Welcome to the Allie on the Run show.
I'm your host, Allie Feller, and this is where I talk with people who are doing exciting things on the run and beyond.
From professional athletes and celebrity runners to the everyday amateur and back-of-the-pack runner.
We are here to celebrate everyone and anyone who enjoys a life on the run.
So, whether you are running towards something big or away from something that has been holding you back, I am here to hold your hand and help you pick up the pace.
I am positively giddy right now because we are back to regularly scheduled programming here on the Allie on the Run show.
Thank you so much for sticking around while I put out some rerun episodes and solo episodes and tried to get my life back together.
My life is not back together, but today we are getting back to what makes this show what it is, which means having conversations with cool people talking about running.
My guest today is returning genius, Leigh Glandorf.
Leigh is a freelance marketer and creator of the Sweat Lookbook sub stack.
Her weekly newsletter covers running trends.
It highlights up and coming brands and offers a critical and insightful analysis of running fashion industry headlines and so much more.
I genuinely look forward to it hitting my inbox every week and you should totally subscribe.
Again, that's the sweat lookbook over on Substack.
Lee has been on the show before and I loved having her back to talk about what she's been seeing at both global and local races, about why whimsy is the best running trend right now and about where she sees holes and opportunities in the running industry.
Now, please enjoy this conversation with the Sweat Lookbook creator, Leigh Glandorf.
All right, Lee Glandorf back on the Alley on the Run show.
Happy Lee Week.
We are celebrating so much.
Thank you for doing this.
Tell us about Lee Week.
What all are we celebrating right now?
Hi, Allie.
Well, we're celebrating you, obviously.
No, it's Lee Week, not Allie Week.
I know, I know, but we're connecting.
Lee Week?
No, I was realizing earlier my son.
We were celebrating his birthday on Saturday, but his actual birthday is today, on a Monday when we're recording.
And so he was born this day.
He's two years old, which just feels like very momentous age, a little less baby, a little bit more boy.
And then my husband and I were married on the 18th of this month.
And so we're celebrating that four year anniversary anniversary, i guess yeah four, i think.
And then, because i was a psycho and launched the sweat lookbook, my newsletter, like five days after my son was born, it's also sweat lookbook anniversary two years.
So um yeah, it just feels like something in the universe.
Uh speaks to this specific week in the world where it says this is where i get my energy and my enthusiasm from.
So i'm feeling the good vibes.
I am feeling the good vibes too.
I love getting to chat with you.
I love celebrating so much on your behalf.
And I am someone who loves reflecting.
I love anniversaries.
I love looking back on what's changed and what stayed the same.
So let's start with the motherhood piece and reflecting on two years as a mom.
I'm curious, of course, specific to running.
How has your relationship with running changed, both throughout your pregnancy, in the postpartum time, and where are you at now with running?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's something I've really clung to as like, I don't know, a foundation for making me feel like me.
I forget if I shared this last time, but I had to do IVF to get pregnant with my son.
And running through that process just really helped me stay healthy. focused.
Well, not focused.
I think say clear on who I am and what matters to me.
It was.
You know I go running most mornings and it was a moment for me to kind of sit with thoughts or process feelings.
You know, there were times where I remember like crying on a workout because things weren't working out.
But there were times where I could let that go and just feel focused and strong and confident in myself.
So I think that really set the tone for me during pregnancy and beyond that.
I started to see running as such a valuable tool for finding clarity working through my thoughts.
And so I don't really think of it now as like a fitness tool. thing.
I see it as kind of like an essential part of my day to make me feel good and strong and help me work through whatever's kind of.
A lot of times it's how I work through a sentence or a concept that I haven't really wrapped my head around.
I don't really think about.
I'm gonna go on my run and figure out this, this idea, but usually if i have been thinking about it long enough it'll kind of percolate and sometimes i'm i'm known to like stop, grab my phone and either i've texted people or wrote something down.
So yeah, i think um, i'm not.
I did a half marathon yesterday but it would say it was one of the least trained I've been for it.
And like least prepared in terms of morning of my son woke up at you know five to 10, like he did, like usually does.
And I said to my husband, cause we had to leave at like six 30 for the race.
I was like, actually, that timing worked out really well because we had to manage him.
Plus, I was like, where's my... It was really hot.
Where's my fuel?
Where are my gels?
It was like a total scramble to get out the door.
But it puts it all in perspective.
Because then when you're like you know, 45 minutes into a, really it was like 70 degrees at the start.
And it was a sunny, like race, um, beach kind of half marathon.
So it was like all exposed.
You're like okay, this is easier than hanging out with Casper at like two 30 in the morning.
You, This is more fun than that.
So it puts it all in perspective.
Yeah.
Motherhood will mess with you in that way, of the things that now we're like oh, this is no big deal.
Or yeah.
Oh, a marathon running for four hours is easier sometimes than parenting for four hours.
So I did.
I last year I did the same half marathon last year.
And right at the end of that race I got passed by a mom pushing a stroller, which was so badass but also like annoying.
And then the I don't know if it's the same woman, but I swear blowing by me again this time, I think in the last three miles I was like is this the same lady who, just like sneak, attacks everyone in this half marathon and blows by them?
And I was running like eight and a half minute miles by that point.
So not going super slow, but she like, just like zoomed right by with the stroller.
It was insane.
And I turned to this other woman and I was like nothing's going to make you feel better about yourself than getting destroyed by a mom with a stroller.
So someday, someday that'll be me.
It's not me now, but.
I'd love to see it.
And you know what has never been me is the mom running with the stroller.
I thought that and I know this is the case for so many parents is we think that that's going to be us logging all our miles with our baby?
Annie never really took to their jogging stroller.
And I also like...
I got so stressed by it because if she started crying or wasn't happy, I was like I would get frustrated.
And then I was just like, no one's having fun right now.
Like, this isn't this isn't great.
Do you are you a stroller runner?
We take Casper out a lot.
Are we like switched him entirely?
He just lives in the stroller, the jogging stroller.
That's his smart all day at the time stroller.
But on the weekends I get to cheat and Joey pushes it.
Oh, the dream.
But I'll take it out now because sometimes it's like he breaks up insanely early.
So sometimes it's 6.30.
It's like let's get out Daddy, because I can't hang on for the next hour and a half before your babysitter comes.
Well, congrats on the half.
And of course I need to ask, what did you wear?
Head to toe.
Give us the full rundown.
What did I wear?
I wore Tracksmith Alston bra and put my phone in it.
I wore a Cannon Mountain, you know it in New Hampshire, cotton hat, super old and faded.
And then I wore these Prusen marathon shorts.
And I hadn't done something as long as that in them, but they have some good side pockets.
I had like my car key and like a baggie full of little gels.
And then I had some Brooks socks on and they're like new carbon plated race shoe, which worked wonders in that I kept tripping on myself when I wasn't picking up my feet.
So I would spend most of the race being like, oh, pick up your feet.
It was actually great.
I was like, this is, you know how they're maybe not the greatest shoe for as you start to slow down.
That's why, because you start to realize like, oh, I'm shuffling and now I'm about to fall over.
Like you have clown shoes on.
Yes.
But I liked it.
It was a good mental thing.
I was like, okay, pick up your feet.
Very motivating.
And I'd love to know, well, which race was this?
It's called the Beach and Back Half Marathon in Marshfield, Massachusetts.
Love it.
It's like, I think they have 400 person.
It's gotten bigger over time since I've been doing it, but it's near where my mom has a beach house.
So a fun way to like, run around, but I feel like the old pro, cause I've done it a couple of times.
And I was talking to like this group of runners who was near me.
I was like, have you guys done this race before?
Cause we was like the eight minute train.
I was like, Oh, we're on the eight minute train.
Like, let's have some fun until I fell off of it.
And they were, they were like, no, I don't know this course.
And I was like, Oh, okay.
Just so you know, mile seven, there's an Arley hill.
So nothing is more fun than feeling like you're like I know what's up.
Also, shout out to the runners who didn't check the course map before the race.
It's like so, it's like one of those, so like mini ones.
There's not even elevation profile, so you're not gonna.
It's like it's like a hand-drawn map.
It's like it's like a real, like local race, like all the people who won were like from like a half a mile away from the, from the start line.
It's like very, i love that.
I'm Honestly, I know we're going to talk about major scenes, but I think I'm like going back.
I only want to run like the weirdo local races where you can like park on site.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I think that's a great place to start too, is we talk so much about these big major marathon weekends, and we will get into that.
But the heart of running and the gateway for so many people is local races.
So I want the trend report from this race.
What were you seeing?
What was there?
Was there any big thing?
Are people wearing super shoes?
Are people wearing matching sets?
Were there people in glitter?
What'd you see?
Yeah, I mean I saw the trends that you've been kind of like poking around online, which makes sense, right?
They feed themselves like the social media is a reflection of what people are saying.
And then people see the social media and they start copying it.
So I saw the bubble braids.
I saw definitely some matching sets, definitely some not matching.
I would say I think you know most women were in a sports bra and shorts because it was like 70 degrees out.
So whether or not that was a matching look was kind of up to each athlete.
I saw a lot of women being smart in their hydration vests, which I mean.
A half marathon is definitely hydration vest territory, but I feel like it wasn't that long ago.
We were having debates about like weather.
If it wasn't an ultra, you could wear, wear a vest, but people were being smart and doing that.
Saw some facets, saw some sparkles.
Even for a local race, we're still seeing the run girlies show up in matching outfits together, which is always so fun to see.
I love that energy.
Yeah, I think it was a real microcosm of some of the trends that we're seeing more broadly in the sport.
I sent you a a creator named Emily's Run Diary, who called out this idea of like race whimsy, which I love.
I love everything on the list.
Tell us about race whimsy.
Yeah, so I think, I mean, whimsy is...
It's not really a trend, but it's like a mindset that I think a lot of people, regardless of running, are embracing this year, just because things can be dark.
And then I think also the rise of AI makes people just crave things that feel real and human and bespoke.
And so the run girlies are embracing race whimsy, which just means showing up on the line feeling like the most fun expressive version of themselves, whether that's, you know, putting in special hair dye or sequins on their face, deposits or little hair decals Really elaborate braids, fun statement socks.
I've seen people bedazzling their race shoes, which I think the only service I do in running is calling out the first person to do it.
It'll be that.
But I at least think we have to give credit to A Thing Mo for doing that.
Back in, what was it?
22 23, and that's really been trending in the track and field like high school space, and now it's bubbling up to the us 20 year old girls, 30 year old, four year old girls.
Um, when you just said us 20 year old girls, i was like i had a couple decades, i know.
Um Yeah,
And so I think that, you know, and I saw another creator bejeweling their t-shirt.
It's like all the kinds of stuff we were doing as millennials when we didn't have cool race merch.
And we just were like, I want to look fun on race day and go mark or Sharpie a t-shirt.
Now it's happening a little bit more at scale.
And I think again, it's just emblematic of some other shifts that we're seeing in the sport, which is just so many more women participating, so many more women feeling confident, calling themselves runners and like owning how they're expressing themselves as a runner.
I think a few years ago, in the post-2020 pandemic running boom, there was an idea that maybe you needed to dress a certain way to be a runner.
And people were really embracing this idea of like, looking like a runner, to showcase that it was part of their lifestyle.
And now I think people who've been doing it for almost five years now, if they kind of started in that post 2020 wave, are really like okay, I am a runner.
And looking like a runner can look like a lot of different things.
And I want to express myself and my individuality through this sport and maybe show up on the road the way I would show up at a party with my friends.
So I think it's exciting to see that kind of level of like self-expression coming into the roads.
Because honestly, I was getting a little tired of like the all black bug eye sunglasses.
Look where everyone looked like kind of like race automaton.
So I'm here for all sorts of different, well, all sorts of different kinds of expression.
And you're seeing it, you know, in Marshfield, Massachusetts.
Massachusetts, as I'm sure you're seeing it up in New Hampshire.
It's not, not happening in New York, you know?
No, I love it so much.
And I know that obviously we are all biased to the extent that we see what our algorithm feeds us.
How much?
Just based on everything you just said, and from being at the races myself, I feel like we are so seeing the aftermath of the Eros Tour effect.
Yeah.
And so much of what we embraced during peak eras tour time in those years has now made its way into running.
I could be completely off base.
We could have had runners using the facet patches long before Taylor did.
But what's your take on... sort of girlhood and running the eras tour, how it all comes together.
Do you think those things are related?
What do you see?
Yeah, no, I mean, I, one of my, what did you say?
One of my soapbox, one of my bug woos is I don't think that the run girlies are respected within the sport the way they should be.
I don't think.
I think a lot of the brands don't want to create content that is too run girly centric, for fear of scaring away all the men that they think are essential to their bottom line.
I am telling you, I just talked to the FP movement lead business person the other day and They're raking in the money because they're serving the run girly and not afraid to lean into it.
But if you look at the wire running endemic media ecosystem, nobody ever talks about FP movement as like crushing it.
Right.
Right.
They're like oh, you know, we want to talk.
Look at, you know, the endemic movement brands that you know often showcase like the cool run bros with their tattoos and all those kinds of things.
Like look at the satisfy event in the desert, right?
Like people think of that as running.
And then the run girlies is kind of like this niche thing. element, but we're not niche.
That was what the Aristotle kind of revealed, like women and this energy is everything, right?
What's that saying?
Like you're either a mom or you're the child of a mom, right?
Like those are the only two things that exist in the world.
And like, obviously Taylor's not a mom yet, but I think that energy of of girlhood and femininity was something that people were really excited to celebrate.
And I think within the sport, just the Gen Z cohort of runners is so in tune with that and so ready to celebrate and kind of excited to show up as themselves on the race line and not interested in kind of feeling like they have to put on a costume of like runner to show up at the line.
And I think millennials feel that way, have always felt that way too, but maybe we didn't just have like the like chutzpah of Gen Z, in part because we were still, Like I was saying to someone the other day, Gen Z is like one of the first generation where they could have been the children of mom who are athletes, like serious athletes.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
You know because, like I see it, girls who are on the rowing team where I competed, some of them are the daughters of women who competed in the nineties and the eighties.
Right.
And like, I'm not that my mom wasn't an athlete.
Like I was the first you know young woman in my family who to think about being an athlete, to claim that title.
And so I think it's really cool that you now have this generation of young women.
You always see it at the pro level, where you have women who are competing who are the daughters of, you know, former pros.
And I think that that that I identity as an athlete, but also understanding that you can be feminine and you can show up.
It's like a new thing that Gen Z gets to claim that like millennial women, kind of like started it.
But like now Gen Z is here and we're like this is how you show up as a woman and compete, but also still express yourself as feminine or not feminine or whatever that means to you.
What is your read or your take on?
Embracing all of this and I'm not going to phrase this the way that I have it in my head, but the way my brain goes is we see comments online sometimes.
Where, and who cares about these opinions?
But where people are like she's 40?
She's prancing around in a tutu or like you're 45.
You've got sparkles on your face.
Like people make those comments.
I'm 41.
You're damn right that I want to roll up in a pink matching set with sparkles and a bubble braid, because it makes me feel good and it's fun.
Maybe it's a message to millennials and to the generations who came before us of like.
Is there an age cutoff of when we have to stop embracing whimsy?
Is it just a matter of not caring what people say?
Is it something that like?
Well no, the whimsy is kind of for the Gen Z, and then we make it cringe when we embrace it.
What do you say?
What do you think?
I mean, it's all about confidence, right?
I think if people show up confident in themselves, you can't take that away from someone, right?
And they'll always be like a hater online who thinks it's strange.
But I think I don't know.
Millennials we're going to redefine middle age just like we redefine lots of stuff.
My favorite... person on the internet from a style running style perspective is Katie Douglas.
She owns Running Wilder in San Francisco.
And she has sick style.
It's like the coolest combination of colors and prints.
And she's 43.
And she's a mom.
And you know, I look to her and she's got such an innate sense of self and what she thinks is cool, she doesn't give a shit what anyone else thinks.
So I think that, like you know uh, I've said it before um, the best thing about becoming a mom is it so freaking hard that you're just like why would I care what anyone else thinks about me?
Now, because it's just like.
It's like a real awakening.
Even in my half marathon I was mostly in the like chasing, kind of like the dad's zone.
And it was like a dad in front of me.
Or I was assuming they were dads.
That's not fair.
But like middle-aged men chasing zone.
And I was like, you haven't had a baby.
You haven't had a baby.
So it's a real confidence boost.
Hell yeah.
I don't think you have to have a child obviously, to be confident in your forties, but I think you have a lot of wisdom and you have a lot of confidence and you know yourself.
So just like you do you.
And it does change your relationship with so many things, especially with your body and in what feels good on it and in what you want to wear and in how you want to show up.
Do you want to know the most insane thing I'm going to be doing in the next month or two?
Yes.
I noticed at the London Marathon that a lot more women in like the middle of the pack were wearing race briefs, So I pitched Outside Magazine that I want to run a 5K, a mid 5K it's in a race brief and just like.
Talk about like what that feels like and what the experience is.
And then I was just like wow, why other women are choosing to run in race briefs, all the kind of like cultural associations with that.
So at some point in the next, I hadn't picked a 5k, but I do have a pair of briefs.
And I was like, this isn't terrible, but I'm gonna have to woman up and put them on and run around.
I thought about doing the tracks with Twilight 5K, but I know too many people there.
I need to find one where I can be really anonymous.
Oh, come to Hopkinton, New Hampshire.
We have so many local races in the area.
Without scooping the story...
How did you find or choose the briefs that you were going to run in?
Are you testing a bunch of different pair to see which ones feel the best for you?
What's your approach there?
I need to reach out and like call some more in.
I kind of wanted to ask currently because they made a special pair for Emma Gee for their briefs.
Right.
And I love that.
I love the piece you did on that.
That was a fun one.
I told Katie Douglas that I was doing this and she was like, oh my God, you're going to have to get a bikini wax.
And then I was like, oh, darn it.
And then she was like, actually, this little lemon pair is pretty high coverage.
And I was like, yeah, that looks like one that maybe I can get away with it.
So that's my recent, my current decision making.
Oh my God, I can't wait to read this.
Um, so we'll see.
I, right now I just have a Lululemon pair.
I'm also kind of judging it of whether I'd wear it as a bathing suit bottom afterward.
Like I want you to do double duty.
So, um, I mean, there's not a ton where Lulu has a brief, um, Tracksmith has a brief.
Bandit has a brief.
So I just have to kind of like make a decision.
Currently has one that I was maybe thinking about asking if I could try.
Oh my gosh.
What a fun.
This is a great pitch.
Yeah.
I can't wait to read this.
So I'm just embarrassing myself in the name of content.
Are you, or are you going to come out of this being like, actually, that was awesome.
It made me feel so confident.
This was great.
That's the hope.
That's the hope.
No, make this as honest as possible.
Oh, gosh, Lee, every time I talk to you, can we talk for nine hours?
I have so many things that I want to talk to you about.
I love your brain so much.
You mentioned. a bunch of brands in there.
One of the brands that you mentioned was Bandit.
Bandit, I feel like, has had such fast exponential growth over these past few years.
And from an outside vantage point, I'll even say from my vantage point Bandit makes what appear to be high quality some matching sets.
They make sports bras.
They make shorts.
I don't know what they make for the men because, frankly, I'm not checking in over there.
People are rabid about Bandit.
People are obsessed.
People wait for the new drops.
And one thing that I find myself asking is, what is the...
What is it all about?
Is Bandit a cool kids club and everyone wants to get the outfits to be a part of it?
Is the quality that much better than anything we're seeing on the market?
Is it that the sports bras have those gel pockets in the back?
What do you see?
What's your read on...
Why Bandit has had this massive growth that I think started in metropolitan areas.
But again, I'm sure there were people yesterday wearing Bandit at your race.
Yeah, there were.
No, I think it's a lot of reasons.
I mean.
A lot of credit has to go to the West Brothers for bringing on Ardith Singh, who is the designer there.
I've spoken to her.
She's brilliant.
She draws a lot of inspiration from fashion and from streetwear.
And I think...
There's an emerging cohort of runners who comes from creative fields or from more fashionable backgrounds, who didn't think there was apparel on the market that spoke to their aesthetic and their style.
And then Ardeth has been really smart about being hands-on, sitting with the community and hearing what they want, which
Brands have been doing forever.
Bandit had the unique advantage of having their backyard be Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
So they literally are talking to the cool kids and asking them, what do you want to see?
And then informing that into the product.
And then being smart about how they're talking about those things, but certainly being you know they were one of the first brands to really say like we're gonna give people a shit ton of pockets and people have been asking for that for a while.
And I think they've been pushing themselves from an innovation standpoint.
I mean, you can see the acceleration of the brand.
It goes hand in hand with when they got a fairly significant amount of funding in the last two years, which like without that.
They've been able to do much more glitzy marketing initiatives like the Bandit Grand Prix.
They do that really, really well.
They've also very much understood the way people are consuming social media in this day and age and have done that really artfully.
They put out really interesting content.
And their mission is to evolve running.
And I think they're doing a good job of evolving how the sport is being presented right now.
They pull from a lot of other different sports.
So basketball, they just dropped a World Cup collection.
So I think they've hit kind of the timing of the zeitgeist, right?
They've definitely, you know evolved, running in terms of taking some of the things that maybe, like Asada Spy CLA, John G Tracksmith were all doing for the last decade and kind of spun it and put their own stamp on it and met the moment in terms of kind of that like Gen Z consumer, where they're at.
So yeah, I think it's interesting.
I mean, I think the way running is going right now, i think people will want to express themselves through other brands as well.
I think bandit will in some ways be kind of kind of like a default for a certain kind of committed runner.
But people are going to look to like an anna for a cute stripey top, or a mile off for something a little bit more girly.
So I think there's.
You know that's become kind of like the gold standard for how you might approach the space, but it's exciting to see a lot of new other brands coming in and carving out their own niche and their own like customer segment.
Since you mentioned the cool kids, Who are the biggest tastemakers in the running space right now?
If we were to make a list of truly the tastemakers and the influencers who do, you see, have having the biggest influence on how people are showing up at races and on the run?
Ooh, this is gonna, this is a tough one.
We might have to do categories.
Like I can break it down and be more niche.
Yeah.
I think, I mean, I have a, it's funny.
So we can talk about, let's talk about the aggravators for a second.
Yeah.
So runner alerts actually, you know like, Was it before my half marathon or right after my half marathon?
Runner Alerts yesterday posted like 10 trends in running that didn't exist 10 years ago.
And they had the audacity to say that modern running crews did not exist 10 years ago.
And I was just like, are you kidding me?
Bridge runners, run them crew.
Like everything that exists now in the sport existed 10 years ago.
People are just not paying attention.
So I think a lot of people that were looking at those Instagram aggregator accounts.
You know I work with some brands from like, a publicity standpoint and like I love runner's world, but I don't think people are necessarily going to runner's world anymore looking for that content.
They're looking at runner alerts, runner's highest, runner's mood, all these, like you know, swipey instagram accounts that like curate all of that.
Um, i find that they tend to not have a holistic view of the sport necessarily, so i look at that.
You know there's a lot of.
I think the coolest place people are getting inspiration is in these third wave running stores, and that's a a term Cole Townsend of Running Supply has come up with to talk about places like Meta in Mexico City, Distance in Paris, Renegade in Oakland and LA, that are really like curating all these niche brands in a boutique space.
And they're you know.
Like you know, Renegade can work with a brand like Nike and command a lot of money to market the product to their audience.
So I think that the rise of these powerful boutique retailers who are kind of changing the model that a Fleet Feet or a Marathon Sports has set up,
And if you look at Marathon Sports, just rebranded in an attempt to look a little bit more like a distance,
So I think I really get inspired by those stores.
I look to, you know, I know we want to talk about where I find new brands.
A lot of times I look to these new stores to see who they're carrying.
You know, a really cool new store just opened in Woodstock, New York, literally this weekend.
It was called Routine Pleasure, which is such a good name.
And it's like a very Catskills inspired, like wood paneling brand.
And it carries like literary sport and Anna and horse, all the little boutique up and coming brands.
And they, they say it's for like fast and slow pursuits.
It's all very, and the owners come from like music tech startup and New York fashion scene.
So it's very much kind of like this this creative community within the sport really now taking up space and being leaders in their own right within it, which is cool to see.
Um, I wish I could give you a better answer on the influencers, but they like flicker through my screen.
And then I say, okay, moving on.
I hate, I can't stand the ones.
Was it great?
Sorry.
This is I don't like to be rude, but Jenna Littner, I don't care if my running outfit looks like shit.
And I wish you would stop presenting things like that.
But I think some people, that is helpful to them.
I mean, I think I see a lot of women now online talking about how to style your running fits.
I think it's why everyone's wearing a cotton tee over a long sleeve. and a bandana suddenly.
Bandanas.
Everyone's wearing bandanas all of a sudden.
What did I miss?
Not for me.
Not for me.
You're a hat girly.
I can't stand having stuff on my head or my face.
Yeah, I don't.
I mean, I think it's just another way to like have something a little bit more expressive, a little bit different in your look.
I mean, it's everything kind of like early aughts is trendy from a fashion perspective.
So I do love that.
I forget what I did, like a roundup of like fashion inspired by 2000s movies.
Oh, and bring it on.
Everyone wants to look like they're in bring it on.
Cause there's great, great bandana wear and bring it on.
So I think it's just.
I think it's those little things trickling back up into the running zeitgeist.
But yeah, I did not see a bandana yesterday at my half marathon.
So, okay.
Not yet, but next year.
Next year, that mom with the stroller, when she passes you, she's going to be wearing a bandana.
This episode of the Allie on the Run show is brought to you by New Balance.
Now, New Balance gets some love in this episode, as it should.
I obviously give New Balance's shoes and apparel and accessories a big Allie on the Run.
Stamp of approval.
That's easy to do.
New Balance is a brand that's been around forever.
They know what they're doing.
They crush it in so many ways.
But mostly, New Balance is a brand that is deeply devoted to serving the running community.
Lee and I talk in this episode about big brands focusing on sales and money.
And yes, those things are critically important when it comes to success.
But I love that New Balance is about so much more.
New Balance is a company comprised of brilliant individuals who genuinely care about runners.
They care about what we're wearing on the run and they care about building community, about fostering community and showing up for each other.
They care about hosting great events, like the live shows we get to do together, and they care about having fun.
God, I love fun.
So, when it comes to New Balance, I say come for the rebel, the super comp trainer, the SC elite, and stay for the relationships, the friendships, the community and the people.
Go to NewBalancecom slash running to get the Rebel, the Trainer and the SC Elite and I'll see you at the next New Balance event.
All right.
I want to know what does your, what are your, whether it's your scrolling habits or, like you just said, I want to hear about how you are finding all of this, because I read your newsletter.
Like the way I find stuff is the sweat lookbook.
But every Monday I sit down to read the newsletter and every Monday I'm like I haven't heard of that brand until now, or that one.
Like.
I like to think I am very in the running industry and yet there are so many brands that you especially bring to the forefront that I've never heard of.
So how am I missing so much?
Where are you finding all these cool boutique-y brands and how can the rest of us find out about these brands, smaller but very cool brands doing exciting things?
Um, i mean, i wish i had a, i wish i had a science, i wish there was an art to it.
Reddit has running fashion, which cole from running supply is a moderator for.
Uh, It can tend to skew a little bit of the like run bro brands.
I will say, because I have a draft in with Cole Townsend, he'll text me if something's new.
We spent a lot of time dissecting whether something, you know, he's, he really can tell.
And most people can tell, but he's like quick to spot whether something is basically like a dupe.
And you can spin up a brand off products that you can get from Alibaba pretty quickly and then put together a trendy looking website and sell running clothes.
The barrier to entry in the sport has gotten a lot lower.
And so I trust him to be able to help discern.
Do we feel like this has real heft behind it or is it just another kind of like doopie brand?
Same with retailers like katie douglas at running wilder it's helpful to like be able to look at what what she's bringing in the store.
Um again, same thing too, with distance or meta kind of like following what they're launching there.
Um, I think I've trained my Instagram algorithm to know that I want to see the brands by the run girlies.
I forget how I found Mile Off, but I follow them a lot.
And then I just saw this new like women owned brand called Chica.
So much to my mom who always yells at me to get off my phone chagrin.
I think it's just scrolling.
Yeah. and seeing and stopping.
If I see something I just check and see like what people I mean again people are tagging, no to like tag things more.
And so I'll just go and explore.
I'm just curious.
So if I find it, I'll, I'll spot it.
And I think, um, you know, I think it's, it's an exciting time to be in the sport.
And I really want to be a champion for these small brands because, having worked you know, when I joined track with it was 10 people I know how much work goes into doing this stuff.
I know how hard it is.
And so it's just like, if it's a woman or a person of color behind them, I want to champion those.
Cause I think I did a story for runner last year that was like, And I counted like all that Kohl has a good compendium of like all the new boutique running brands.
So I went through and I like checked and then I did the research to see which was women founded.
And it was like if I was being generous.
20 of like these new running brands has a woman either founding it or co-finding it.
Co-founding it.
And if you look at like the historic outdoor brand landscape, it's like the exact same number.
I think it was like Columbia had a woman co-founder back in the day.
If we wanna see the sport change and evolve like we have to have new people leading the brands that are kind of setting the pace.
And if it's just still the same, like white dude just wearing, you know, a holy shirt instead of a Nike shirt.
Like you know, we're just going to get the same thing over and over.
So that's what I tend to try to look for and train my Instagram out to send to me.
I need to do some work with mine.
Now people know too that I'm curious about this stuff.
So sometimes people will like forward me and DM me.
So I'm always, I'm all ears if people find something that I'm not in the loop on, send it my way.
That's how I also get to know.
Yeah, my algorithm right now is exclusively Nick's content.
Oh, nice.
Okay.
Which I have been enjoying, but... Mine is the Tartan army invading Boston for the World Cup.
Oh, which I am also enjoying.
I'm going to be in Boston this upcoming weekend for the BA10K.
Oh, fun.
And I'm like...
Let's go.
I don't know if we're going to be here anymore.
I feel like... They're leaving?
Yeah, I think there's like one more game.
I'll check for you.
But we'll send out a back call.
Say, please stay.
I want to go down the top slide.
Please stay?
I want to do anything with you.
I...
I love a man with an accent.
I will say that.
I would say I really want to.
I really want to.
I would read an entire sub stack about all the girls' new dating history after this
I want to find out what American women gets European boyfriends.
I want a European boyfriend.
I thought Joey was one and I was wrong.
Yes.
I want a European weekend.
I'm not interested in a boyfriend.
I'm interested in two fun nights in Boston.
Let's have a good time.
All right.
I think you might get the Norwegians or the French alley.
Those are both two good options.
Great.
I am open.
I'm an international woman.
Love it.
Where are the gaps in the industry right now?
You mentioned that not enough brands are marketing to the girlies.
What else?
Where are you seeing holes, gaps, or maybe I
Yeah.
Well, I'm working on a story for runner about like the huge gap in the market for plus size options.
Basically every trendy niche runner goes up to extra large and that's it.
You know and I was speaking to someone who used to work on the inclusive sizing for Adidas and a lot of the bigger running brands have have pulled back their investment in plus size offerings.
And that's a huge problem because it limits who gets into the sport and sticks with the sport.
So I think that you know that's an area you know.
I even admittedly, like I have a blind spot on it because I am like a straight sized runner, though.
Admittedly I'm tall and, I have hips from from rowing.
And so sometimes certain looks that I would love to wear don't work for me.
But yeah, it's a huge blind spot in the industry that that used to get called out a lot more and has, kind of like, gone through the wayside or people got tired of hearing about it.
You know, I think that I love Pioneers and Sid Baptista and the work that he's done, because you know, when you think about who brands are designing for, it literally starts with the fit model that they're using to put clothes on and that impacts the entire size grade of a product.
And you know Sid and Pioneers starts there with a curvier, more athletic person of color as their fit model, which is incredibly rare, and they size from there.
And that makes a huge difference, because designing running clothes for men, if you're not going plus size, is quite easy.
Even with plus size men's running gear, the body shape doesn't change as much.
Women come in a trillion different shapes and sizes.
Our bodies are crazy.
They're constantly changing.
And if you just start from a very traditional looking runner form that people think of is the standard which we know it's not you get, you know it's impossible to support the wide range of women's bodies and our needs and things like that.
And then within that, there's very little good maternity care. running wear on the market.
I've been talking to Wazelle a little bit about products that are better for like, perimenopausal women or just like any of the changes that we go through constantly um, and how there are no products kind of like built for those needs.
Um though, maybe the radical airflow shirt is great if you're in uh perimenopause and you're having a hot flash, we'll see.
I did.
I did.
I did have a Solomon shirt that I ran with just like on my back yesterday.
I didn't mention that.
And it must have had like some kind of cooling technology because as it got wetter, it got cooler.
And I was like, oh, this is pretty sick.
And then my mom friend was there and she's like, I want that just for wearing in life.
And so I gave it to her.
And so she's wearing a cooling T-shirt around.
Amazing.
So it's a real, again, you don't, and this goes back to like why I'm so adamant about having women or people in color in leadership roles, right?
Like A dude's not thinking about a woman getting hot flashes in their 40s and 50s and how that impacts their running experience.
They're not concerned about that.
And if you bring it to them.
You know, I talked to one of the founders of Scenic, which is a hiking brand, hiking skiwear brand, a couple of months ago.
And she was working at Backcountry and she was like hey, women get a lot sweatier in between their boobs.
Maybe in our ski vest we shouldn't use the same material in the chest as we do in the legs, because that's going to make their boobs sweaty.
And she literally got laughed out of the room.
And that's why she launched her brand.
Cause she was like, F you guys, like, this is a real problem that impacts 50% of the population.
Like let's make ski vests that work better for people with boobs, you know?
And so I think, I think we take for granted that.
The fact that we feel like okay, it's 2026, but we know, for some reason things are so fed up for women that like we shouldn't be surprised when we hear these things.
And yet we still can be surprised, but it makes a real difference.
Who's making those choices about where we're going to invest and put that money?
So there's a lot of holes in the market.
To answer your question.
And there are brands trying to fill these holes.
One question I always have and that you and I have talked a bit about is How do these brands last?
How are they sustainable?
Oftentimes for these smaller boutique brands, items are priced much higher than, say, from a Nike who can sell shorts for $40, $50, whatever, because they're selling... The tempo is like $35.
I was checking that the other day.
Oh, like...
And then you have these boutique brands making such high quality stuff, but they have to price those shorts at like a hundred and something dollars.
And I know we could easily do an entire episode just on this.
But can you speak a bit to the models of these boutique brands?
How do they stick around?
And maybe my question is like, do you have to be rich to start a running brand?
Do you have to have like, even talking about Bandit?
Yeah.
Bandit really took off because they got an influx of cash.
Like money, money can make so many things better and easier.
Yeah.
Are these brands going to be able to stick around?
Well, and the founders had also launched previous brands.
So they had capital to begin with.
So yeah, it's tricky.
I mean, it's really hard to make physical products.
There's a reason that Allbirds doesn't exist anymore.
There's a lot of millennial brands that have failed because they had bad unit economics and bad customer acquisition strategies.
You know, I think there's a lot of different ways.
I think it'll be interesting to see you know with a bandit whether they reach kind of like for lack of a better word like a unicorn status, which in the sport, or whether they stay a little smaller.
Depending on how much investment you take in, the expectations get bigger.
And I think a lot of these niche brands maybe aren't trying to reach that.
Crazy valuations are crazy numbers.
You know, you look at a John G or a rabbit.
Those are brands that people don't necessarily equate as like super cool, but they're profitable.
They've been around for a decade and rabbit celebrating 10 years this year.
And John G is like 12 or 13 years old.
Right.
And they have like really. you know, strong setup.
Rabbit, in particular, never took in outside funding because Monica couldn't get anyone to invest in her women-led running brand.
And so they just like set up, uh, good foundation for the business.
And they're hitting their stride.
They're doing really well.
One of the reasons why they're not considered as cool is because they were never able to like have that amount of capital, because they were self-funded to do the buzzy things that maybe you associate with the cooler running brands.
And so sometimes when you think about like, oh, why do I think this brand is it's cool?
Is it because they have a lot of money to be able to do rad marketing initiatives, or is it because the product is really really great?
Sometimes they're hand in hand, but sometimes it's a little bit more marketing than something else.
You know, I think Terragnata in the trail space is a really great example.
Their Sendero shorts are what Rachel Entrichan wore to win Cocodona.
She is a footwear deal with Norda, but they don't yet have apparel.
So she can wear non-competitive brands with.
So she wore her precision fueling button down, which was really cool.
But that was just made with like a triathlon brand.
But the Sendero shorts are like, I should have looked up the price, but they're not expensive.
They're like $30, $40.
And the founder of Terragonada has like, made a concerted effort to not invest any of the brand's money in marketing.
So I think they recently published on Instagram like a breakdown of their financials.
And I think in the last year they brought in like 500, like half a million in sales and spent like 5000 on marketing which if you look at any other running lines running brands piano out like marketing is going to be a significant spend for the brand in order for them to grow.
And Tara Granata said like, no, we're going to build a really great product.
And instead of padding our brand, our costs so that we can afford to market it with a lot of spend, we're just going to make a great product they'd like.
Literally, if you go on the website, it's like iphone photos of the images.
So they said we're just going to make great product, we're going to get it in the hands of trail runners, we're going to put it at a reasonable price.
Their goal is to make trail running more accessible, which is an outstanding ambition, and that's what they're doing.
Um and i think I forget from looking at that post if he's drawing a salary yet.
I think maybe he's paying his 401k.
I think it was $40,000 over 18 months was what he said, right?
Yeah.
And that's often the case.
You know, Mile Off is a brand based out of the UK and Dubai.
I think it was a one woman show for until like last month.
And they just broke a million in sales.
This week she posted about it.
She's super transparent as well about the financials behind the business.
And she still doesn't draw a salary, you know, and they do a lot.
She invests a lot more in marketing, but she's part of.
The reason why she's building the brand in Dubai is because there's a lower cost of living there and she can do it more efficiently.
And so, when you look at these businesses, they have to make decisions in order to build their business plan.
I think currently has gotten a lot of buzz in the last year.
Similar because Satisfye accused them of ripping them off.
But Nash, who's the founder there, is basically... It's insane what he does.
He not only works with the designer to design the products, but he shoots all their content, their videos, the brand photography.
And so that's how They actually have very reasonable prices compared to like, you know, compared to a satisfy, you know, you can get a pair of shorts for like it's so crazy to say 85 bucks is reasonable, but like there's even some, they do some of the 60 range which is in today's market again reasonable.
And part of that's because Nash is able to be the creative that other people have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on in their marketing bodge line.
And so when you you know baseline or trying to generally, these products are marked up 50 from what the brand pays to get them in.
That's kind of like the rule of thumb, whether or not they're also having to add in a lot of marketing tasks and things like that or what inform the final cost of goods to you, the consumer.
So, as a marketer, as a trendsetter, trend forecaster, as someone who is more in the know than almost anyone that I know Lee, if a brand came to you right now, a boutique running brand that said you know, we have some money to spend on marketing,
What would your advice be?
Where are marketing dollars best spent right now, if people want to get their product into the hands of runners?
Yeah, I mean, I think...
The grassroots is a real strong channel and strategy.
I think that people still, you know, I said, I said that people go to their running stores.
We said they look at influencers, but I think people still look at the people they see running out there every day.
When I was at Tracksmith, our goal was to get the sash on as many people as possible who are out there racing, because people would look and they'd see it.
Oh, I keep seeing this dude and he's wearing this sash.
What's that about?
The cool thing about running is it's a sport where we leave our homes and we go engaged with it.
I do think getting product on people who are committed runners and in communities where you know there are other committed runners makes a big difference.
You know, Mount to coast is a really interesting case study.
They, at the end of 2025, I like dinged them.
I was like, stop with this influencer marketing.
They've given their shoes to like every running influencer on the internet.
And it just felt like very transactional because unfortunately, like those, runners are cycling through a different pair of shoes every week.
And you're like, but which one do you really like?
And they actually I heard from people internally that they read what I wrote and they used it as a like hey, can we stop with this amount of influencer marketing?
And they pulled that back.
They retrenched on brand and they started making sure that they were getting shoes on the hands of trail runners, doing things like TSP and races.
They were really well represented at Cocodona.
So I think that young brands cannot discount the importance of getting it on runners in.
You know, start with a small community.
If you're in Vancouver, start with the running community there in Vancouver and get it on people and And like find those advocates.
I think that's a huge part of it.
It's a reason like you still see like New Balance and Asics.
They also have field reps whose job is to go out and work within specific regional communities to get people loving those products.
That's how those things spread.
You know, we talked about Bandit.
They started in New York.
They got those people in Greenpoint obsessed with that and that's a tastemaker community and it kind of expanded from there.
So I think you know, From my point of view, if you don't have a lot of budget, it's hard to track return on investment that you can start to see like oh, are we getting more sales in this community where we see that a lot of it?
Or we did this really big effort to get product on people at the Marshfield Beach and Back race.
And we started to see, you know, more people showing up.
I mean Fazit in race case scenarios.
That's entirely organic pick up.
I've spoken to them.
It's not like they.
They've now subsequently like marketed more to runners because they've realized that the community was using that way, but that was just people starting to to wear it in races and people seeing it obviously may be inspired by like someone like taylor swift, but you know those grassroots use cases really.
Um can snowball.
I had to laugh at you using Vancouver as an example.
Are runners in Vancouver allowed to wear anything other than Lululemon or do they burst into flames?
I don't know, but I mean, maybe that's the secret to winning over the market.
It's good customer.
If you can win the Lululemon market, you know.
I will say the tank top that I am wearing right now as we are recording is a Lululemon.
It's a Lululemon Cool Racer back, which was like the it tank top of the early aughts.
Oh, I love that.
This tank top I've probably had since 2011.
Well, that's still in perfect quality.
We haven't talked about vintage being a big vintage.
Oh, I mean, it's not not but, like you know, I think um.
There's a, a woman.
Her name is, or her name is, Isabel O'Day.
She has a uh, It's an Instagram account, but she also sells through a platform called Rummage Stretch.
And she's reselling, like all this great early 2000s Nike Adidas, active wear which is like so, so trendy right now.
Yeah.
Like vintage.
And it's both from like a visual, like it's the aesthetic that people want, but then people are actually purchasing and wearing, like archival, active wear pieces which I don't have enough.
Some of that stuff does really degrade.
I have some stuff from my college era that I'm like, what is this?
But yeah, the good stuff should last, you know?
And I obviously...
I was trying to say like, I actually don't buy that much additional active wear.
I obviously now get gifted, which is really nice, but I give a lot of it away because I don't have space.
And I think it's important to know what you like and what works for you and make your own kind of like personal style out of it.
Cause that feels so much more interesting and fresh than than just chasing kind of like.
And how many running tops do you need?
You don't need that many.
No, I purged so many last year.
My, I think my running style is always going to be the Lululemon cool racer back.
Like I never stopped wearing this tank top.
I'm still wearing it.
I have it in every color.
It works.
And now it's vintage.
So I feel very cool.
You're so hip.
Oldest.
We have to talk about these major marathon weekends which I know we've touched on before when you've been on the show, but Boston was relatively recent.
You did some really cool stuff in Boston, which I know you've shared a bit on your own platform.
But tell us a little bit about Lee and Boston this year.
You had a very cool pop-up space.
Yeah.
So in 2025, Katie Douglas and I from Running Wilder did like a super micro one day pop up in a wine shop in Boston with the running brand Prusen.
And we knew we wanted to come back. bigger and better for 2026.
And again Cole Townsend, my internet slash real life bestie asked me to review like a pitch that he was doing for some brands for a pop-up.
And I was like, well, can we just team up so we don't cannibalize each other?
And thus the idea for what would become the rec room was born, which was just a multi-brand concept mostly highlighting small up and coming businesses, brands in the Boston market, where it's really hard for the little guys to stand out because the big guys are just throwing money away in crazy activations.
So we took over a cool little basement space on Newbury Street, barely broke, even basically asked the brands to help us subsidize the rent, which was like 15000.
And tried to set up a cool space where people could discover some new brands.
Rad helped underwrite it.
Currently running, which I mentioned, Prusin.
Soar, Anna, Bonzer, the sunglasses brand was there.
And then we had Vintage from Kohl.
And I think that was, oh, and then we had Raid Belt.
So yeah, just really trying to bring in brands that otherwise wouldn't be able to show up in Boston in a meaningful way, especially not on Newbury Street, because the rents are psycho.
And, you know, create a fun space for people who are curious and interested in exploring, like this, newer side of running.
Yeah, it was really fun.
And people, I think, really enjoyed it.
Boston was crazy this year, though.
It was hard to stand out in a very loud crowd.
And I'm sure that New York is going to be even more insane based off of like all the momentum.
So a wild time to be an experiencier. experiential marketer.
Yeah.
Big time.
Also shout out condom world.
Uh, your papa when I was in high school.
That needs to be the clip that you promote.
This, this thing.
Oh, my God.
When me and Katie Siff and Lori Fuller used to take the Concord Coach bus down to Boston to go shopping on Newberry Street in high school we would go to Jessica McClintock to look at the fancy dresses that we were never going to buy.
Katie Siff did get a Jessica McClintock for prom.
I was so jealous because I was a David's Bridal girl.
But we used to walk by Condom World and we were 16.
So we thought that was like so funny.
And we would have our disposable cameras and we would take a picture of the Condom World sign.
Oh my God.
I'm going to have to source those if we go back to the space next year.
I've got to find them.
But then like, you know, your parents would drop off your film to be developed.
And I was like I can't let my parents pick it up because if they look at the pictures they're going to see that I took a picture of Condom World.
So when you said that your pop-up was, I was like, know exactly where to go.
Yeah, it's a basement.
I guess for context for your listeners, when I said basement, the basement was almost certainly a condom world in past life.
Like you, I grew up wandering the streets of New Greece Street as a teenager.
So I don't think I was taking photos because I was such a Catholic school girl.
I would have been like, ah!
I didn't go in.
Of course.
I just, we would see it as we were walking.
I've never, I never went in late.
Yeah.
But I mean, that was the fun part of it was it was a basement space.
That's why we named it the rec room.
And it was fun to kind of create something that felt like organic and original and like not super.
I mean, we tried really hard to make it seem cool, like look cool and shoppable and interesting, but maybe not as polished and like glitzed out as some of the big brand pop-ups have become.
Well, let's talk about that.
I wrote down what you said, throwing money away and crazy activations.
Let's talk about it.
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these events at the Marathons have become more about selling stuff than about celebrating the community.
I think the brands that do it best know to try to put community first.
I think New Balance has done a really good job with their run house of making those not really about selling a lot of product.
They have a huge advantage in someplace like London right when they're the title sponsor and they can afford to show up and take over an insane space on the Thames and just like have coffee and hair braiding and things like that.
But I think that's smart, right?
Like.
I think that's an acknowledgement of like.
These events are about the runners and the community and not about like a new shoe launch.
But I think brands can't resist that having a captive audience to try to engage them on a new shoe launch.
And so people show up with big budgets to try to make noise.
And a lot of times I feel like that falls a little flat.
Or you get consumers who run in, take their free stuff and then leave and kind of feel like they don't have any kind of, you know, authentic connection to the brand which, in a crowded market space, like you know, people care about performance like is it going to work for them.
But there's also like a sentiment and a feeling which I think you know ideally, some of these young, smaller brands.
People feel connected to them because they feel like there's real people, you know, who care about the runners behind them.
I love what Rabbit did in Boston with Zach Litoff, and they gave him kind of the artistic free reign to create something new and original for that space and that stood out in a way I don't think there are.
Their activation would have if they hadn't kind of, you know, gotten out of their comfort zone and teamed up with an artist who is only like he's like 12000 Instagram followers.
It's not like he's like you know someone huge, but he's someone who connects with, like the core of the sport and the community and reflects what people are excited about.
So I think I'm hopeful for New York that people will.
I know a lot of people liked the rec room and we're showing up on like brands.
Internal documents.
So I'm hoping that maybe I don't want to see people copy paste the record and I'll be so annoyed.
But I think maybe people might be understanding that like we've gone a hair too far in the like more more, more direction.
And then maybe, maybe scaling these back would be a good idea, or not scaling back, but like figuring out how to make them feel like more community centered first, human is the way to go.
I'm obviously very biased because I work with New Balance.
And so they're my favorite.
But this was something I thought about a lot in Boston this year when they did the huge marathon relay at the track.
So I did a live show and then it goes right into the marathon relay at the track, which is massive.
I mean, I don't know the numbers, but New Balance has to be spending so much money on that event.
Everyone's kitted out.
Everything is free.
Going is free.
Food and drink are free.
Alcohol is free.
I don't know.
Awesome.
So I was so curious of like, how do you measure success at this event?
Is this event successful?
People are happy, but like...
There's no spreadsheet at the end that says we just sold 900 pair of the Ellipse because you're not selling anything here.
And it was a really interesting conversation about that.
They were basically saying that for them, like that, event's not about selling.
That event's about community.
It's about, And I don't know that was so interesting to me, I think because I come at everything from a place that like, if you don't have tangible numbers that you're coming out of an event with, how is it a success?
If you're not saying we sold this many shoes or sports bras, how are you saying this was successful?
And so I, I don't know.
I don't have a point.
I thought that was interesting though.
Yeah, I mean they're probably looking across like sentiment with social media and you know seeing how it reverberates in that way.
There's so many different ways to kind of like measure success.
I think obviously like defining what those goals are up front is how brands kind of like rework their way in.
You know, for us at the rec room we were just trying to do something cool and not lose money.
I think most brands.
If I was going to make a recommendation, like I'd say if you want to show up at these races like, expect not to make money because of how much money you have to spend, but like be happy breaking even and you know, be clear about what does that success from breaking even look like for you.
But showing up in a Boston or New York, like nowadays, that's how you make connections.
It's how you connect the dots.
And then maybe down the road, you come up with a cool collaboration or you come up with some new concept or you you hear a lot of.
I mean a huge benefit of for the brands that were in our space is just getting feedback from consumers.
You know I can go back to a brand and say like they love your sports bra, but they kept asking why there wasn't a pocket in it.
You know.
And that kind of like market research a lot of brands would have to pay a lot of money for, you know.
And so sometimes it's, it's like a mix.
It's certainly hard again why we did rock room for a small brand to show up in that space, because every dollar matters so much more to a prison or a raid than it does to a new balance in terms of their bottom line.
And they have, that's where you have to really like be like, okay, what is this $2,000 going to?
Because that's literally how much it was.
And so we tried to make it worth the squeeze there.
But yeah, it's a tough ecosystem.
And as it gets more crowded, it's harder and harder for brands to stand out.
What would your message be to some of those legacy brands the Nike, the Adidas, the New Balance Saucony, Mizuno I think we can throw in there.
What would your message be if all of their CMOs were listening to this conversation?
What would you say to them?
I'd say platform cool shit.
Yes.
Cool shit.
I think you know I loved I got to go to Brooks's events in London and they had, you know, Erica Kemp and Cynthia Erivo like talking about their training together and her racing.
Like that was just cool, yeah right.
And it was like different.
And it was two women, two women of color, doing exciting things at, like you know, right at that pointy edge of the sport where, like Cynthia is fast enough that you are admire her running, but like not so fast that you can't see yourself in her and she's also crazy busy.
So I love that.
You know, I think figuring out way like there's so much cool stuff going on sub stack.
You know, I think someone needs to like print us out and turn us into a magazine, and a big brand could easily pay for that to happen.
I think there's so much like one of the exciting things going on in the sport right now is there's so much creativity and good energy going on.
Right.
I pointed out, rabbit and Zach lit off like finding ways to partner with some of these people who are embedded in the sport and like really care about it is, I think, the way to succeed and to show that, like you, I think what at least me as a consumer and a running nerd I just want to see that, like you care about, like you know, moving the sport forward and making it better for everyone involved.
And so, like you know, finding obscure creators or bringing in someone who's not Matt Choi to your event, like makes me understand that you're like seeing that some of these like I was just talking to a really cool plus-size creator before this call and she was saying, like I don't get invited to the same things that these other creators get invited to
Or if I do, I'm the only plus-size creator in the room.
And it's just like... thinking more critically about some of those things would be really nice too.
But platform, cool shit.
Even if it's a little bit different than what has been called the status quo.
I love that.
All right, Lee, two years of the sweat lookbook.
Congratulations.
I love reading it.
Everyone should go subscribe on Substack.
What are the reflections on two years of the sweat lookbook and what's next?
Um, you know, I committed, like a crazy person, to sending a weekly newsletter when I was five days postpartum.
But I think it's really goes hand in hand with running, right?
Consistency is key.
And setting up a habit and making a routine can feel scary, but like committing to that is really rewarding.
I do.
Sometimes I'm like God damn it.
I could have written like two books by now if I wasn't writing this weekly newsletter, because so many words it ends up going out.
But I've gotten a lot better through that repetition and the challenge of creating that structure within my week and within the sending process.
So I think the biggest lesson there is like, commit to consistency.
You know, if you want to do something, it doesn't have to be huge.
You can start small too, but it's been really valuable to me to just invest in my own creativity that way.
And it's, it's, you know, created dividends for me.
What's next?
Hopefully a rec room, New York city version would be really fun.
I'm starting to get to work with some cool brands and like sponsorships and stuff, which is pretty exciting, mostly for me and my family because I'm married to a teacher.
And so that's nice extra dollars that comes in the door.
But yeah, I mean, I'm starting to think about what LA 2028 could look like.
It's going to be so freaking fun.
I'm excited to go to St.
Louis maybe for the marathon trials.
But yeah, all those things.
I wish I had a better game plan, but I literally just the other day was like working on my editorial calendar and I was like what's happening in July?
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, even just the words editorial calendar have me very impressed.
I mean, I needed one because I was in the trenches, so I had to, like, come up with a game plan.
Oh, yeah, no, I just live in the trenches.
I'm just always looking up from the trenches thinking, I hope this works out.
I aspire to be more like you in so many ways.
I feel like I need to do quarterly episodes with you because I think you are one of the most brilliant people in the sport.
I love getting your take on things.
You are so in the know and And I love getting to chat with you.
And I'm so happy to see all that you're doing.
Thank you for sharing all that you shared.
People at home can't see, but I've been taking multiple pages of notes over here.
And so thank you for always inspiring me as well.
I appreciate you and happy...
Happy birthday to your son.
Happy birthday to the Sweat Lookbook.
Happy anniversary.
Happy everything.
Thank you so much.
This was a great way to start my Monday.
I'm sending you all my love from Boston, Massachusetts.
And it's always a yes.
When I see Allie ping in my inbox, I just know it's going to be capital Y-E-S.
Oh my God.
There's only a handful of people who get that, get that response from me, though I am a yes person.
So you're like, say yes to everyone.
Your yes is with multiple exclamation points.
Yes.
I love it.
Exclamation points for you, Lee.
Thank you so much for doing this.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much for being here for this episode of the Allie on the Run show with my guest, Leigh Glandorf.
I took like four pages of notes during this one.
I wrote down so many things that she said, so many brands and people that I want to check out and so many ideas of my own.
Leigh always gets me inspired, and today's conversation was no different.
Go check out Lee's work at the sweat lookbook.
You are going to love following along.
I, the only thing Lee's not good for is my wallet.
She introduces me to so many cool brands and I just want to buy everything.
So Lee.
Thank you so much for coming back on the show and sharing your expertise and your insights.
I loved all of it.
I could have talked to her forever.
For more from me, I am allyontherun1 on Instagram.
You can get my newsletter at allyontherun.substack.com.
And if you're enjoying the show and the return to interviews with guests, I'm so happy.
Feel free to leave a rating and review for the show.
I would appreciate that so much.
Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode.
And as a reminder, you've got this.
You're doing great.
Thank you, New Balance.
Newbalance.com slash running to check out all the latest and greatest from our very favorite brand.
And thank you for joining me on the run.
