|
|
|
run together, gear up differently
this weekend, over 200 runners lined up at the
prairie on fire backyard ultra outside
indianapolis to run the same 4.167 mile loop, as
many times as they could, on the hour every
hour, until only one was left standing.
the distance isn't arbitrary. 24 loops is almost
exactly 100 miles, which is how the format turns
a hundred miler into a day's work and then keeps
going. the opponent out there isn't the distance
or the terrain, it's the chair, and every 60
minutes you have to get out of it and go again.
what we love is that a backyard ultra is,
structurally, about running together. the winner
is only the winner after completing one more
loop than the last person standing, which means
you can only go as far as someone else takes
you, and then it's on you. until that point,
dozens of people are chasing their own goals
inside the same shared clock: a first ultra, a
50, a 100k, a 100 miler, all on the same path,
lifting each other up, trading stories and
snacks and jokes to keep the mood light while
trotting around the same loop again and again.
that's the whole thing we want to build here:
people from a lot of different places and ways
of life, coming together to celebrate running.
|
|
celebrating running while showing the grit it
takes to run 100 miles (photos courtesy of pof
2026 and timmy howard)
|
|
|
|
the gear told its own story
then there's the gear, and it was all over the
place in the best way.
there was gear tech everywhere:
east peak performance cooling tees,
nnormal race t-shirt,
neversecond bucket hats,
rabbit ice rad-anas, and, as a sponsor of the event, a lot of
mount to coast shoes on feet. and right next to
it, guys in lucky race shirts that looked like a
race giveaway, or maybe even pulled from the
throwaway garment pile beside a start line on a
cold race morning, nothing special. it was 70
degrees, sunny, humid, and somehow you had
runners in no shirt at all, short sleeves,
singlets, and a guy in a long sleeve with a
hood. everyone had their own take. some of that
gear looked like it came out of a garage sale,
some of it looked like it rolled off a spaceship
assembly line. at the end of the day, what
matters is that the gear works for you and your
own journey, and that's a big part of why we
exist: to give you an honest take so you can
make an informed call before the next piece of
gear joins your rotation.
|
|
mount to coast shoes on site to demo at prairie
on fire 2026
|
|
|
|
one of our own took it
we were lucky enough that this year's prairie on
fire winner was a friend of syndicate, a
competitor in battle of the run clubs, and a
friend of mark's since high school.
matt sandlin set a prairie on fire course
record. he ran for 43 hours straight, 179 miles
over the course of a day and a half, a lot of
those miles in mount to coast's
h1, with
run slick
keeping him friction-free the whole way, on our
recommendation. the early report is that he was
still moving well the next day, in terms of
managing the hot spots that mattered.
|
|
matt sandlin, syndicate running supporter and
2026 prairie on fire champion
|
|
outside of the fresh shoes, matt ran 179 miles
in mostly the same set of clothes we've seen him
log hundreds of miles in around indianapolis.
it's a very different approach from most
professional runners, who are, in fairness,
required to turn up in their sponsor's newest
release. yeah, there is new tech as it develops,
but a lot of the time it's a marketing vehicle
just as much as it is a performance one. it was
hot and muggy this weekend but we didn't see a
single nike acg radical airflow long sleeve on
the course, and there were still twenty-two 100
mile finishers at the race.
so why the gap? the two types of races punish
gear differently. a marathon is over in a couple
of hours, and almost anything survives a couple
of hours, so new is a cheap bet with an upside
you can measure against the clock. forty-three
hours is a different test. a seam that's fine at
mile ten is an open wound at mile ninety, and
the upside of an unproven shirt is nearly zero
against a downside that ends your race. so the
kit gets picked by elimination over hundreds of
training miles, and what's left is whatever
hasn't hurt you yet.
that's a review standard no marketing budget can
buy, and it's the kind of thing we want your
help finding: the piece of gear still in your
rotation after a year, not the one that just
showed up.
|
|
|
|
a bathroom scale and one hour
we published our sweat test results last
wednesday, and prairie on fire turned out to be
the right week for it.
precision fuel & hydration ran the test, and
the result came back at 962mg of sodium per
litre, almost exactly the average across
everyone they've tested. the number that changed
anything was the one we'd never measured: 75
degrees, one hour, easy pace, down 3.5 pounds of
fluid. multiply them and it's about 1,530mg of
sodium an hour, which is not average at all.
the part worth sitting with is the ceiling.
finish within two percent of your starting
weight and you're fine. at 155 pounds that's 3.1
pounds, and at 3.5 pounds an hour you cross it
in fifty-three minutes, on a mild day, at an
easy effort. matt was out there for 43 hours in
70 degrees and humidity.
the test gives you the one variable you can't
work out at home, and it gives it to you
permanently. the other half is a bathroom scale
and one hour.
disclosure: precision ran the test for us at
no cost and we're not an affiliate, so we earn
nothing from it.
|
|
|
|
common interests
prairie on fire 2026 full results →
another participant in battle of the run clubs,
and third-place finisher from this weekend with
170 miles, phil dodyk, one of the members of the
mileage champs meshingomesia track club, built a
bespoke tracker that provided live standings,
records achieved or possible, and a runner's bio
card. it's something we hope to see more of.
specific to the event, it creates a much
stronger sense of community than the generic
profiles and stock results tabs most race timing
apps ship with today.
run slick
and if you missed it last issue: the
full run slick story is on the journal, including how the product got its name on a
morning run with friends.
|
|
that's it for this week. if you dig this,
forward it to a running friend. if you don't,
hit reply and tell us what you'd rather see.
midwest grit meets pacific northwest rain.
come run with us.
graham + mark
syndicate running
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
