Walking tolerated
With Manchester Marathon running as I type, and Boston Marathon happening tomorrow, Nike have come under fire for an ‘edgy’ ad saying ‘Runners Welcome. Walkers tolerated.’
With the recent death of run-walk advocate, Jeff Galloway, this feels particularly tin-eared from Nike. Running is largely a low barrier to entry sport but any friction that stops people from trying, or causes people to second-guess themselves can stop people from trying it.
After a massive outcry, Nike pulled the ad and unreservedly apologised, which was good to see.
Nike ACG at Gorge Waterfalls
With Nike pushing more into the trail space, they have relaunched the Nike Trail team as the ACG Dept and rolled out a full court press at Gorge Waterfalls. With orange everything and a roster of elite talent, Nike athletes took the lion’s share of podium spots across all distances.
There have been some complaints about Nike athletes being shuttled to race starts (instead of getting the bus with everyone else – who aren’t allowed to get dropped off).
This felt like an overly sensitive take (not least because Jen Lichter was on the bus and set a CR) but Freetrail have responded that they will look at how this is handled, and communicated, in future years.
Knowing the Freetrail team, this will be something they take to heart and only an arch-cynic would think this was the intention from the race directors who were nothing but excited to have Nike investing in (and boosting visibility of) the event.
In the past Gorge has been a golden ticket race (with top spots earning entry into Western States) and a qualifier for the US team for Worlds. This year, Nike’s involvement helped boost the field to similar levels of competitiveness, which is good for all involved.
So, niggles aside, it strikes me as a net positive having Nike ACG there as the title sponsor.
Joe Wicks, chatting shit
The Running channel published a podcast (and YouTube video) with fitness celebrity, Joe Wicks. Wicks built massive profile during the COVID lockdown running daily fitness classes to encourage family-friendly fitness training whilst we were all stuck at home.
In a stark example of being an expert in one area doesn’t mean you are an expert in related areas, Wicks made some particularly irresponsible comments about marathon nutrition (namely that you don’t need to fuel throughout a marathon), and TRC have received push back for not pushing back on it.
TRC have edited the section out but it is still visible in the transcript (above).
My main thought here is ‘Why would you even say this?’. It smacks of a slightly toxic approach to toughing out a marathon which may work well if you are running a fast time, but for runners who are out on course for 5 hours thinking that fuelling isn’t needed, that approach could be a real problem.
TRC presenters Sarah and Rick should have pushed back at the time, which was an opportunity missed. The community has been very clear that this was handled poorly.
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