What Is Running Culture Anyway?
A newsletter win + a conversation with Raziq Rauf about his book: This Is Running
One of my 2026 goals for the newsletter was to partner with brands that align with The Sweat Lookbook’s mission to elevate women athletes in sports and fashion. I am thrilled to be able to cross that to-do off the list thanks to Paradis Sport, an active underwear brand founded by Sarah Weihman. All of April’s content is being presented with their support.
With Boston and London Marathons on deck, it’s sure to be a busy few weeks. (I’m crossing another goal off my list with my first brand trip, too!) I’ll sprinkle more from Paradis below and through the next few sends, but if you’re looking for underwear, shop them here.
State of the Sport
If you mostly consume running through social media, it’s easy to conflate its culture with consumerism. It’s a trap I find myself falling for, too. Brands make news – in the form of product drops or events designed to sell said products – which folks like me regurgitate with varying degrees of enthusiasm or inquiry. The result is an echo-chamber of PR-fed storylines that choke out some of the cooler, more interesting narratives shaping our sport in favor of the clouty ones.
On the whole, I aspire to be what Hard Court’s Jessica Schiffer terms a “good faith critic.” I hate because I love. Or perhaps Gabriella Karefa-Johnson said it best:
It helps that The Sweat Lookbook’s frame of reference is intentionally limited. I’m here to talk about sport and fashion through the lens of the female athlete. I give myself latitude to be that lens when there’s something I want to cover (like the conversation that follows), but you’d be surprised how often I respond to PR people’s inquiries with some variation of “Show me the women!”
When it comes to critical inquiry, Raziq Rauf threads the needle with a deft hand and a sharp eye. With an education in geography, a career in music journalism, and a disdain for our current obsession with marathons, he brings a well-rounded perspective to the sport that too often privileges myopic obsession. His new bookThis is Running, takes the work he’s been doing weekly on his Substack, Running Sucks, and frames it through the macro forces shaping the culture: from technology to the trails, gender to streetwear. It’s a timely review given the tectonic shifts that have occurred over the last five years.
So when Raz asked if I wanted to chat about the book’s release for the newsletter, it was an easy yes. As we head into the big, buzzy races of April, consider this a pulse check.
Lee: I always like to start my TSL interviews with the same question. How did you get into sports? Do you remember what you wore?
Raz: Throughout school, we had a uniform kit, so everyone wore the same thing. The first sport I remember playing was football—soccer—in London. It was cold, and I had this bright red, long-sleeve cotton jersey. Proper heavy, scratchy cotton. Red socks, thick rugby-style shorts, and my sister’s old boots.
I was probably about seven? I didn’t really have an interest in sports before that. It took me a couple of years to really get into it, but once I did, I was all in.
I started supporting Arsenal when I was about nine, and they’re still the only team I really care about.
Lee: It was the red, right?
Raz: Yeah, honestly. Half my class supported Tottenham, who wear white. Arsenal wore red with white sleeves. I remember thinking: I spill ketchup on myself all the time. White is a terrible idea. So I chose the red team. That was it.
Lee: Makes sense to me! And then, when did running come into the picture?
Raz: A few years later. I was football-mad, but I wasn’t naturally gifted. I worked hard, played constantly, but I wasn’t making the first team.
The head of PE—Mr. Dayton, I think he’d been an Olympic javelin thrower—suggested I join the athletics team. He’d seen that I was fast.
That changed everything. I think I learned more from athletics than anything else. It was the individuality of it—you’re part of a team, but you’re also completely focused on yourself.
I ran the 400m and the 1500m. Going to meets, competing—it just clicked. I was like, okay, this is my thing.
Lee: How did that evolve into running as an adult—and eventually writing about it?
Raz: I actually stopped running when I went to university. I didn’t have a strong connection to school, and I think I mentally left a lot of that behind—including running.
I’d already started writing about music in my late teens, so by the time I got to university, that’s where my energy went. I was writing constantly, getting paid for it. That became my identity.
After uni, I moved back to London and eventually got back into running—mostly because I’d become an increasingly unhealthy music journalist. It was the most natural way to reset.
Over time, I realized I didn’t want to go back to music writing. That chapter felt closed. But I still wanted to write about something I cared about—through the same geographic lens I’d always used.
Running was the obvious choice. I’ve been writing for 25 years, and I’ve been running even longer. It was always there.
Lee: Explain what it means to study geography, because it’s not something that people typically do in college here in the U.S. How does that shape the way you think about running?
Raz: Geography, at its core, is the study of the relationship between people and place. That’s always been my framework.
There’s actually a newer strand within geography now focused on movement—how people move through space. As a runner, that’s incredibly interesting.
Running is one of the most direct ways to experience a place. You’re moving through it at a human pace. You notice things. You feel the terrain. You understand a city differently.
So when I think about running culture, I think about how people connect to place through movement.
As a rower trained never to wear underwear under my unisuit, I’ll admit to being a workout underwear skeptic. But when Paradis sent me a pair of their natural fiber bikinis to try, I started wearing them with my favorite New Balance track pants for winter runs and was seriously impressed. My pair stayed put (as advertised), was perfectly soft, and plenty breathable for long runs. I just wore them to my first tennis lesson (under a pair of Seniq Shorts.) I find myself fishing them out of the basket to wear on days I’m not working out, too.
There are a lot of things that are cool about Paradis that we’ll touch on over the next few weeks, but perhaps one of the biggest callouts is that they are the only underwear brand on the market to fit-test their products with elite and professional athletes across a range of sports. Crafted from 4-way stretch chemical-free materials, built by women and for women, and named after pioneering 19th-century French climber Marie Paradis: there’s a lot to love about the work they’re doing. Not to mention, they believe in me and are willing to invest in this community.
Lee: That’s a perfect bridge into the big question I wanted to ask you. How do you define running culture?
Raz: I think running culture is ultimately about how individuals connect to place and to themselves through running.
Run clubs are a big part of that because they connect people to each other and to local environments. They’re also economic drivers—you get people buying coffee, going to bars, brands investing in communities. That’s culture.
But it’s not just community. Running culture can also be completely individual. It can be me going for a five-mile run tomorrow morning, exploring a city on my own.
What you wear, how far you run, where you run, why you run—all of that is your version of running culture.
Everyone’s thread is different, but they all weave into the same larger fabric.
Lee: It reminds me of how some people talk about their relationship with religion: the idea that everyone has their own connection to God. As someone who grew up Catholic, where your relationship with God is dictated by a priest and mediated by the saints, I find it very compelling to reframe it as personal vs institutional.
Raz: Yeah, completely. Running can be very similar.
For some people, it’s communal—like going to church. For others, it’s solitary. It’s introspective. It’s how they process things.
There’s even that element of guilt sometimes—the “I had a heavy week, so I need to run further” mindset. That kind of self-flagellation.
It’s all about understanding yourself. Running is just one way to do that.
Lee: I wanted to ask you about the Runner’s World cover with Harry Styles. It felt like a real stand-out moment, where you saw running culture elevated into a more mainstream space. The “one of us” framing, the vintage styling, the Haruki Murakami of it all ... How did you see that?
Raz: I thought it was great. At the end of the day, he’s a global superstar. People like that can move the needle in a way that no “real runner” ever could. That’s just the reality.
If you think about someone like Harry Styles, he’s got millions of fans. If even a fraction of those people engage with running because of him, that’s a huge net positive.
We’ve seen it in other spaces too—Diplo, Travis Barker—people who aren’t “from” running, but bring new audiences into it. That kind of crossover matters.
There’s also something about how it reframes running, especially in the context of music. It pushes back on that older idea of the tortured, unhealthy artist.
For so long, music culture has been tied up with unhealthy behaviors—late nights, substance use, all of that.
So to see someone like Harry Styles, at that level, talking openly about running and health—it shifts the narrative.
If that helps younger people rethink what it means to be creative and take care of yourself, that’s incredibly valuable.
Lee: For sure, though I’ve seen some pushback—especially around the idea that running is this universally accessible thing. The whole “all you need is a pair of shoes” narrative that Harry shared and Runner’s World highlighted. Your book does a good job of examining this tension, so I’m curious what you thought.
Raziq: I think both things can be true at once.
Running can be accessible in a very simple way—but that doesn’t mean it is for everyone. There are real barriers: time, safety, environment, access.
But if you only focus on those barriers, you risk shutting people out in a different way.
Aspirational messaging still has a place. It can bring people in. And once they’re in, the conversation can get more nuanced.
Lee: That makes sense. It’s almost like those entry points don’t have to be perfect. They just have to exist.
Raziq: Exactly. Not every on-ramp into running culture is going to be complete or fully representative.
But if it gets someone curious—if it gets them moving—that’s a start. And that’s valuable.
Lee: There’s also something interesting about the “one of us” framing. Like, why do we feel the need to validate someone like Harry Styles as a “real runner”?
Raziq: I don’t think we need to.
If you run, you’re a runner. It’s that simple.
I think that kind of language comes from insecurity more than anything else—this idea that there’s some threshold you have to cross to belong.
But running doesn’t work like that. It never has.
Lee: When did that even become a thing? The idea of being a “real” runner? Do you know?
Raz: Yeah, I don’t really buy into that discourse.
I’ve been called “not a real runner” because I don’t run marathons. Which is ridiculous.
A lot of that comes from insecurity, I think—especially from people who are newer to running and trying to define themselves within it.
There’s also the fact that running can just be utility. You can run three times a week and not think of yourself as a “runner” because it’s just something you do—like brushing your teeth.
But if you run, you’re a runner. It’s that simple.
Lee: I think people also police themselves. It took me a long time to call myself a runner, even though I’d been doing it for years.
Raz: Yeah, exactly. That self-policing is usually insecurity.
People say, “I run 5Ks three times a week, but I’m not a runner.” It’s like—what are you talking about?
But again, it depends on how much it becomes part of your identity. If you’re racing, training seriously, part of a community, it might feel more central to who you are.
Still, it’s different for everyone.
Lee: Last thing—there’s a lot of conflation right now between running culture and brands. You’ll see “running culture” content that’s basically just regurgitated product drops. Why do you think that is?
Raz: I mean, it’s capitalism.
Brands have money. Media needs money. So brands shape the narrative.
But I think there’s also a tension there, because people want running to feel pure—like it exists outside of that system. And it doesn’t.
That’s why something like the Harry Styles feature felt interesting—he was wearing vintage, not just pushing a single brand. It broke that pattern a biBut yeah, brands are deeply embedded in running culture. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—but it’s worth being honest about.
To hear more from Raz, subscribe to his Substack Running Sucks or purchase your copy of “This is Running” here.
Quick Thoughts
Things that caught my eye or ire…
This week offered a somber reminder that progress in women’s sports is often one step forward, two steps back. The I.O.C’s ban on transgender women – while not surprising given its history – is infuriating. I appreciated this take from SF Gate’s Anne Killion: “The IOC’s decision was simple because it flaccidly capitulated to the Trump administration, ceding territory to the loudest, meanest and basest elements, and ignoring the objections of scientists and advocates.”
There’s not much to add to the Emma Bates/UCAN pregnancy drop debacle that hasn’t been said on social or in any of the mainstream media coverage. UCAN, either intentionally or sloppily, let Emma go after she’d announced her pregnancy. (Based on their chaotic response on social media, which included posting and deleting versions of statements, I’m inclined to think it was the latter.) The outrage is loud and swift because it echoes the experiences so many women have navigating pregnancy and their careers. Just this week, a friend had a job offer from a university revoked because she told them she’s pregnant. I’ll be interested to see where Emma lands for her next nutrition partner – the marketing moment is sure to be gold! If Bobbie, the buzzy formula brand, is smart (and they are), they’ll snap Emma up to share her feeding journey on the road to LA 2028.
This is the first ive read of someone else citing guilt as a running driver and not equivocating about it. An odd sense of guilt is what gets me out the door on my weekend longruns whether I like it or not.
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