Marathons & Power Scrunchies

Summer is just around the corner and we are all out of breath.

Marathons

Everyone is a runner now. Your dad, auntie, sister, friend - they are all AT IT, running and sweating their nuts off and feeling good about themselves.

This seismic cultural shift is partly thanks to Russ Cook (AKA ‘The Hardest Geezer’) when he ran the entire length of Africa recently. One thing about Russ is that he’s not your ‘typical’ runner - he’s a bit of a lad.

Thinking back, running at school was considered ‘uncool’. The people who did cross country, or the 1500 meters didn’t care about football. They weren’t physically big enough to play rugby and were probably too scared of being called names to play hockey (UK secondary schools in the early 2000’s were brutal, horrible places). Runners were typically seen as nerdy, lanky and awkward.

Long-distance running never captured the glamour of other sports. Perhaps it was seen as too simple or uninvestable. No runner celebrities were driving fast cars, Paula Radcliffe didn’t have her own clothing line or perfume brand. It was all a bit ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’, shitting yourself on a cobbled street in Barcelona, Casio stopwatches and boney elbows. But recently, that perception has flipped.

Enter the new age of runners - The Running Lad.

Men have finally realised that mental health is a thing, and emptying your lungs on an intense 5k is a fantastic way to clear your head and release some precious endorphins. Match that with some edgy leg tattoos, technical material, Strava, expensive gadgets and brightly coloured shoes, and you’ve cooked up a cultural melting pot of popularity and value.

Running is officially COOL now, but what’s next?

The only way forward is to run longer distances, in bigger, more fluorescent spaceman shoes in extreme climates to increase your respect and stats.

This is where the Extreme Marathon trend will flourish. Remember that lad that used to sink 7 pints and half a bag on a random Tuesday? He will now be travelling 1000’s of miles to compete in merciless, endurance running events. Here I’m defining ‘Extreme Marathons’ as anything longer or weirder than a regulation 26 miles, and there are many options out there. One is called ‘The Tunnel’ - a truly insane, masochistic, 200-mile bleep test hellscape, where participants run back and forth in a pitch-black, abandoned railway tunnel, in Bath. WHY??? Another that piqued my interest is ‘Self Transcendence’ - a 3,100 mile (yes THREE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED MILES) race consisting of a mind-bendingly horrible 5,649 laps around a block in New York. Only 52 people have ever completed it, which is not surprising. Who has time to take that much holiday off work?

Haruki Murakami on a run

Power Scrunchies

Rejoice! It’s power scrunchie season. We will slick our hair back and place an enormous frilly scrunchie on the top. We will make our own scrunchies using our hands. We will spend 45 minutes reading about the history of the scrunchie, and discover that it was created using a $50 domestic sewing machine in the 1960s and named after a pet toy poodle.

I was at THREE different pub gardens this week (which is too many) and the scrunch volume has been cranked up a couple of notches, even by my exaggerated expectations. Soon scrunchies will be engulfing entire heads/faces and morphing into gingham insect head nets/veils.

Football Boots

A hangover from Bloke Core morphing with (what I’m choosing to call) Track & Field Girl Summer (more on this soon) - actual football boots will be the shoe of choice as we move into warmer weather. The Samba / Tabi funnel has led the way and thrifted, studded boots (originally worn by a sweaty 13-year-old) are the only logical answer.

The only problem with this, is the studs. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to walk on a wet bathroom floor after consuming approximately 1 litre of wine while wearing a pair of Adidas Predators, but slipping is definitely an option.

You could opt for the far more sensible ‘indoor’ styles (these are studless) but they’re simply not as chic. So go forth with your studs, clomp around on the tiles, and try not to break anything.

Sainsbury Archive

Quick shout out to my favourite new Instagram account @sainsburyarchive. I think this is run by the brand themselves, but I’m not 100% sure. Either way, it’s a genius idea and serves up completely fascinating content if you’re into 1970s graphic design trends and food.