Long Run Labs

What does AI actually think about the running industry? Not what brands want it to think. Not what their SEO teams have optimized for. What does it actually say when nobody is watching? Michael Rueckert of Centium AI ran the biggest AI visibility study...

Sara Hendershot has spent her career at the intersection of elite sport and early stage brand building. She rowed at the 2012 Olympics, was employee number three at Momentous before it became one of the most trusted names in performance supplementation...

Megan Lightcap runs the creator fund at Slow Ventures, one of the first venture funds built specifically around creator entrepreneurs. Her thesis is simple: creators are just a new type of founder. And the ones who own a niche, build a world around the...

Jason Daniel didn't set out to build a global brand. He set out to race motocross, and when that didn't pan out, he spent years working as an electrician, a bricklayer's yard manager, and a carpenter while quietly building a clothing brand out of a nic...

Trail running is growing faster than anyone predicted. New brands are entering the space, race fields are selling out, course records are falling, and the sport is attracting capital, media attention, and mainstream audiences it has never seen before. ...

Andy Blow didn't set out to build a company. He set out to stop ending up in the medical tent. As a triathlete who kept collapsing in the heat, Andy discovered that electrolyte loss is deeply individual, got a sweat test, changed his nutrition, and rea...

Des Linden has spent two decades figuring out how to build a career that outlasts the finish line. The 2018 Boston Marathon champion joins Long Run Labs to talk about the business of being an endurance athlete, what loyalty actually looks like in a lon...

Randi Zuckerberg has spent her career at the intersection of technology, media, storytelling, and entrepreneurship. But in recent years, endurance sports have become just as central to how she thinks about leadership, business, and personal growth. Fre...

Doug Waters didn’t set out to build another outdoor apparel company. He set out to solve a problem he kept running into himself. Doug is the founder of Terlingua Threads, a hot-weather adventure apparel company focused entirely on performance in extrem...

Christian Rawles didn’t just build a brand in the outdoor industry, he spent nearly two decades learning what it actually takes to run one, eventually buying and leading the business himself. Christian is now an executive coach working with entrepreneu...

Nick Dibos didn’t set out to build a scalable apparel company. He set out to build something that actually means something to the people around him. Nick is the founder of Greenville Uptempo Sports, a running apparel brand rooted in community, culture,...

Seth LaReau didn’t set out to build a media brand. He set out to create something he wished existed. Seth is the writer behind Trailwaves, a newsletter exploring the business, economics, and culture of trail and ultra running. With a background in fina...

Erin Cooper built her career in the running industry by saying yes, learning on the ground, and working her way from run specialty to leading brand marketing at one of the most influential global brands in sport. Erin Cooper is a Brand Marketing leader...

Hannah Sedgwick Shin has built her career at the intersection of running and brand. From her early days in public relations to shaping marketing at Goodr and now leading sports marketing initiatives at ASICS, her work sits inside the evolving world of ...

Kyle Siegel transformed a moment of peak frustration on Mount Rainier into the foundation story of Raide: a ski and running equipment company driven by an obsession to enable "the freedom and flow of human powered movement." Kyle Siegel is the CEO/foun...

What happens when a successful entrepreneur sells his lighting company, attempts to qualify for Olympic trials, and then decides to revolutionize the insole industry using iPhone technology? Cole Zucker is an entrepreneur with a running addiction. Cole...

When immigrant parents chase opportunity across continents, their children often become bridges between worlds. Sid Baptista discovered that running could be the vehicle to bring transformative experiences back to the communities that shaped him. Sidne...

From marathon champion to business leader, Gelindo Bordin transformed his Olympic gold medal triumph into executive expertise, now directing innovation at Italian running brand Diadora while bridging the gap between elite performance and everyday runne...

From selling braided iPhone chargers on Instagram to building an outdoor dog gear empire - Rachel Friedline's wild journey started with a red iPhone cord and a weekend ski house. Rachel Friedline is the co-founder of Wilderdog, an outdoor dog gear comp...

Jason Wiener has spent over 25 years navigating the intersection of sports and technology, transforming from an adventure sports agency owner who represented major brands like PowerBar and Specialized to a data-driven athlete development pioneer who's ...

The most successful trail sponsorships happen when brands stop asking 'what can this athlete do for us?' and start asking 'what can we build together that neither could create alone? Born in Bennington, Vermont and growing up on the Long Trail, Alyssa ...

From selling $30 shots that tasted 'completely crazy' to building a nine-figure business now sold nationwide in Target, Michael Brandt proved that scaling isn't about perfection—it's about refusing to stay in the ivory tower and dancing with your custo...

Would you trade 20 years at Coca-Cola and Amazon for the chance to democratize high-performance running gear? Meet Julien Vancauwenberghe, the Chief Marketing Officer behind KIPRUN, the most anticipated running brand launching in the USA this year. Jul...

Being an entrepreneur and building a business is like being an athlete - you have no idea what's going to come out the other side, but you put everything you can into it and hope for the best. As a Venezuelan trail runner raised in the Chilean Patagoni...

From tech hardware professional to trail running community steward - Vivek Gowri is rewriting what it means to own a running store. After a decade in the Bay Area running scene and two decades in tech hardware, Vivek is taking over San Francisco Runnin...