Almost every hiker box I have ever seen after 11,000 miles on American trails has the same litter problem: the thin plastic water bags that accompany the popular Sawyer Squeeze, the most efficient and reliable water filter I have ever used. In theory, these ubiquitous black-and-blue mylar bags are a hiker’s dream, able to hold nearly a liter of water in exchange for less than an ounce of weight.

But water filters get clogged, and gear gets dropped on jagged rocks, these thin bags rip in the middle during the second scenario and burst at the seams with the first. Weight savings and water filters are useless if you don’t actually have a way to hold your water.

Seven years ago, a product designer named Gilad Nachman began solving the problem caused by the flimsy bags when his fledgling company, Cnoc Outdoors, . A soft-sided and completely collapsible water bladder, the Vecto offered a simple but welcome upgrade: thicker walls and rugged seams that could withstand the pressure needed to force water through a dirty filter or the abrasive chaos of a long-distance hiker’s cluttered backpack. The Vecto’s real genius, though, is that one end screws neatly into a Sawyer Squeeze; the other end opens completely and easily, making it simple to scoop water from paltry sources, or dip the thing into a lake.

And so, as long-distance hikers have replaced their Sawyer water bags on trails with Cnoc bladders and bottles, they have gotten into the sensible habit of tossing the ones that come free with the Squeeze into our repositories of collective junk and gear, hiker boxes. The discarded bags wait for whatever unlucky walker next needs some emergency water-storage fix. I have donated at least a dozen during my adventures. Those bags are still sitting somewhere, I presume, awaiting oblivion or apocalypse.

Hopefully, this wasteful practice is over: In January, the two companies finally partnered, making the unofficial hydration fix of thru-hikers official by and selling them as complete units. Not only did they make this sensible pair a legitimate couple, but the combination costs less than buying the two products separately.

These units are sold through Sawyer’s distribution channels and on its website, and the Vectro bladders feature both brand logos on them. But make no mistake, the bladder is definitely made by Cnoc Outdoors. Sawyer’s own water bags should gradually become a little less common in trailside piles, making it easier to spot the free Knorr sides and Pop Tarts always lurking in hiker boxes.

The companies have considered this collaboration for years, since it made so much sense. If people were already doing it, after all, why not make it easier, cheaper, and less wasteful by slimming the packaging and shipping needed for two products into one? But Sawyer—which also makes splints and sunscreen, bug repellants and sting kits—was in the process of trimming its individual products, or of simplifying the assorted SKUs it sold. “We had hundreds, and it was so hard to manage,” Amy Stead, an account manager at Sawyer, recently told me during a call alongside Cnoc’s Nachman. “When Gilad approached us, we were fighting against that.”

Previous partnership talks proved preemptive for Nachman and Cnoc, too. From my own experience, I know he’s right when he says that the quality of the Vecto has improved in recent years. Today, the bladder’s seams are able to take much more pressure before they, too, succumb. (If you’ve ever superglued a Cnoc together in a hotel room while on trail, you know true Sisyphean frustration.) And in recent years, Cnoc has introduced and then upgraded a water bottle called the ; it’s one of a few items that is with me on day hikes and thru-hikes alike, and Sawyer is now selling one of those with .

What’s more, Cnoc’s production capacity needed to expand to keep up with the potential demand of a company as large as Sawyer. Still a relatively fledgling business, Cnoc has now tapped into the more robust distribution network of Sawyer, a brand that has been making life outside easier for 41 years.

“Our early bladders were just not as good, and there was a natural maturity curve for Cnoc,” Nachman said. “And then we had to grow to a point where we could teach our factory to produce at this scale. And now is finally the time.”

This is, admittedly, not some revolutionary shift. Sawyer and Cnoc have simply opted to sell a combination of their own products that lots of us have been pairing ourselves for years. But I appreciate the idea that their move makes this bit of semi-hidden thru-hiker wisdom accessible to anyone that doesn’t necessarily have long-distance dreams. Sure, you could have learned about this pair through Reddit, YouTube, or any number of hiking blogs, really. But now you can just walk into REI or so many of the outfitters that sell Sawyer products and ask for it. A Sawyer atop a Cnoc is the fastest route to reliably clean water on trail; now, it’s faster and easier to get in the first place.

The post This Hiker Hydration Hack Is Now a Product You Can Buy appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

By now you’ve probably heard about the staffing crisis gripping Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the nation’s other national parks.

On February 14, the National Park Service (NPS) , or about five percent of its total workforce. The move generated headlines in and , and over the weekend, dozens of recently fired NPS workers penned heartfelt essays on social media about losing the jobs they loved.

“I am the toilet scrubber and soap dispenser,” a fired NPS ranger named Brian Gibbs . “I am the open trail hiked by people from all walks of life. I am the highlight of your child’s school day.”

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű reached out to the NPS for comment, but did not hear back by the time this story published. The Ìę“The NPS is assessing our most critical staffing needs for park operations for the coming season and is working to hire key positions. The NPS is committed to protecting public lands, infrastructure, and communities while ensuring public access.”

The workforce upheaval stems from the Trump Administration’sÌę, which in 2024 employed approximately 3 million people (not including the military). In January, the administration announced a hiring freeze on all federal agencies, and offered buyouts to government workers willing to resign. Since then, almost every wing of the U.S. government has been impacted by the belt tightening.

But the Park Service cuts are the ones that will impact the summer vacation plans of millions of Americans. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű spoke to NPS experts and former employees about the staff changes to see how they will impact daily life at America’s favorite vacation destinations. We asked these experts whether park visitors will be able to see a difference when they hike on trails, arrive at visitor centers, or use the restroom.

The answer? You bet.

“Expect fewer services, less help, and fewer projects like trails or construction getting fixed,” says Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA),Ìęa non-profit advocacy group for the NPS. “You’ll need to lower your expectations.”

Which NPS Workers Were Cut?

Over the weekend, the NPCA tracked the layoffs and spoke to NPS staffers who lost their jobs. According to Brengel, the current cuts impacted all 63 U.S. national parks and all 433 areas managed by the Park Service. The cuts did not target specific jobs, she said, but were “indiscriminate.”

“We’ve heard from wildlife biologists, archaeologists, even wastewater treatment operators who were let go,” Brengel said. “We’re talking about people with incredible expertise losing jobs. It will throw some parks into a tailspin.”

Rather than target specific positions, the cuts impacted employees with “probationary” status, a designation given to federal employees for the first year of their employment in a position. the New York Times, the strategy was in-line with the Trump Administrations’ plan to dismiss the 200,000 or so federal workers with this designation.

The letter sent to laid-off employees read like a termination notice for low performance, according to the Times. “The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the department’s current needs,” read the letter distributed to some NPS staff.

Brengel points out that not every probationary worker is new or unqualified. Some veteran NPS workers were given the status after they were promoted to managerial positions; it was also given to seasonal NPS employees who had recently been hired to year-round positions.

“The ripple effect of these firings will be felt immediately,” she said. “It’s going to be a huge brain drain to lose a lot of these positions.”

Gibbs, 41, is one such employee. Prior to taking a full-time position at Iowa’s Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is managed by the NPS, he had spent four years working as a seasonal interpretive ranger at Glacier National Park. Interpretive rangers help visitors understand the cultural significance of an area.

Gibbs took that expertise to his job at Effigy Mounds, where he managed educational programs for kids, among other jobs. “At such a small monument I wore many hats,” he told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “On the day I got fired I was creating a program to take kids snowshoeing in the park.”

What Services Will Be Lost?

It may take several weeks to determine which services will be eliminated at each park. Brengel and others have told visitors to expect to encounter long lines, overflowing trash cans, unkempt bathrooms, and other drop-offs in service caused by a lack of manpower. One anonymous NPS employee told Politico to . Brengel said that major construction projects started in 2024, such as trail maintenance or road paving, are likely to be left unfinished.

In the days since the layoffs, fired NPS employees have shared their stories—and the jobs the NPS is losing—with local and national media.

A worker named Olek Chmura told that he’d no longer pick up trash and scoop up feces at Yosemite National Park.

The New York Times interviewed multiple NPS workers impacted by the cuts, among them Helen Dhue, a park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park in Brownsville, Texas, and Stacy Ramsey, a river ranger in Arkansas’ Buffalo National River. that she writes warnings for the general public when parts of the river are dangerous. “If no one is there to educate, it increases the risk of someone getting hurt on the river,” Ramsey told the Times.

an anonymous NPS ranger in California who wrote about his termination on Facebook. “I honestly can’t imagine how the parks will operate without my position,” he said. “I am the only EMT at my park and the first responder for any emergency.”

, 16 of the 17 supervisor positions at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park were axed. At Shenandoah National Park, trail maintenance workers and fee collectors lost their jobs.

Gibbs’s job at Effigy Mounds was focused on education. He developed classroom programs, took schools on tours of the area when they arrived on field trips, and also visited local schools to discuss the cultural significance of the park.

Effigy Mounds preserves 200 or so prehistoric earthworks that were built by pre-Columbian people. Some of the mounds are in the shapes of birds and bears.

Gibbs was one of two employees at Effigy Mounds to be let go. Just seven rangers remain, he said.

“Educating kids about the cultural resources at Effigy Mounds will come to a stop, and schools visiting will have to self-guide at the park,” Gibbs told °żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ.Ìę“Kids and families are the ones who are going to lose out.”

What About the NPS Hiring Freeze?

Not all of the NPS news on Friday was bad. The Trump Administration published a memo from the federal hiring freeze to bring back some seasonal workers for the spring and summer.

The move allows the NPS to hire back 5,000 or so seasonal employees, whose jobs were rescinded in January when the freeze was announced across all federal agencies.ÌęMost parks rely heavily on seasonal workers, and each year the NPS hires between 7,000 and 8,000 of them to help during the busiest periods.

The reaction to the news was mixed.

“Exempting National Park Service seasonal staff from the federal hiring freeze means parks can fill some visitor services positions,” said Theresa Pierno, CEO of the NPCA, in a statement. “But with peak season just weeks away, the decision to slash 1,000 permanent, full-time jobs from national parks is reckless and could have serious public safety and health consequences.”

The timeline for hiring back seasonal workers has not been made public. According to Politico, had been granted exemptions as of February 18.

Brengal pointed out that seasonal workers might not be able to replace the full-time NPS employees who were lost in the layoffs. Some of the cut NPS workers who spoke to the NPCA were coordinators of seasonal labor, she said. For example, the 16 managers who lost their jobs at Grand Teton National Park help oversee seasonal workers.

“Seasonal workers can’t replace full-time positions,” she said.

Which Parks Have Been Hit the Hardest?

It may take until the busy summer months to assess the true impact of by Friday’s cuts on individual national parks and monuments. Brengel said that small parks with tiny staffs may suffer the worst, and that cuts there would force remaining employees to make tough choices.

“They may have to choose between keeping the visitor center open and the campground open,” she said. “These are the choices that smaller parks are going to have to make.”

But other parks are already feeling the pinch caused by the hiring freeze, layoffs, and other policy changes. , Yosemite National Park will abandon its reservation system, which was made permanent earlier this year.ÌęSources told the outlet that the park tabled the plan after the Trump Administration asked to review it.

What’s the Human Cost?

Like all mass-layoffs, the NPS cuts have upended lives and forced thousands to seek new livelihoods. Ramsey told theÌęTimes that she lost her job after spending three years working a contract position with the NPS just to get her foot in the door.

Gibbs echoed this sentiment when he spoke toÌę°żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ.ÌęHe called his position at Effigy Mounds National Monument a “dream job,” and said that losing the position has forced his family into a dire financial situation. “We’re sad and frightened, and feel like we’ve had the rug pulled out from under us,” he said. Gibbs and his wife have a four-year-old son, and they are expecting a second child this year.ÌęGibbs said that his wife had to skip a monitoring appointment with her doctor after the family’s health insurance was terminated. “We feel frozen about what our next steps are,” he said.

The cuts have prompted action in some communities. Over the weekend, at Joshua Tree and Yosemite National Parks. On Tuesday, February 18, NPS workers and their friends and families just outside Rocky Mountain National Park, to protest.

Should You Visit a National Park this Summer?

The sources we spoke to still encouraged Americans toÌęvisit National Parks this summer, despite the cuts. Yes, trails may be closed, parking lots may be messy, and lines may be longer than normal.

Instead, Gibbs said NPS visitors should do advanced homework before traveling to see which trails closed, and which services are limited. Reconsider trips deep into the backcountry, since manpower for lifesaving or rescues may be diminished. And stay on the trails.

“Know that there’s probably going to be a disruption in safety and resource protection,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs and Brengel urged visitors to have patience and understanding with the NPS employees who are manning the parks. Brengel said visitors should consider saying “thank you” to NPS rangers.

“Think about what a difficult time it must be for them, knowing that they may be next on the chopping block,” Brengel said. “They are going to be stretched thin, but they are the heroes for sticking it out.”

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I am not going to stand here in front of God and Backpacker‘s readers and pretend I always, or even usually, eat healthy on my trips. I eat loose from my hipbelt pockets while I hike and wolf down instant ramen like I’m a broke college student and rent is due. I once stuffed an entire box of Honey Buns into a helicopter’s cargo box during an Editors’ Choice trip to Banff National Park (bad idea, those things do not travel well).

But as I’ve gotten older and words like “hypertension” and “arteriosclerosis” have gradually entered my peers’ vocabularies, I’ve gotten more and more interested in finding a compromise between convenience and health when it comes to meal planning for my hikes and backcountry tours. If you’re on the same path, then this roundup of our best hiking nutrition stories is for you. The following stories are a primer in how to eat on a hike, from the basics of nutrition to busting some of the most persistent dietary myths. Read on to learn more.

From processed ingredients to organic to specialty diets, it’s easy to get blinded by science when it comes to nutrition. The reality: Figuring out how to eat better on a backpacking trip doesn’t need to be complicated. We break down the basics of nutrition—eat for recovery, keep an eye on your electrolytes, and, whatever you do, don’t skip breakfast—in this easy explainer for beginners.

Sometimes the effects of a poor diet take a while to hit. Sometimes, however, they kick in faster, leading to problems from skinny legs to trail diarrhea. If you’re planning on going on a long hike—think two weeks or more—you need to keep a much closer eye on what you’re consuming than you might on a weekend trip. We consulted two backpacking dietitians to understand how the food hikers eat helps or hinders them.

There are few sciences as rife with misinformation as nutrition. Spend an hour googling, and you’ll find contradictory information, questionable supplements, and even downright dangerous diet plans on offer. Don’t get fooled: Learn to tell the BS from the valuable information with this round-up from Corey Buhay.

Let’s be real: Few to none of us are hiking with a pack full of fresh fruits and vegetables, or even a lot of dehydrated ones. Getting our meal bag down to a manageable size while still carrying enough calories to fuel days of hard hiking means making some compromises, from carrying processed food to prioritizing raw carbs over vitamins and minerals. How do your favorite hiking treats stack up? We asked a dietitian to evaluate everything from instant ramen to Pop-Tarts on the value to hungry hikers.

If you’re hoping to build up your hiking fitness, then protein is non-negotiable. It helps rebuild the day-to-day wear and tear you incur and locks in the muscular gains you earn over days and weeks on the trail. Protein bars and shakes are easy, but these are easier, cheaper, and tastier ways to get your daily dose.

The post Here’s What Dietitians Want Hikers to Know About Eating on the Trail appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

In triathlon training, consistency is king. But what if that consistency was a culprit in your latest injury? As all too many of us know, like IT band syndrome, shin splints, and stress fractures often present themselves at the worst times and have been the bane of many great race preparations.

Consistent, repetitive motion with improper running form often causes these injuries. But according to new research out of the University of Florida, you probably don’t even know your form could use a tune-up – and your shoes might be the reason why.

The study, published in the journal ,Ìęconsisted of 710 runners from various backgrounds. After asking each runner if they were a heel striker, non-heel striker (mid-foot or forefoot strike) or they “didn’t know,” the researchers examined each runner’s gait with a high-tech slow-mo motion capture system and analyzed their past running injuries.

The results were abundantly clear. Those runners who “didn’t know” their gait pattern had, by far, the greatest likelihood of sustaining a running-related injury.

The main contributing factor to runners not knowing their foot strike, or how their feet were hitting the ground, was the heel-to-toe drop of their training shoes. A higher drop, as well as higher shoe weight, led to less accurate body awareness and a higher likelihood of injury.

Additionally, those runners who changed their shoe type in the past six months were more likely to sustain a running-related injury.

So if shoes are part of the problem, is the solution simply changing them out? Yes and no. Let’s look at the takeaways and how can you apply them to reduce your risk of injury.

Shoe Choice Matters

As the study highlights, a shoes with high heel-to-toe drop and greater weight contribute to less awareness of foot strike. Opting for a shoe that has a lower drop and weight is an effective way to become more engaged (literally) with the ground and how your foot is interacting at the impact, loading, and takeoff stages of your run gait. A healthy foot will feel the ground, fully load, then utilize its “free” stored energy to push you forward.

A more minimalistic shoe will let the foot function as it should. Further, a large heel-to-toe drop alters how the force of impact is distributed throughout the body. As shown in Ìęon the effect of shoe drop on joint stress, a higher-drop results in much larger stress at the patellofemoral (knee) joint. Opting for a lower-drop shoe allows the body to distribute stress as it was designed to do, reducing excessive loading to individual joints.

Opting for trainers with a mild drop (4-6mm) and not too much “clunk” could be an easy way to become more aware of how you’re running and stay injury-free.

If you’ve been running in a high heel-toe drop shoe and dealing with injury, it might be worth trying a different shoe. Just remember, as with any change, to progress gradually into your new shoes to allow the body time to adapt. Start with one to two runs per week, and slowly progress over four to five weeks until you can wear your new shoes full time.

Self-Awareness Matters MoreÌęÌę

Yes, the type of shoes you wear can be a culprit in running-related injury, especially if they blunt the signals your body needs for good running form. This study clearly shows that enhanced body awareness while running, particularly when it comes to foot strike, leads to lowered injury risk.

Becoming more cognizant of how your body is moving and how your foot interacts with the ground is a free way to decrease your risk of injury. Yes, it’s nice to listen to music or zone out with a podcast during a long run. However, it’s likely worth it to zone in to the task at hand now and then to ensure you’re moving well.

One helpful tip is to run in front of a mirror on a treadmill so you can watch yourself run in real time. It’s easy to adopt poor running mechanics without realizing it, especially when fatigue sets in. Unlike the friendly spectator yelling, “Looking good!” at mile 23 of the marathon, the mirror doesn’t lie.

The best part about working on your running form is that it will help you develop movement patterns that make you stronger instead of more likely to get injured. More importantly, it might even help you actually look good at mile 23!

The post Are Shoes with High Heel-to-Toe Drop More Likely to Cause Injury? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

No matter where we hike, how long we go for, how (or whether) we train, or how much or little weight we carry, there’s one thing all hikers need: strong legs. On the trail, legs help you keep up the pace, , and maintain your balance on everything from uneven treadpath to tricky creek crossings. Ensuring yours are ready for your next adventure could be the difference between having a fulfilling trip and spending more time thinking about your aches and pains than the scenery.

Need a primer on the science of stems? We’ve collected some of our best writing on it, plus a couple of personal trainer-backed exercises to help you get yours ready to tear up the trail come spring.

The problem with “hiking your way into shape”: Those first couple of trips aren’t much fun. If you’re looking to maximize your trail time, then doing some pre-hike training is one of the best investments of your time that you can make. We’ve collected six of our favorite leg workouts—including an off-the-couch conditioning plan, plus workouts for steeps, endurance, and overnight trips—in one convenient place so you can find the routine that works for you whether you’re starting from zero or trying to take your fitness to the next level.

Of course, getting strong is only half the battle: Leg injuries are an ever-present hazard for hikers, ranging from minor inconveniences like sore feet or quads to season-ending injuries like ACL tears. Learn the anatomy behind your leg pain and get mobility exercises to help you prevent and deal with it in this expert-written primer.

If you mostly spend the colder months on other pursuits, hitting the trail in spring can be a shock to your hammies. These workhorse muscles keep your knees aligned and stable, especially on downhills and uneven terrain, and play a key role in helping to support your pack weight. This three-exercise, three-times-a-week routine is designed to work your hamstrings into shape over six to eight weeks, allowing you to feel more confident tackling your first big trips of the season.

You’ve probably heard the term “trail legs” before; for those of you who aren’t up on your long trail lingo, it’s the state thru-hikers reach where their muscles handle the daily stress of of the trail well enough that they’re able to keep going day after day. Turns out there’s some pretty serious science behind why it happens. In this piece, fitness columnist, personal trainer, and physical therapist assistant Lee Welton went long on how your body adapts when you hike dozens of miles day after day, and whether it’s possible to keep your trail legs after the hike is over. (Spoiler alert: It’s not.)

3 Leg Exercises Every Hiker Should Know

Kickstart your fitness routine with these exercises from ‘s Six Weeks to Trail Fit class, taught by coach and guide Jason Antin

Leg Blasters

Combining several different exercises into one, this circuit is a great base to build your leg conditioning routine around.

Goblet Squats

These modified squats are easy to do with any heavy object from a kettlebell to a dumbbell to a weighted pack.

Walking Lunges

Trail your glutes, hamstrings, and more with this exercise—no weight necessary.

The post Strong Legs Are a Hiker’s Secret Weapon. Here’s How to Get Them. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Within the last few weeks, I would bet my last that someone has asked you, “Do you watch Severance?” And if you said no or blinked back in confusion, I’m sure I’m not the first one to tell you that it’s incredible.

For the un-aquainted, , which first aired in 2022, is set in a futuristic era where a company called Lumon Industries has developed the biotechnology that allows its employees to ‘sever’ their brains into two personalities: your working self and your personal self. Severed people undergo a medical procedure that implants a device in their brain, which causes employees to forget everything about the outside world once they step foot into their work building. Likewise, once they leave, all the memories of what happened during the workday or gone. So in theory, there are “two” versions of yourself, one who works, and one who doesn’t.

After years of anticipation, season two episode one premiered on January 17. And in truth, it’s all I’ve been thinking about lately.

The brilliance of the show is that it touches on themes of work-life balance, workplace culture, political expression, and the meaning of memory and community. It makes you think about what life would be like if you had the option to be severed. You’d never have to feel the stress or exhaustion of work ever again, and focus solely on your personal life. On the other hand, you technically create this whole other “you” that knows nothing about yourself or the outside world—just the four walls of your cubicle. As I watch season two as a new episode is released week by week, I start to wonder how being severed would apply to other areas of my life—like running.

RELATED:

Would You Sever Your Running Self?

What if, as soon as I slipped on my running shoes, my severed self stepped in and took on all the grunt work? Say one day I’m not looking forward to a tough workout in the cold. If I had a severed running side, I wouldn’t have to feel the bitter chill, climb tortuous hill repeats, or endure huffing through race pace miles. I’d step outside in my shoes, and in the blink of an eye, be done and back inside for a post-run snack. I’d reap the rewards of building my endurance and athleticism for fun races and routes without needing to suffer through the not-so-fun parts of a training block.

The fictional scenario sounds tempting. “But running is supposed to be fun!” You might say. “If you don’t love it, don’t do it!” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. But if you’ve ever trained for a race, you know there are days when you wish you’d picked an easier hobby. Here are some instances in which I wish I was severed:

1. When my alarm goes off at 5 A.M. for my early run and I’m snuggled in bed, sleeping on the cool side of the pillow.
2. When I’m running through pouring-down rain so heavy I’m open-mouth breathing like a carp.
3. When I have to run up a hill that forces me into near slow-motion pace.
4. When I run out of water during a blistering hot run.
5. When the run is so sticky and muggy that I have to peel off the gnats that got stuck to my face one by one.

Turns out the reason why people endure tough, less-than-enjoyable things can be explained by the a theory conceptualized by psychologist Michael Inzlicht from the University of Toronto. The paradox suggests that effort can be both costly and valuable, that, although our genetic makeup pushes us to choose survival above all else (which often does not require climbing high mountains or running long distances), humans have evolved to sometimes choose difficulty over ease.

I asked Inzlicht what the repercussions would be of severing yourself for say, marathon training.

“While it might seem appealing to skip the grueling training and just enjoy being race-ready, our research suggests this would likely diminish the overall experience,” Inzlicht says. “We’ve found that effort, despite being aversive in the moment, serves as a crucial source of meaning and satisfaction.”

He says that behavioral studies show that people value achievements more when they require significant effort. That rush of emotion you get after a race might not feel as powerful if you didn’t spend months of a training block working for it.

“By removing the experience of effort, we might be removing what makes achievements feel truly significant,” Inzlicht says. “The struggle itself becomes part of the story and identity. “

It reminds me of the famous , a study conducted by a psychologist named Walter Mischel in 1970. Mischel would place a marshmallow in front of a child (of preschool age) and tell them that if they waited to eat it, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow later. The results found that more children were willing to wait longer (the more difficult option) in order to reap the higher reward. Similarly, runners are willing to experience the lows of training because the feeling of crossing the finish line is so powerful.

The study also found that the children who resisted the marshmallow were more likely to be patient in the future and better prepared for “difficult” aspects of life. The same could be said for enduring those tough parts of running. shows that runners, (especially ultramarathoners) have higher levels of self-efficacy compared to those who don’t run, which significantly impacts motivation, commitment, and self-control. also report that, because these kinds of runners have strong mental fortitude, they have more efficient emotion regulation strategies, stress-coping mechanisms, and experience less anxiety.

To me, the most glaring part of this research is that most of the time, runners aren’t born with this extra mental fortitude, but it’s developed through the constant repeated action of enduring hard things like waking up at the crack of dawn, running through the sleet and snow, and tackling scary steep hills.

So if I severed myself, I might not have the same mental toughness that I have today. The same mindset that has helped me tackle problems outside of running, helped me navigate the daily stressors of life, and grow confident enough to seek bigger goals and challenges. In fact, counterintuitively, not suffering through those days when I hate running may ultimately make me love running less.

Of course, the whole scenario is fictional, and so coming to this conclusion might seem sort of inconsequential. But this thought exercise reminds me that it’s important to understand why we invest so much time and energy into this silly hobby of ours. It helps us appreciate running even on those crappy days, and it’s what gets us through the inevitable lows that come during that race that we train for all year.

Plus, who knows how far biotechnology advancements will go? Maybe severing will one day be a real option. At least now, I’ve made my decision far in advance.

RELATED: Versatile Running Gear You Can Wear All Day, Anywhere

The post ‘Severance’ Made Me Reconsider My Commitment to Running appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Steer your cart through any supermarket and they are everywhere – packaged foods of every imaginable kind. Universally, these can be considered “processed” and it’s a term you’ve likely heard bantered around for years. But recently, new terminology has emerged to define certain foods and beverages that are processed and then some – in other words, ultra-processed foods.

Experts estimate that falls under this ultra-processed category – and that’s concerning to health experts. According to the American Medical Association, consuming ultra-processed foods (UPFs) regularly increases a person’s risk of health complications, including cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

Most endurance athletes tend to think of food as fuel, and as such try to steer clear of unhealthy picks. But when it comes to gels, chews, and electrolyte drinks, that’s a tough order. After all – most sports nutrition, by definition, is an ultra-processed food. So what does that mean for athletes? Should we go back to the days of eating bananas on bike rides?

What Are Ultra-Processed Foods?

While there is no universally-agreed definition, an ingredient list that reads like a chemistry quiz is a tip-off for something being ultra-processed. These foods go through multiple processing steps, from stripping away nutrients to mixing in sweeteners, fats, salt, artificial flavors, and emulsifiers to alter taste, texture and shelf life. This flavor and texture manipulation is the reason why ultra-processed foods are tasty – and why we keep coming back for more.

Items that often fall into the UPF category include frozen meals, baked goods, soft drinks, hot dogs, boxed cereals, ice cream, white bread, fast food pizza, and potato chips. This designation also applies to most performance-oriented foods like gels, chews, and bars. Even the most casual sports fan has seen athletes gulping down neon sports drinks on the sidelines and during post-game media interviews, and gels and chews are at every aid station during a race. They’re small, shelf-stable, portable, and formulated to fuel your workouts, which is why it’s easy to overlook their ultra-processed characteristics.

What the Science Says about Ultra-Processed Foods

Some degree of processing is nothing to fret about – after all, a bag of frozen blueberries can be considered a processed food but certainly not something that should be avoided. But eating too much food that has been powerfully manipulated by manufacturers .

A in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine associated the highest consumption amounts of UPFs with a 17% increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease-related mortality and a 16% increase in the risk for all-cause mortality. A in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition links UPFs to accelerated biological aging, noting that factors beyond the poor nutritional content such as the addition of non-nutrient components like emulsifiers and preservatives might largely contribute to the accelerated aging effect.

More data shows that UPFs can impact everything from brain to bone to microbiome health. Dyslipidemia, hypertension, weight gain, and insulin resistance are why going heavy on UPFs can be bad news for longevity. Truly concerning is that now Ìęthe daily calories in the typical American diet come from UPFs.

Is My Sports Nutrition an Ultra-Processed Food?

Let’s take a look at the makeup of a few types of popular sports nutrition products.

Vanilla gel

Ingredient list: Maltodextrin, water, fructose, L-leucine, potassium citrate, sodium citrate, citric acid, calcium carbonate, L-valine, sea salt, natural flavor, green tea (leaf) extract (contains caffeine), gellan gum, L-isoleucine, sunflower oil, sodium benzoate (preservative), potassium sorbate (preservative)

Is it ultra-processed? Yes.

Strawberry energy chew

Ingredient list: Organic tapioca syrup, organic cane sugar, water, pectin, potassium citrate, citric acid, natural flavors, Vit B3/B6/B12, fruit blends of apple, blueberry, pomegranate

Ultra-processed? You bet.Ìę

Lemon-lime sports drink mix

Triple source energy blend (maltodextrose, dextrose, fructose), citric acid, silicon dioxide, natural flavors

Are you drinking a UPF? You know the answer.

It’s almost impossible to argue that the above food, like the vast majority of packaged sports nutrition products on the market, are not ultra-processed based on the somewhat loose definition of this food group. So is this something to be concerned about if you frequently fuel your exercise sessions with these products? Or is it possible that ultra-processed gels and drinks are the right nutritional choice for triathletes and do no harm?

Let’s dig into what we know about the benefits and risks.

Yes, You Can Still Use Some Ultra-Processed Sports Nutrition

There is a reason why rely on the various guises of packaged ultra-processed sports nutrition products to get them to the finish line: because they work. We have that purposefully using a UPF around training and competing can be helpful for performance. Sports foods are specially manufactured for athletes to provide the nutrients they may need during training or racing. (Imagine running for many hours with a sack of bananas.)

Sports nutrition is processed to create fast-digesting carbohydrates in the form of gels, chews, and beverages to keep your muscles adequately fueled. As we increase the intensity of what we’re doing, we need more and more carbs (and calories!) as a fuel source. Ultra-processed sports foods use a mix of simple sugars to help with the digestibility and use of those carbs, while added citrusy or chocolatey flavors make them desirable to consume. That’s something most people don’t think about until they encounter an unflavored or unpleasant-tasting gel: If you don’t eat or drink something, then you can’t fuel the machine.

Athletes have special nutritional requirements to maximize their performance, and ultra-processed products can have a place in helping fulfill this. From a health perspective, we don’t yet have any convincing data that when UPFs are consumed in the context of long-duration or vigorous exercise they will have a deleterious impact on well-being. It’s easy to argue that getting a load of heavily-processed sugar from ultra-processed gels and drinks during a century ride is better than not getting fuel at all.

The vast majority of research linking UPFs with poor health has looked at the diet as a whole, and also involved a population of non-athletes. of basketball players found that a high intake of ultra-processed foods led to no noticeable detriment to performance or cardiovascular health. So there was no spillover effect in this aspect. However, a high intake of UPFs affected their microbiome negatively, the consequences of which are unknown. No other studies have specifically looked at ultra-processed foods in endurance athletes.

Consuming ultra-processed foods sporadically in a sports-nutrition context is likely not detrimental to overall health. It might only become problematic if you start leaning on bars and sugary sports drinks too heavily when you’re not working out. If using UPFs to boost your workouts helps you increase your overall cardiovascular and muscular fitness, perhaps this benefit can counteract any disadvantageous characteristics of these items.

But There Might Be a Limit

With all the bad news about them, it’s understandable why about UPFs. We should not dismiss the notion that there will be some degree of detrimental impact on health with heavy ultra-processed sports nutrition product use over the weeks, months, and years due to the nature of their production and formulation. These days, many pro triathletes are pumping in more than 100 grams of carbs for each hour of activity, and most, if not all, of those calories are hailing from ultra-processed products. But perhaps what you eat for performance is not necessarily the best for your health.

In showing that athletes can tolerate more than 100 grams of carbs hourly and that this amount increases carbohydrate oxidation, there is some concern that not all this sugar gets used up during exercise. It could then sit around in your system afterward, resulting in a downturn of metabolic and microbiome health. We just don’t know for sure, and we don’t have the answers to this dilemma. As more athletes increase the quantity of use of high-sugar UPFs, we desperately need research to address this.

using continuous glucose monitors found even athletes with high rates of energy expenditure can spend long periods with blood sugar levels that would be classified as pre-diabetic. Perhaps some of that can be attributed to high-sugar consumption from UPFs during workouts. Even in endurance sport, you’re not fully protected from the adverse effects of added sugar intake pumped into UPFs, no matter how many miles you are cranking out.

There is also the concern about the health risks of eating non-nutritive ingredients added to ultra-processed foods, such as emulsifiers and artificial flavor. While hard-charging athletes have more room for “discretionary calories,” has shown there are health risks from eating UPFs, regardless of whether a person has an otherwise healthy diet. That means that eating too many UPFs – which can include fueling products – may be risky even if you normally also eat lots of whole, fresh foods.

suggests that endurance athletes that use whey or beef protein powder long-term may have a detrimental impact on the gut microbiome, which might not necessarily be because of processed protein, but instead the emulsifiers that are in so many of these products.

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Mud season. Dealing with spring snowmelt, rain, mud, and muck is what brings the American Northeast, Southeast, and Northwest—and most places in between—together. If you live outside of an urban center and spend your time outdoors, odds are you own a pair of boots for mud season. Rubber boots are ubiquitous where I live in Bozeman, Montana. Knee-high rubber boots like the popular Xtratufs go on easy, provide sure protection from mud, snow, and water. Paired with good insulation, rubber boots can keep your feet warm through sub-zero temperatures. But knee-high rubber boots are also heavy, don’t breathe at all, and are often so clunky they’re a pain to walk in.

I wear rubber boots daily.ÌęI’m about to pull on a pair of my ($230)Ìęand traipse through gross ankle-deep snow melt while running afternoon errands around town. The Alphaburly Pros are the absolute warmest boot in my collection, but also the heaviest and clunkiest.

When my backyard isn’t socked in with feet of snow, I keep a pair of ($225) by the back door, and reach for them to chase a dog around or grab something from my truck. They’re a lot lighterÌęthan the Lacrosse boots and track a lot less mud into my kitchen, but the Xtratufs are prone to holes and tears.

I keep a set of ($150) at the cabin. Bogs are super easy to put on—perfect for when one of my dogs needs to go outside to pee at a moment’s notice. But their generous dimension also mean they don’t hold your foot securely through more active wear.

I keep a pair of fancy leather-lined Le Chameu Chasseurs around as sort of my going out rubber boots. But at $650, those aren’t exactly a practical choice, and even at that spend, forego any insulation, so are again relegated to spring and summer wear only.

No matter the weather or activity, my feet get a little damp in every one of these boots. Rubber boots are utilitarian and stout, but I have yet to find the perfect pair. Montana-based Sitka Gear is trying to change that.

Sitka, a high-tech apparel brand that’s making the leap from its hunting roots into more general outdoorswear,Ìęhas never made a shoe or boot before, but for their first foray into footwear they’re aiming to make a better muck boot. Rather than rubber construction, these new VentLite boots ($399, on-sale now) are made from a waterproof-breathable Gore-Tex membrane housed in a layered textile shell that works a lot like a modern rain jacket.

“Sitka really hangs its hat on providing a systems-based approach to technical apparel,” says Mike Ekstrom, the company’s new footwear product line manager. “And how can you have a full body system if you don’t have footwear?”

From the inside out, Ekstrom says the boot is constructed using a four-millimeter thick neoprene liner, then a layer of Primaloft Gold insulation, followed by the Gore-Tex membrane and a high-denier textile shell fabric with a DWR coating. Ekstrom says that outer fabric is similar to the one used in some of Sitka’s pants. Mapped polyurethane overlays add abrasion and penetration resistance to key areas, while low-wear areas go without the protection in order to maintain breathability.

The result? “They don’t become a bucket of sweat,” Ekstrom says.

Before joining Sitka, Ekstrom pitched for Major League Baseball teams including the Padres, Rays,Ìęand Rockies, then spent nine years managing athletic shoe lines for Nike. So it’s no surprise that his new boots “fit more like a sneaker,” says Ekstrom.

Cold water conducts heat away from your body Companies judge technical apparel by its ability to wick sweat away from the skin. Staying dry is crucial to staying warm through cold weather. As a result, Ekstrom explains that Sitka achievesÌęequivalent warmth to very heavily insulated all-rubber competitors in a lighter, slimmer boot.

Ekstrom says Sitka benchmarked the Lacrosse Alphaburly Pro 1,600G during development, which combines heavy-duty rubber construction with 1,600 grams of Thinsulate insulation. Where a single Lacrosse boot weighs 45 ounces, Sitka says the Ventilate measures just 35 ounces.

Sitka is the first company to employ Primaloft’s new 1006f insulation material in North America. Ekstrom is hesitant to quote a grams-per-square-meter figure out of concern that customers may simply compare that number to heavier alternatives, and come away with the mistaken impression that other boots will be warmer.

“What we’ve found through lab testing is [breathability] creates a more efficient way to provide warmth,” Ekstrom says.

Also unlike existing designs—which pack insulation around the foot only, leaving only your socks, long underwear, and pants to provide insulation from your ankles up—Sitka has carried its layered construction throughout the entire 18-inch height of the boot. Not only does packing more insulation add to the boot’s warmth, but Ekstrom says it also delivers a “uniform fit and feel throughout the boot.”

For traction, Sitka tapped Vibram for its latest Litebase Megagrip outsole, adding its own proprietary A-shaped lugs to the central portion of the tread. Ekstrom explains that this will be a hallmark across a growing range of footwear Sitka plans to build out in the near future.

What’s next? “We want to complete the head-to-toe systems wherever Sitka shows up,” Ekstrom says. “[VentLite] is just the starting point.”

Wes Siler grew up on a horse farm in England where it was his job to collect the manure. Rubber boots helped a lot, until the manure got inside them. Wes now writes about important topics like politics and vehicles on , where you can also talk to him about those topics and more.Ìę

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When , one of the first things she talked about in her post-race speech was period tracking.

“For this race, a lot of things were actually coming together,” she said in her finish-line interview after the win. “So for example, I was in the first half of my menstrual cycle, and I always told myself, once this happens on a world championship race day, this is the chance. I feel so much stronger than in the second [half].”

It’s not the first time Philipp called out her menstrual cycle as a factor in her triathlon success. After setting an Ironman record of 8:18:20 at Hamburg in 2022, period tracking was a “game changer” in optimizing her training and nutrition.

Does this mean all triathletes with a period should track their menstrual cycles with the same attention to detail as power meter data, nutritional intake, and sleep? Could period tracking really help athletes crack the code for a PR?

If you spend any time on social media, you probably assume the answer is “yes.” Women’s health and performance – specifically, as it pertains to hormones, is a hot topic right now. There’s no shortage of influencers and self-proclaimed experts offering advice on how to use period tracking to optimize athletic performance, but actual credentialed experts proffering detailed advice and protocols? Those are harder to come by. That’s because the science of period tracking for athletic performance is in its infancy, says Dr. Kelly McNulty, sports physiology researcher at Northumbria University and founder of .

It’s great that we’ve had this boom in menstrual cycle tracking,” says McNulty. “Menstrual cycle tracking is more common now, and it’s advocated for, especially within elite environments, as something athletes should be doing. There’s a tendency that everyone’s a female health expert now, but on the flip side of that, the science isn’t quite there yet. We don’t want to be giving bad advice off low-quality research.”

That’s not to say period tracking is a bad idea – only that athletes should beware of one-size-fits-all advice on how women perform during certain phases of the cycle. Let’s take a deeper look at how to make period tracking work for you, whether you’re just starting out in triathlon or an Ironman World Champion.

What the science says about period tracking for athletes

As Triathlete has written about before, . The major contributing factor to this dearth of information is a belief that it’s simply “too complicated” to study women – their monthly menstrual cycle and resulting hormonal fluctuations skew otherwise straightforward results. The lack of research on this topic means data collected on males is extrapolated to females, and female athletes usually train based on recommendations made for male athletes.

McNulty was part of a 2021 research team that reviewed more than 5,000 studies across six popular sport and exercise journals, , with as few as 6% of studies focusing exclusively on females. Ìęthat even fewer studies looked at women by life stage – a particularly “invisible” cohort is women going through midlife, perimenopause, and menopause. Simply put, the science on women isn’t that great, and though it is an area of increasing interest for researchers, McNulty says it will still be five to 10 years before there’s a robust body of high-quality research.

Still, McNulty warns, “Everybody’s an expert now. And so everyone’s coming out saying that they will tailor your training plan to your menstrual cycle, and it sounds too good to be true in a lot of ways. We don’t want to come in and tell people, ‘No, this is a bad idea,’ but we do feel really strongly about making sure that people know that if you’re paying for someone to do that, and they’re claiming they’re an expert, that nobody’s really fully an expert on that, except for the people who are currently doing the research – and even they don’t have all the answers.”

There are, of course, some already-published studies that indicate hormone fluctuations aren’t a complication; they’re actually key to understanding and optimizing athletic performance in women. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone rise and fall throughout a woman’s month-long menstrual cycle, influencing everything from how she performs in training or racing to how she recovers. have found hormones may affect ligament laxity, suggesting injury risk may increase at various stages of the cycle. There is also evidence that when hormones fluctuate, so too does a woman’s body’s ability to maintain proper hydration levels, metabolize nutrients, and regulate body temperature – unique factors critical to female athletic performance.

Should you avoid period-tracking apps for athletes?

These studies, plus a growing demand for women-specific health advice, have led to an influx of period-tracking apps for athletes, which help women monitor where they are in their monthly cycles. Some apps even recommend what kind of training to do (or avoid) and when.

Though such apps can be enlightening for female athletes looking for insights on their individual physiology, that there currently isn’t enough research to make standard recommendations related to period tracking and sport performance.

That doesn’t mean that period tracking is a waste of time; only that experts aren’t at the point to confidently say “on X day of the cycle, women are best off doing Y workout and recovering with Z food.” McNulty says the information period-tracking apps give is often generic, and given the variety in menstrual cycle experiences among women, the information presented might not always be suited to the specific athlete. Some with putting highly-sensitive health information into such apps.

While women wait for the scientific community to endorse a substantial body of evidence, there are still things athletes can do, McNulty says: ”If you are a female athlete or a coach/practitioner supporting a female athlete, then I recommend that you dive into the research and learn all you can about the potential effects hormones can have on women’s physiology. But do this with a critical eye.”

McNulty also says women can develop their own “bespoke athlete guidelines,” where each athlete uses her own expertise of her own body to identify patterns in performance. “When you learn more about your own menstrual cycle – what symptoms you experience and how you perform, train, and recover on certain days – you can use your knowledge and understanding to determine what bits of the research might apply to you and which don’t. From there you can begin to tweak and adjust things to maximize or manage performance/training depending where you are in your cycle,” she says.

It’s in these individual experiences of the menstrual cycle – not the advice of an app – where the biggest insights lie. “Every woman is different, and the research is only the beginning from which we can build our individualized content from,” McNulty says. “But this only happens if we understand our bodies first.”

How to track your period as an athlete

Tracking the menstrual cycle can be as simple as circling a day on a paper calendar or marking an X in your smartphone on the first day of your menstrual flow, or period. The menstrual cycle is counted from the first day of one period up to the first day of your next period.

The average menstrual cycle is 28 days long, but each woman is different. Some women’s periods are so regular that they can predict the day and time that the next one will start. Other women experience menstrual cycles that vary in length. Medically, periods are considered “regular” if they usually come every 24 to 38 days.

That menstrual cycle is further divided into four phases:

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It’s only 10 A.M., and Aaron Olbur is already breaking a sweat. Partly to blame is the San Diego sun, which even in December shines hot and hard on the asphalt parking lot. The other reason is Olbur’s hustle. With the help of his team of four, the 39-year-old hauls out big metal rolling racks containing 700 boxes of running shoes from a large sprinter van. He sets up the trademark —a metal platform you stand on to get a 3D digital model of your foot. He has boxes of orthotics and something like an oven to heat them up so they can be shaped to your foot—right there on the spot.

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Olbur assembles the mobile running store in a parking lot outside a medical office building, aiming to help the doctors, nurses, and patients there get fitted for comfortable and supportive shoes. He’s not a one-man mission but rather represents the second-largest running retailer in the U.S., with 40 stores in 12 states across the country—including a warehouse-sized store adjacent to its headquarters in San Diego.

“So what we’re really doing is we’re taking a Road Runner Sports and bringing it into your company,” he says.

People are always happy to see Olbur and his team, who call themselves Shoe Force. He estimates they bring the mobile running store to about 200 businesses a year.

“It’s not just runners,” he says. “It’s anyone who needs comfortable shoes or an insert—which is almost all of us do because that’s just the nature of the world.”

Olbur understands this personally. He’s up and moving constantly thanks to his job and his dedication to running. But more than spreading the , Olbur is devoted to helping people find relief for their feet.

“If I don’t go for a run, you can tell”

Olbur started running 20 years ago, discovering it helped his ADHD and mental health in college.

“Running has always been that thing to bring my brain back,” he says. “For physical fitness, I don’t know if it’s doing anything for me anymore because it’s just so repetitive. But for my brain, it’s like, if I don’t go for a run, you can tell.”

He began as so many runners do—showing up to a 5-kilometer race in gym shorts carrying two Red Bulls.

“I didn’t know what it was. I just didn’t even know how far it was. Back in the day, I didn’t have a watch or anything. I had no idea,” he says. “I ran this race, and everybody was dressed up as Elvis. It was actually awesome.”

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He was hooked and quickly ramped up to half marathons and fulls. At the same time, he decided to move from Chicago to San Diego based on random advice from a friend.

“I just drove across the country with a bag and a box of Cheerios,” he says.

He got a job as a seasonal part-time call center employee at Road Runner, taking shoe orders over the phone.

“I did that for literally three weeks. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t do this,’” he says.

So he made a change but stayed in running. He’s naturally a performer, and he would put on adventure runs at Road Runner stores.

“There was a big stage that I would stand on,” he says. “We had a mobile van that we used, but we didn’t sell anything out of it. We would only go to places and set up this whole big trailer and just give coupons out.”

Then, a job opened up that allowed Olbur to travel all over Southern California and Arizona doing shoe fittings, and he found his calling. Fast-forward to now, and they’ve built it into a mobile running store and shoe-finding experience. Olbur arranges with management at different businesses in the San Diego area to offer the fit-finding service to employees. Some companies cover the cost of a new pair of shoes or insoles, others provide employees with a discount, and some simply offer the service for convenience.

Fit Finding In Action

Back in the parking lot outside the medical office building, Olbur and his team are finding more clients happy to have their feet fitted. No pair of feet are exactly alike, and almost everyone has some kind of issue—high arches, flat feet, pronation, plantar fasciitis, hammer toe, corns, calluses. Team member Kim Carter walks shoe seekers through the process.

First, the client steps on a machine called the Fit Finder. It’s a foot scanner that creates a three-dimensional scan of their feet. Road Runner says it captures six foot measurements: foot size, length, width, arch height, instep, and heel width. It also maps the person’s balance and pressure points.

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Next, Carter looks at the results on her computer. They show the customer’s size, along with detailed information about their feet, and suggest shoes that would work best.

“It’s like a mobile book fair, but with the technology to see exactly what kind of book you need to read,” Olbur says.

Carter uses the results to create custom orthotic insoles. Using a readout from the scan, she puts insoles into a small oven right there in the parking lot, which molds the insoles to their feet.

She grabs running shoes from the mobile racks that would work, slips the insoles in, and helps customers lace up and try out the shoes.

Olbur oversees and jumps in whenever a team member needs assistance. He says the reception is always positive from people who spend a lot of time on their feet. “I mean, they’re literally like, ‘Oh, my God, thank you. I’m on my feet 12 hours a day,’” he says. “The response that we get is, ‘When are you coming back? When can you come back next week?’”

Shoes That Come to You—a Mobile Running Store

Fitting shoes to feet is nothing new—nor are traveling running shoe clinics. , a five-store running retail operation in Chicago’s western suburbs, has a Shoemobile that hit the road in 1969 and still travels the greater Chicago area bringing shoe fittings to high school runners and road race participants. Companies like Fleet Feet and New Balance have also dabbled in mobile clinics. And then of course Phil Knight sold the original Nike trainers out of the trunk of his car.

Stu Slomberg, the chief retail officer for Road Runner, says the company is investing in these traveling fit clinics to address challenges in the modern sales environment. People tend to settle into a shoe brand and model and then buy the same type over and over again online. But meet them where they are–literally, at work–and you may convince them to shake things up and try something new, he says.

“The two most important things in life are a good mattress and a good fitting pair of shoes,” he says. “You are on your feet a lot and you spend, hopefully, seven to eight hours sleeping. Those are the most important things.”

But the real key to the success of the mobile running store? Slomberg says that’s Olbur. “Aaron has exactly the right energy and style for this—his enthusiasm is infectious and he knows the process so well. His history with the company really shows.”

Good Shoes, Good Life

Olbur says that getting non-runners into good shoes could motivate them to start their fitness journey, and while getting people into quality shoes is his main focus, he would love for others to find the peace he has through movement.

“Providing them with their first step of getting something comfortable underneath their feet might get them out the door to go through with that 5K walk or a 2-mile walk or walk their dog or walk with their kids or become a healthier human being,” he says. “So we’re just navigating that and providing that for people.”

On that warm sunny morning in San Diego, it is clear Olbur has found his calling. He’s on his feet a lot, too, and was wearing running shoes with his khakis and Road Runner polo. He’s expanded his passion for running into a career of meeting people where they are and getting them into comfortable shoes.

“I found my niche in running shoes where I want to spread that love, I want to spread that to everybody else,” he says. “I feel like it makes me feel better, so why not go out and help others feel better? It goes a long way for me.”

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