we call it a it's a collective is that

what you like to call it a collective because the idea when we started like everybody was gonna pitch in and kind of contribute what they were bringing you know whether you were an art gallerist or a bartender or an out-of-work bartender or a fashion person or a photographer and and that's has happened you know on a cultural level but very swiftly i also came to realize people like me were just trying to show up and like get inside and running and like work on their running so i gotta like i gotta i gotta serve that also yeah well it has you know it's I mean, it has the veneer of cool. Like it's you know, this is not like investment bankers like this is like the cool people you want to hang out with.

Right. Like the art directors and the, you know, graphic designers and the photographers and the musicians and out-of-work bartenders and the like? I think, yeah, I think there might be a Wall Street guy who crept in just now. Yeah, but like he's a novelty. Right. And I think he's got like full tattoos. Like I've never seen him with a shirt on, but like I kind of think this tattooed guy is like, you know. So, yeah. So, you know, not in any filter or whatever.

And I'm definitely on the side i'm like a post 2008 crash guy like i left the banks and like work you know yeah put my money in a credit union when i have it but uh so yeah i'm definitely not like wall street you know that type so it is it is like a cultural outfit for sure and why black roses uh it comes from this uh amazing reggae song dancehall reggae song by Barrington Levy, Black Roses in My Garden, that's about the rarest flower that you never see. And so what does that mean in terms of what you're trying to cultivate? I think it's a call out to the kind of individual that comes into the squad. They're super diverse,

the kind of individual that comes into the squad. They're super diverse, all walks of life and people who didn't even know each other before. And like, for some reason they, something in them draws them to the squad. I was rather uncharitably the other day saying that like some kind of like flaw in them brings them to the squad. And someone's like, well, yeah, you have that too. I was like was like no i'm a nice guy but um i think like left of center in some way definitely left of center and a lot of times there's been people with like intense heartache that need healing and

a distance running practice sometimes offers that i'm definitely not a mental health professional and have learned the hard way that creating that context for people to explore their pain and come out on the other side is definitely not to be taken lightly. So that's something that I have had to revisit and kind of think about it a little more chastely. think about it a little more chastely. But in that sense, it is sort of that kind of like pathos coming together for self-improvement and the improvement of a group and a community. And that idea that the black rose, this rare flower, needs to be taken care of or tended to with a little more attentiveness. Sure.

Right? Yeah. That's beautiful, man. It's an inspiration. It's an inspiration on tough, when it's tough times. Like, the song definitely very simply, you know, puts it out there for, like, for what it is about. Like, you got to water it, you know? Yeah.

And at the same time, there is, like, I mean, you had a bunch of people qualify for Boston. Like, it's legit training. Yeah. So it's not just like, hey, let's look at the same time, there is like, I mean, you had a bunch of people qualify for Boston. Like it's legit training. Yeah. So it's not just like, hey, let's look at the street murals. No. Yeah. I laugh about it. I feel like if you come in Black Roses, like the weird thing is, again, you're like a bartender.

You could come around Black Roses and then like sit down with Galen Rupp and like talk about his training. Like I've just seen it happen bizarrely. like sit down with Galen Rupp and like talk about his training. Like I've just seen it happen bizarrely, you know? So you come through Black Roses and just my perspective and what I bring is informed by a handful of experiences and a handful of people. I just like learned it, you know, from them in first person. And that's what I have to bring. I'm not like the kind of like organized coach with like a file on everybody and like the desktop on the laptop charting out data, you know, but like trying to feel.

Yeah. I'm trying to feel my way through it. So can anyone show up or do you have to? Is there some kind of that? I mean, with your profile kind of getting more and more out there, you probably have a lot of people, probably too many people who want to be part of this i'd like to think so that's cool um but like that's not even my concern um that's something i don't ever pursue uh my default mode is not returning emails so like i don't think that i just that's you know like you're not gonna like crack a marathon by like emailing you know obviously i should be returning the emails but um it's getting harder these days it's rough it's like what happened this was the savior now it's just like

um but honestly if you like come up if you come out and show up if you find us that's cool right so make it a little bit hard like make people have to work to figure out what's going on and if they really want it they'll they'll figure it out yeah the model is like you oh cool oh i love green tea zen zen zen i want to join a monastery cool you want to join a monastery fly to japan sit outside in the snow outside the monastery gates for six days and wait and then on the sixth day they're going to open up the door and like see if you're still there and be like like the dude who was trying to get in the fight club it's that exactly right you know um so yeah it's it draws its inspirations you know from like even my studies of east asian religio philosophy when I was in school and trips to China and Japan, like, you know, that's kind of like what it is.

I do have like a certain kind of profile where I was a music journalist and all that. But also I translated Tang Dynasty poetry and like speak Chinese and like definitely. You speak Chinese. Yeah. I'm more Taoist than I'm like oh my god confucianist you know like yeah so it's like there's a lot going on there's a lot going on and i like to go out like when i move to this town and i could just show up and like take off the saint laurent suit and just get on the track i like just showing up to the track and like pushing people past their zone

and people aren't asking me like this or that yeah well i've heard you talk about this before but i've had this experience myself which is when you're when you're with other people when you're training when you're working it's it never occurs to me to ask somebody like hey what do you do like what's your job like it's not part of the vernacular and i don't know whether that's just because there's some unifying principle around running in a collective group that brings people together on a different level where suddenly that just is not relevant. But I think that's something that's, that's like really cool and special about that experience of, you know, group training. Yeah. It it's it's funny i mean there's a guy in the group now who was part of like a like a raging hot indie band in london like very recently but like no one knew or

something well people who like that kind of music do but the great thing about black roses is like it's a super diverse group like one day mal, Malcolm Gladwell, cool with Malcolm. Malcolm came out, trained with us. Right. Also, I think about Black Roses, it's like half the people are showing up and be like, oh my God, what is that? And then the other people are like, yo, who's the dude in the orange jacket with the afro? Who's his barber? Malcolm gets on the track.

We're doing like 12 by 400 or something fast he's tears through the group takes his shirt off he's just running like guns out like tearing up these 400s and i like beating people up to this day about i was like what was it like looking at malcolm gladwell's back before he dropped your ass right like you know like what was it like your favorite author dropped you on the track like not only is he smarter than you yeah he dropped your ass right like you know like what was it like your favorite author dropped you on the track like not only is he smarter than you yeah he dropped you put the hammer down on you malcolm gladwell ran 456 at fifth avenue what did you run okay that's crazy yeah that's pretty cool yeah yeah yeah that's a better moment yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's, that's how that, that goes.

I mean, but for me, like that experience is exactly the same as like Abdi call me up or like kicking it with, with those guys and, or like hanging out with Elliot, you know, it's gotta be cool looking back at all these experiences that you get to have that are really a function of you making this decision. Like, Hey, I love this thing. experiences that you get to have that are really a function of you making this decision like, Hey, I love this thing. I'm going to invest in it because there's no clear career path. Like, Hey, Oh, I was a music manager. I ran a marathon. I did pretty good. Yeah. But like, you're not a pro athlete. You're not, you know, but you've been able

to create this thing out of whole cloth based on your passions. Yeah. I would like to, I love that I have, um, like a lot of young people kind of like follow me on Instagram for inspiration. Cause you know, when I quit running in the nineties in college, like, what did you do? And I still feel like that's the same for like a lot of young people. Like if you don't get the college scholarship, do you keep running? Like how would you, if you were in high school on the track team, maybe you were good, maybe you weren't, whatever. You didn't get a scholarship. Like how did you, how would you keep running? Like what are, what's the catchment?

What's the safety net for kids to keep pursuing something that hopefully that they love? You're a D1 athlete or D3 athlete or juke or whatever. How do you, how do you keep doing it if you want to or even if you don't how could you like touch on that inspiration and i like showing young people that there's like an older dude who loves it and like loving it can be like linking up with ricky gates and like jamming in the Rockies for six days straight. You know, I feel that I feel I feel like when I see who's digging on it, high school elites and college elites, I'm like, yeah, there's something you can do like after this if you don't pick up a pro contract, you know.

Where do you want to take this? Like, do you think about what you want it to become or do you just show up for the experience yeah like this this moment it's it's tough like as seasons change you know and so i gotta think about what my next moves are and and all that and so i definitely do hope it it it be it it changes you know um but man like two years ago i went up and again i visited bern heinrich at his cabin in maine like typical approach i drummed up his email off like an obscure university website emailed him and like bern heinrich like wrote me back it's like sure we'd be delighted to host you i just drove up with my son and a photographer like

showed up to the cabin yeah and like stayed and like my son bonded with burnt heinrich and like caught frogs with burnt heinrich and like went home with tadpoles and like now burnt heinrich sends books to my son that's pretty cool so when you think about someone like that who's like made a career of writing and has been passionate about running his whole life and has kept that through I like to think of it like that hopefully that I'm setting up enough sort of or riding enough waves that I can kind of continue doing what I'm doing as a as a as a rock on tour he's a storyteller another reason why you got to write this book man i'm gonna i'm gonna hold you to it i need to please please um all right we gotta wrap this

up and close it down but um i want to end it with one uh question the uh tokyo video that you did opens with a line a voiceover line from you which is running is an act of rebellion so it would be great if you could kind of explain that to round this thing out and nobody wants you to run you're supposed to just be a digit you're supposed to just be like a cipher you're supposed to just be like a cipher. You're just supposed to be like a one or a zero in the code. You're not supposed to like have your own volition. You're not supposed to get out and like think for yourself. You're not supposed to like feel, you know, and running is like the first and the most crucial thing aside from getting up in the

morning that like you can actually feel it may be good it may be bad it may be hot it may be cold it may be hard it may be easy it may be like endorphin based and it may be just like rage inducing but like running is our one of our oldest tools um and it's there for all of us at our disposal to feel. And feeling is free and feeling is freedom. And so when I say it's rebellion, it's a way to throw off all our pressures and all our expectations and all the sort of like lies that other people have sold us and all the lies that we tell ourselves, all our self-hatred and our self-doubt and all our minimizing, you know, all our whack relationships and bad dates and like

mistakes that we've made in the past, whether that was last night or last year or 10 years ago or 20 years ago, running is a chance to, to, to, to, to do something new. And so that is rebellion. Um, when given the choice between running and succumbing to that vortex, I think you just wrote the forward to your book. Right there, man. That was beautiful. Thank you. It's good talking to you, man. Thank you for having me.

This is super special. Yeah, cool. If you want to connect with Knox, the best way to do that is probably... Yeah, send him an email. He'll probably read it, but he's not going to email. Of course I'm reading that shit. Instagram, right? First run on Instagram.

Yes. Anywhere else. That's it. If you want to, if you're in New York city, you're spinning vinyl, right? In Brooklyn. Yeah. On Sunday nights or what does this happen?

Once a Sunday a month from like two to 5. PM and a great reggae bar called lovers rock and bed stye come through um but i'm around man i'm like i'm in the streets for better for worse i'm like i'm with the people so you know wherever they be that that's where i'm gonna be that's where you're gonna be yeah cool man. Awesome. Great talking to you. Really appreciate it. Appreciate it. Peace. I would say super cool are two words that come to mind. My heart is full. I just love that exchange.

I could have kept going on with him for hours and hours longer. And I really hope that you connected with Knox as much as I did. Definitely wanna have him back on the podcast at some point. Oh, and this was obviously recorded before Kipchoge crushed the marathon world record in Berlin. Knox ran that race as well. So how cool was that to hear him talk

about hanging out with Elliot? Very cool. Anyway, let Knox know how this one landed for you. Hit him up on Instagram at first run and you should all follow him there as well. His posts are always beautiful and thought provoking. As always, check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com

to expand your experience of today's conversation beyond the earbuds. And if you are looking for additional nutritional guidance, you don't know how to cook, you don't like cookbooks, you're trying to get more plant-based, you're plant curious, but you're not sure where to start, check out the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com.

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show notes, interstitial music, Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for graphics, DK for sponsored relationships and theme music as always by Analema. Thanks for the love you guys. I will see you back here next week with another incredible episode. Who's going up next week?

Let me look at my calendar. Hold on a second here. We have, ooh, Jedediah Jenkins. He was on the show three years ago. I just recorded an episode with him yesterday. And oh my God, I love that guy. What an amazing human. That's a really good one.

So you have that to look forward to. It will publish on September 30th, 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Until then, get out and go for a run. Peace plants. Namaste. Thank you.