Put Your Money Where It Matters

You can't buy your way to better running

If you read last week’s post, you know I’m injured and not running. So I’m not writing about running per se this week. I’m zooming out to the bigger picture of some personal choices that we, as runners and outdoorsy types, make about spending money on clothing and gear for our sport, and how we might divert some of our resources to advocate for the places we run and hike. It’s sparked in part by holiday-related consumerism. Consider this your anti-gift guide.

A few random but connected things got me thinking about how we runners, especially in the trail and ultra market, spend money on running-related stuff and support certain brands. First, I was scanning running photos of me to gather a collection to show my physical therapist to demonstrate my running form (since it hurts too much now to show her how I run so she can assess my biomechanics). Looking at photos from years past, I thought, I still wear that shirt. I still have those shorts. Is that gross? Should I replace them? No, I decided, they’re still in good condition, and I keep and use what works.

Me running a 50K in 2022. The high-quality shirt by rabbit was free from a race. I still wear everything pictured here, except I changed the running vest to one by Salomon, and I update my Hokas when they wear out. I got the hat as a deal with the shoes.

Meanwhile, it’s impossible not to notice how many startup running and sports-nutrition brands, plus non-running brands like Lululemon, have entered the running clothing/gear/nutrition market in the past few years—with the trail/ultra market taking off—each competing to stand out as specialized, superior, and cooler than other older brands. Hand in hand with market growth, we see more newsletters, podcasts, and social media posts talking about running brands’ strategy, fashion (more than function), and the personalities and stories behind them. Runner-influencers have gone from pushing and tagging their sponsored products on social media to elevating themselves to full-blown celebrities through ever more savvy and aggressive content creation (as this post analyzes well).

Taken together, the brands, sponsored athletes, and commentators (many of whom also are sponsored and push product) collectively link their products to aspiration, motivation, high performance, and the adventurous spirit, as if you must buy their thing to attain those positive vibes and run your best. While this dynamic is as old as advertising, it seems to me to have become amplified by market growth, social media, newsletters, podcasting, and YouTubers to an annoying and deafening degree.

I find myself almost shouting at my phone, in an effort to communicate to those content creators, I don’t care about your brands, and please stop making our sport more high priced and fashion conscious! I’ll forgive the more thoughtful and creative ones for sticking product placement in the middle of their unique and well-told stories (case—or Casey—in point) in order to make a living on their athletic and creative pursuits. But they add to the bombardment of messages aimed at runners to buy buy buy.

I want to tell those who might be sucked into buying excessive clothing, gear, and nutritional products or supplements they think they need because of those messages, Just go out for a run wearing whatever’s already in your closet, and grab a cookie from your cupboard if you’re hungry, to feel those vibes and chase those dreams. For chrissakes, you don’t need Ketone-IQ or AG1 green powder shit to be a runner. And you can wear the freebie shirt that came with your last race even if it’s not the greatest high-tech fabric. (Have you noticed that runners in general don’t run in T-shirts from races as much as they used to?)

Finally, even though I’m not active in the cesspool and time suck formally known as Twitter, a tweet from one of my favorite people in the trail/ultra space—an influencer and creator with heart and cred—made a post that spoke to my thoughts and feelings about this marketing excessiveness. Somehow, Billy Yang’s tweet (are they still called tweets?) crossed my eyeballs because someone posted it on some other platform. And I said, “yes, thank you, Billy!” Finally, someone questioned how we got to the point of buying into a running brand that charges $310 for a tie-dyed shirt (promoted, ironically, by a cool-kids clique of sponsored runners who convey a groovy dirtbag ethos, who presumably couldn’t afford these items if they weren’t sponsored).

Reading through the tweet’s comments, I felt validated that I’m not alone in questioning these trends and prices. Wrote one, “That’s crazy! And if anyone wears this as some kinda flex, I’m gonna disappoint because the only running stuff I notice is your shirt from that race you ran. My hat is 2yo and I got it from Amazon for 17.99.” And this: “Whoa…does that package also come with an auto entry to Western States?” One snarky comment was exaggerated but made a legit connection: “This feels equivalent to the ski bunnies that spend thousands on gear and attire, can’t ski and just go sit in the lodge at the base all day to be seen with a face full of makeup. Posers! Real runners don’t need that.”

I’d like to see this skepticism fuel a back-to-basics reduced-consumerism movement in our once-earthy sport. Haha, that’s doubtful. As I write this, The Running Event, a mega retail conference, is going on in Austin, celebrating and further fertilizing this mushrooming of brands and their trends.

At the very least, I hope to remind you that we don’t need to buy so many things in an effort to optimize our performance and look good on our runs. Fit and function matter, of course, as do long-lasting quality and ethical and sustainable sourcing. But if you buy basic, good clothing and gear designed to last, then you can buy less and wear it until you really need to replace it.

My stuff

I’ll share what I buy periodically, and why I’m not getting anything more that’s running related until I really need that new thing. When I find a brand that works and is not too pricey, I stick with it. For me, that’s rabbit—great fit, doesn’t wear out, and their shirts and shorts are reasonably priced. I have Buffs for my neck for sun protection and nose-wiping. Several were free from races.

I also have some high-quality Patagonia pullovers and puffies many years old. I’ll pay Patagonia prices because their stuff doesn’t wear out, the company is a leader in conservation, and the local store puts on good events in our community.

For shoes, I’m hooked on Hokas (I was an early adopter of their first-generation unisex clownish shoes back in 2012), and I’m pissed that their tread wears out too fast, but I like the fit so much that I keep buying them. After I buy new ones, I wear the old ones as walking-around shoes, and when my Hoka collection grows too large, I clean the used ones and drop them off at the town’s Free Box, where someone takes them the same day, so they get an extended life.

As for sports energy products, I don’t use any nutritional supplements, just low- and high-calorie hydration mix (Scratch or Tailwind generally, depending on the type and duration of run); Clif Nut Butter bars and Honey Stinger waffles (because they’re easy to find at the grocery store); various gummy chews; and my new favorite thing, Betty Lou fruit and PB&J bars, which are like giant Fig Newtons. (Fig Newtons are great mid-run, too.) I also love soft flour tortillas with some honey or anything that seems tasty rolled in them. Soft flour tortillas are great because they’re easy to chew and swallow, loaded with salt and carbs, and cheap. I loved Gu gels until I didn’t. I wish I could still stomach gels, and I’ve tried many brands, but they keep making me gag.

I understand that nutrition is highly individualized. I also get why many people are on the high-carb bandwagon. It’s largely because high-profile influencers/coaches are preaching that you need a minimum of 90g of carbs per hour (which is 360 calories, about 3.5 100-calorie gels). So if you want to spend over 40 bucks for a dozen Maurten gels to fuel a single long run, because that works for you, go for it. As a three-decade-long runner and erstwhile coach, I don’t buy it (pun intended). I believe you can run well with less, and you don’t need energy products that come from labs to fuel everyday training runs. And you should question the advice of any coach pushing that ultra-high-carb message who’s also sponsored by the brands that benefit from that message, because he has an inherent conflict of interest.

A couple of years ago, I switched from Ultimate Direction to Salomon for a hydration vest and am happy with that change. I try my best to clean the soft-flask bottles thoroughly, but eventually they start to mold, so I buy new ones when the old ones get gross.

You may have seen photos of me running the Grand to Grand Ultra in a hat by Fractel, a newer hip running-headwear brand. That’s because a nice rep gave me it for free when I met her at Hardrock. I didn’t really like the colors or the logo on the front, but it fit great, so I wore it. When I checked out their website, I felt overwhelmed by the choices. When did running hats become so complex?

At the G2G finish line, wearing the free Fractel hat.

By now, some of you reading this may feel defensive and think, “But my brand is awesome and making stuff in a way that’s better for the environment, that promotes positive community, and that helps me run my best.” That’s good and nice. Choosing environmentally and socially conscious brands is important as a consumer. But it’s a very small step and won’t do much to save the places we love to run and the sensitive natural life that faces an uphill battle to adapt and survive.

Protect what matters

You know what keeps me up at night? Thinking about our upcoming vacation to Ecuador, where rolling blackouts have sparked civil unrest. The country’s government has imposed blackouts for up to 14 hours daily because most of the power grid is fueled by hydroelectricity, and severe drought has dried up the waterways that create the power. People are rioting, and businesses have resorted to diesel-belching generators to stay open. It’s a dark, frightening preview of what might happen here in the West when Lake Powell reaches dead pool status due to reduced runoff from snow melt, as less snow falls and more of it evaporates from high heat rather than reaching the Colorado River.

Then I think about all the undeveloped wild lands that are essential for biodiversity, and the new administration’s plans to roll back those lands’ protected status to build access roads across them, and drill and mine for fossil fuels and minerals, which will produce greenhouse gases that accelerate the planet’s warming and might also contaminate aquifers and rivers.

I was going to write this week about our connection to the environment—in an empowering way, not defeatist—and suggest what we as trail runners might think about and do to protect the nature we love to run through, and link it to my reduced-consumerism message above. But then Zoe Rom wrote an excellent piece in the newsletter

Trailmix

that articulates much of what I wanted to say, so I’ll excerpt her piece and encourage you to read the whole thing. She focuses on media coverage and brands’ greenwashing:

“Most environmental coverage in trail-running media has been so desperate to feel relevant that it has narrowed the lens to focus on almost comically small issues. Recycle gel wrappers! Go cupless! Buy shoes with 2% recycled content! Yes, you should absolutely do all of those things. Small, individual actions are a part of the climate equation. And we can celebrate people who take small but meaningful steps like going cupless, carpooling to races, and plogging. But, stopping there is like stopping at mile one of a 100 mile race, and patting yourself on the back for executing such a strong and smart effort.”

She continues: “… eye-catching, clickable content … will offer solutions that allow us to feel okay about continuing to consume without examining how our consumer habits are driving climate change (even the greenest gear is still worse for the environment than anything you already own). … We need to stop credulously allowing gear companies to launder their greenwashing rhetoric through us, and start asking hard questions about how much integrating a partially recycled upper into a shoe will actually reduce a product’s carbon or water footprint. … Companies might market their products as ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘sustainable’ without making meaningful changes to their overall environmental impact. Trail running media often celebrates these ‘sustainable’ products, inadvertently endorsing a superficial form of environmentalism that prioritizes optics over real change.” Right on, sister.

So what is “real change” on the personal level? For me, it starts with education—reading books and articles about humanity’s threats to the planet, which are tough to read and can produce anxiety, but also are motivating because they’re full of stories of people working to support nature and making change for the better. Here’s one example I encourage you to read—a short illustrated report that shows “what if” scenarios if some of the country’s most revered and protected public wilderness spaces had been developed during the past century if developers had their way. I also recommend the newsletter

The Land Desk

and the publication High Country News.

Then, beyond trying to buy less, use less, drive less, and shop local, I support advocacy groups that have made real progress for public land conservation and that have geared up to fight efforts to undo environmental protections during the next four years. I give money and raise awareness about two in particular, Conservation Lands Foundation and Grand Canyon Trust. I also give money and hands-on help to our regional mountain club for their trail-maintenance efforts, especially now that the already stressed and underfunded US Forest Service announced big cuts to its workforce in 2025, leaving the forests more prone to fires, and their trails and campgrounds less maintained.

Heavy stuff, I know. But it matters, and I’d argue it’s where we runners should put more of our attention, energy, and resources rather than in running-retail therapy. We should “protect what matters,” which is the slogan for Conservation Lands Foundation. And then go for a run on a beautiful trail to feel better and motivated.

I know I’ve heaped loads of reading recommendations on you. I’ll end with one more, the latest book by my writing coach

Jennifer Louden

, Why Bother? If you read only one self-help book, make it this one. She has a whole chapter about why bother about seemingly insurmountable problems like climate change, and what to do if you have compassion and activism fatigue from caring too much. She describes how to care and act in a sustainable way to avoid burnout and also to avoid believing we’re inevitably screwed. She writes:

“When we are idling in the despair zone, we forget that the very nature of life is change. Things don’t always change for the better, and you often don’t know what role you played when they do. When you focus on what didn’t work or believe that what you did isn’t enough, you wipe out any feelings of efficacy and your ability to get off the couch along with it. Getting your why bother on … is giving despair the middle finger. It’s saying you do have power, there is a reason to act, life does and can change for the better, and it’s time to find a sustainable way to care.”

Crunchy nutty goodness

I’ll end on a sweet note, because maybe you need some not-terrible comfort food and a low-cost homey gift idea. And baking always makes me feel better.

One of the subscribers of this newsletter,

Ali Lopez

, is a chef and runner, and she shared her granola recipe on her newsletter a couple of weeks ago. I made a big batch of it to eat some and to give to others. I love how it’s extra nutty and not overly sweet and oily. I put the granola in mason jars and will tie bows around them for presents.

Let’s go granola. Here’s Ali’s recipe.

The granola gifts I made.