syndicate log, issue no. 014: miles to go before we sleep

welcome to everyone who joined this week. clubs from texas, massachusetts, and norway signed up, which makes this a genuinely global battle three days in.

seven loops and a hard stop

billy pannetier took third at the hood hundred this weekend in just over twenty-three hours, and the race he ran wasn't the race he signed up for.

the grasshopper fire and a forest service closure had already forced a reroute before anyone toed the line, turning a lollipop tour of mt. hood into seven clockwise loops inside the meadows ski area. 100 miles, about 20,000 feet of climbing.

then the smoke won anyway and they called the race before it ended. two hundred-some starters, eleven finishers. billy was one of them.

hell of a way to open day one of the battle of the run clubs season. big early lead for his squad, and also, honestly, how do those legs feel this week?

what's actually left when the race gets called

hood wasn't alone. fat dog got cancelled a week out with five fires burning near manning park, one of them inside 500 meters of the course. oregon cascades went down to the akawa butte fire. oregon's fire season has already pushed past two million acres with months still on the calendar.

so a lot of people spent months building for something that didn't happen. and the thing about that is it clarifies what you were actually there for.

trail or road, are we really doing it for the buckle or the medal? or is it the six am at the track you've run around four hundred times. the group that meets at the same corner every wednesday after work whether or not anyone's training for anything. the twenty hours in the woods where you figure out that you can solve most problems you have, one at a time, at four miles an hour. the race is just the excuse to go do all that on purpose.

which is the whole point of this month too. run whatever your running looks like. if august gets you a hundred miler, incredible. if it gets you out the door four mornings a week because someone on your squad is waiting on your sync, same win. get what you want out of it. new friends and a bigger crew beat the leaderboard every time.

worth adding: the trails and roads we're all out there for are getting harder to run on. treat them accordingly.

week one

97 runners across 24 clubs have put up 1,979 miles and 111,139 feet of vert since august 1. that's just three days.

the wetter bandits jumped out front on the back of some big individual races, and the question is whether that pace survives a normal tuesday. meshingomesia track club is just a few short miles behind.

and a couple indiana squads are holding their own in the vert column, which shouldn't be possible and apparently is.

the ask

we think we can get to 100 squads by the time august closes. we're at 24. that's a big jump and we're not going to get there quietly, so here's the ask: post your runs, tag @syndicaterunning, and let people see what your crew is putting together.

if you're running four deep, fill the fifth spot. registrations backdate to august 1, so a team that signs up today isn't starting from zero. there's gear and goods going out along the way from the marathon podcast, saysky, ice bandanas, and splits run co., plus some random drops.

and housekeeping: everything syncs at midnight, so your day counts by the end of the day. we're working on tighter timing for preseason miles and a clean individual leaderboard. if something looks off or missing, drop us a note at hello@syndicaterunning.com and we'll dig in.

common interests

if your preference isn't to get lost in your thoughts while out logging miles, check out this new feature from spotify. running mode. premium on ios for now, and you pick a workout shape (intervals, steady, pyramid), a length, and a target tempo, and it builds the playlist around it. worth knowing the bpm is the music's, not your legs', so it's a metronome to run to rather than something reading your stride.

next week

next week we're going all in on fuel. we've spent some time with the crew at precision fuel & hydration and are stoked to share more about their story from the log.

that's it for this week. share it with a friend, share it on social, hit reply and tell us what's missing.

midwest grit meets pacific northwest rain.

come run with us.

graham + mark

syndicate running