31. Restart
It’s been a while since I wrote here. In the last year life shifted: new role at work, more travel, and racing on pause. I still ran, but mostly to stay sane and fit rather than to chase performance. Training became a way to manage stress, not push boundaries.
Things have changed again. Two months ago Matthew started sleeping in his own bed, and suddenly rest looks different. Better sleep means better mornings, more energy, and the ability to build mileage again. The small things in life often make the biggest impact on training.
I’ve signed up for Frankfurt Marathon on October 26. It’ll be my third time running it, and there’s no better place to restart than my own backyard. I won’t pretend the buildup has been perfect — this week I was in Manchester, caught a draft, and paid for it with a sleepless night. Ibuprofen and Voltarol kept things moving, but it reminded me how fragile momentum can be.
One experiment from the last year has stuck: switching to barefoot shoes. I’ve logged almost 1,000 km in Merrell Vapor Gloves. The transition was brutal at first — two months of shorter runs, sore feet, and wondering if I’d made a mistake. Now I wouldn’t go back. There’s still a place for supershoes in racing and recovery, but the simplicity of barefoot running has been worth it.
This is the beginning of the build. Over the next few weeks I’ll share how training unfolds, how I’m balancing it with work and family, and what it takes to get back to the start line. Frankfurt is where it begins.
Carve Out
This week I listened to Ben Horowitz’s talk at Columbia Business School. He argues that AI is still in its early innings, but like the spreadsheet in the 80s, it could reshape industries in ways we can’t predict. What stood out to me is his blunt point that culture beats strategy when disruption hits. Companies survive not because of what they say, but because of what they actually do. It’s a useful reminder — in running, in business, in life.