What a pop up taught me about running

or rather, reminded me why i love it.

I’m flying back to SF, functioning on a few less brain cells; the result of seven days of early mornings, late nights and endless conversations. It feels both refreshing and uncomfortable to be solo, after so many days surrounded by so many people. The group text between myself, Cole Townsend + Lee Glandorf quiet for the first time in months.

I’m typing this using my favorite writing tool : the notes app because I can think of nothing worse than someone reading half baked thoughts over my shoulder. As if what I am writing is worth eavesdropping but as someone who forms opinions based on the movies choices of those around me, I’d rather not take my chances.

Popping up with an unconventional pop up for one of the oldest, most traditional foot races in the America was an interesting choice. There was nothing blue, yellow, or unicorned in our store bar vintage tees, Swiftwick swag that didn’t last past Friday + a handful of Currently Running tops embroidered with a small ‘B’ and clover on the sleeve. This is the pinnacle moment for many runners; one they’ve either trained endlessly for to qualify, or raised thousands of dollars to participate in. They may never experience the feeling of turning left on Boylston again.

the Currently Running tee - sold out by Saturday.

For that reason, they want the blue and yellow. They want the unicorn, the official race jacket with their year on it¹. They want everyone to know what they spend their money on is evidence of what they spent endless days/weeks/months/years training for. They alone achieved what many will not. They ran Boston. At the end of the day Friday, after I had sold approximately two Running Wylder tees (one of which to a woman who just desperately wanted a t-shirt, any t-shirt in her size) I was on a tangent to anyone who would listen about the annoyance of runners wanting boston product. I get it; and also the world is vast.

as a social experiment i turned a few running wylder tees into custom boston merch.

By Saturday, after we had sold some SOAR, UNNA, numerous Bonzer glasses + even a few H_O_R_S_E pieces, I felt redeemed. The dichotomy of where we’re at in running so obvious and yet there’s still room for it all. There is no old guard / new guard. There are only runners.²

We didn’t nail the target boston audience, nor did we want to. Many who came through were looking for the souvenir and some weren’t. Those were the ones who walked away with an Unna top, SOAR shorts or a Running Wylder tee. Yet we created a space for everyone.

At some point over the weekend we reflected we should have offered an ‘industry night’ the Thursday before all the madness of the marathon descended upon us³. A night for all those who, like ourselves, decided making a career out of whatever is happening in this space was a good idea.

representing SF + having so many familiar faces come thru made my weekend

Turned out it wasn’t necessary because the Rec Room became the unofficial hang out for all those involved. LinkedIn IRL as friends of friends and colleagues of colleagues popped in and out and in again. Every night as we wrapped up I sat on one of the couches, exhaustedly scrolling Doordash + imagining what I might order for delivery so I could stare at a wall while eating dinner in my 100 sq ft hotel room. Every night the quiet post close lull would evolve into an impromptu hang of take out + wine. One that would easily happen in one’s own home, if one were blessed to have the space for one’s own rec room.

I saw old friends + new; some I only see once a year if lucky, others I haven’t seen in over a decade. I escaped the madness only once, Sunday afternoon as the rain + the desire for fresh legs kept many runners inside, relaxing + resting their legs. I craved a reminder of the success we created so I dragged Lee to Catbird with me. The irony we only realized once we got to the quiet store, of leaving a room full of bros to seek refuge in the quietest, girliest store on Newbury.

the bros + the girly pretty thing i bought myself

The magic of what we created, from a budget next to nothing, highlights to me just how overmarketed and overproduced the running industry has become⁴. What used to be a band of misfits running in cotton tees and shorts so short that for any other activity they would be deemed inappropriate, has become a legion of cool kids, bros decked out in all black, mirrored shields covering their eyes, neon super shoes on their feet.⁵ Brands that might’ve vyed for a space on the expo floor now pay incredible amounts of money to build out (what they hope) to be the coolest race-day activation. It’s exhausting to watch the recap of events coming off Paris roll into Boston + continue onto London.

a tale of two pop ups - both reshaping what it means for small businesses + brands to participate in race culture

What we need more of are small, underproduced pop ups like ours. Or like the one next to us.⁶ Ones that offer a distinct point of view and an openness to ideas. Ones that are less concerned about how they might show up on socials and more concerned about how they might form lasting connections with those who pass through their doors.

There was a moment I didn’t think we’d pull it off + a more appropriate title for this post might actually be ‘the pop up that almost didn’t happen’. I booked my flights a mere 2 weeks before the event, because that’s when we finally secured our space.

We originally had our eye on a different spot on Newbury street, one that was quintessential Boston. A first floor walk up, above a restaurant called ‘Lobstah on a Roll’ no less. While we confirmed buy in for brands to ensure we could cover the rent, RUNNA outbid us by 3x the listed price. To make things worse the property group also managed nearly every other vacancy on Newbury and was now unwilling to rent any of them for less than RUNNA’s outrageous, Strava fueled bid.

Oh the irony that RUNNA decided on a different space and that brownstone remained vacant. As I ranted then and stand behind even now : NOBODY WANTS A RUNNA BAGEL SHOP or whatever the fuck it was they were trying to create.⁷

At the end of a weekend that went by so fast I wonder if it even happened, I am so incredibly proud of everyone. What other brands require insane budgets to execute we were able to do for with pennies and what landed was unique, interesting + hopefully disruptive. The most expensive part of our build out was the Home Depot delivery, one that Lee had placed for delivery Monday am, after I created a very not to scale sketch⁸ of the space Saturday morning so I could determine 1) how many cinder blocks 2) how many milk crates and 3) how many planks of wood we needed.

the rec room WIP

+ the OG mood board

The most expensive part of the entire pop up, however, was actually my hotel room, one so incredibly small it didn’t even have a full length mirror. Luckily due to the extreme variations in weather I had uncharacteristically planned all my outfits while packing. A strategy that insured I would over rather than under pack and honestly not mad about it. I packed 2 large black hole duffels like the diva I am⁹ + thoroughly enjoyed every outfit I wore over the course of 7 days I was in Boston.

what i wore for working the floor. luckily the pop up had many, many mirrors.

a few options of what i wore for my run - i had to take full outfit photos by using the selfie timer on my phone. let’s pretend that’s why they’re so bad?

A byproduct of our incredibly frugal budget, our space was incredibly sustainable. The rec room sofa + chairs came from Facebook Marketplace (+ were later resold via Facebook Marketplace). The lamps, tables, mirrors, books : Lee’s house. The orange chair : Cole’s. The caboodle, some of the rugs : Goodwill. The caboodle will be gifted to Bonzer for all her pop up needs because, quite frankly, it was too amazing to drop back off at Goodwill. The wood + cinder blocks : Home Depot.¹⁰ Sure it’s great the Paris marathon did away with cups at aid stations but how much waste was generated by all the pop ups?

another MVP : Buji next door where we were able to make custom ‘staff’ hats.

While we all worked really hard to make the rec room come to life, the real MVPs were Moms. Nash’s mom made us the heat transfers for our vests when the vest company did not. Lee’s mom came through with all the bottles we used for flowers. As Lee reflected via group text Monday¹¹, our second job as Moms came through in other ways :

One thing that helped make our space welcoming is the fact you + I are both moms. I struggle with whether I can be “cool” at this stage¹², but I admire how you achieve it and I think that’s part of the magic in the sauce. And Cole, you are an honorary cool mom. ❤️

While I might argue I am not a cool mom; I’ve just worked hard to maintain (and grow) my own person through my store, substack + style outside of the traditional mom trope society prefers to bucket us in, I won’t argue being a mom helped us identify the need for a welcoming + inclusive space. In run, so often the clubs + spaces that claim to champion inclusivity the most feel the opposite based on aesthetics, choice of materials, music + imagery. I’ve been so far in it I’ve lost the ability to see the trees through the woods but I truly hope whether you visited IRL or you only caught the snippets on socials, the Rec Room came across as a space you truly wanted to hang in no matter how cool you do or don’t think you are.

idk anyone else’s pop up that was so chill kids wanted to play Donkey Kong. also let’s bring back 1995 video games. they were so wholesome.

Like my store, the Rec Room was a highly curated experience that (again, I hope) wasn’t so curated it didn’t feel like you couldn’t *actually* throw down a game of Donkey Kong (Nash’s actual super nintendo + games) or a game of foosball (Lee’s from her childhood).

actual text exchange btwn cole + i where i’m threatening to kick anyone out of the pop up who suggests cinder blocks as an aesthetic choice. worth noting this was pre-basement space but also still LOL.

This is why the space felt easy, approachable + most importantly : different. While other pop ups + spaces felt like a conveyor belt of runners walking through, ours was a place where people entered but stayed. Our goal wasn’t to sell massive amounts of product, which is why we didn’t double down on Boston + unicorns.¹³

My hope is to not inspire future ‘rec rooms’ but rather remind us that activations don’t need to be heavily produced to be a good time. One shoe brand showed up in Boston with a mobile van full of product. Genius, as rent is hands down the most expensive part of any pop up (esp if you aren’t willing to go all in on a basement unit that is one vintage lamp away from a house fire, weeping a mystery substance from the walls) until I was told the entire activation cost 6 figures. By contrast, the RAD® van which was mostly used as a billboard as it sat parked in front of our pop up, cost a couple grand + that included the parking tickets.

If you read what I wrote a week ago, you know I was feeling a bit burned out by the performative nature of running. While those thoughts are still mine, I forgot that community can (+ will) surpass this. Those who came back from TSP described it as life changing + I believe that has less to do with TSP + more about running three hundred miles with friends, acquaintances + strangers who, after 3 days holed up together in an RV had become family.

I didn’t run Boston yesterday, but I ran Boston. I ran it Wednesday by myself, Thursday with Lee, Sunday with Omar + Blue from R.A.D.® I spent nearly 12 hours a day with all of them including Nash, Cole + others. You best believe we’re going to be running it back for another major because it’s too much fun to not.

1. i counted 19 jackets and two medals at my gate. there is currently one across the aisle from me.

2. Friday shoppers vs. Saturday/Sunday shoppers = two different breeds of Boston runners. Friday were those looking for their Boston tees, their free swag before it ran out. Saturday/Sunday were those who were here for the brands, the experience.

3. a common theme for any ideas we were unable to execute : new york!

4. the catalyst for my previous post

5. anyone who has also run cross country in high school knows it was not the cool kids running.

6. While not my cup of tea, they had a steady stream of runners all three days and if I’m being honest they nailed the target demographic better than we did.

7. i had to look it up on instagram. apparently they created a ‘race hub’ that offered an exclusive boston kit, kit customization, one-on-one coaching, coffee and more. don’t know if the one on one coach was with a real person. compared to what they came up with, maybe we would have prefered a bagel shop?

8. apparently the concept of 1 inch = 1 foot in illustrator isn’t entire accurate

9. j/k the second duffel was mostly product + supplies for the pop up

10. which, we discovered will pick up returns

11. after she published her substack

12. lee i would also argue you too, are a cool mom.

13. i understand the need and also custom race merch is possibly the hardest to execute. sell out + you’ve pissed ppl off. buy too much + you’re basically burning product because quite literally no one will want a boston marathon tee if they didn’t run the boston marathon.