Life Is Moving

Stepping back from the greatest ride of my life

Reflecting on my time at Believe in the Run, and equally terrified and excited to move into something new

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AI Disclaimer

For this publication, I pledge to never use AI for the purposes of brainstorming, organizing, reorganizing, editing, cleaning up, rewording, writing, or generating anything other than what comes out of my own head and hands. Because of that, you will likely find plenty of errors and redundancies and grammatical mistakes. It may also run long because this is a first draft and I can’t self-edit for sh*t.

Now onto dinner service.

Course 1

A Word of Gratitude: Believe in the Run

Many of you reading this came to know me through my work at Believe in the Run. Maybe you listened to our podcast, watched our YouTube reviews, read our shoe reviews, subscribed to our weekly email, or simply came out to one of our events. Then again, maybe you’re reading this and asking yourself: “What the hell is Believe in the Run?”

Basically, it’s been my life these past 7 years.

It’s still a part of my life, but it will look a bit different from here on out. Basically, last week was my last as a Believe in the Run employee. I’ll still be there in some capacity as a free-lance contributor– co-hosting The Drop podcast, writing the weekly email and the occasional shoe review for the site. I’ll still show up to the local group runs and meet-ups and parties; however, I’ll no longer be traveling with the team. For all other purposes, I am on my own, venturing into new territory (more on that below).

When I started, Believe in the Run was a shoe review website with 40,000 monthly sessions and a YouTube channel with under 10,000 subscribers. Since then, it’s become the number one site in the world for running shoe reviews with millions of annual visitors. Two top podcasts in the space, with over 5 million streams and downloads combined. Almost 200,000 Instagram followers and 125,000 YouTube subscribers. GRIT, our semi-annual virtual event, pulls in thousands of runners from across the country in January and July.

When I was first hired, I wasn’t even an employee of Believe in the Run. None of us were. Thomas and Meg, the owners of the business (also my friends and co-workers and podcast co-hosts), hired me as an employee of Big Run Media, their marketing agency that worked with races across the country. The business model was doing digital marketing and social media management for races, which worked until Covid happened. During that time, I ran a couple social media accounts, including ours at Believe in the Run and another for the Baltimore Running Festival, as well as one for Speedland, a start-up (now established) trail brand for whom I also wrote the website copy while helping guide the brand voice for the first year. I also started and managed ambassador programs for other races.

I did all that, but all the while, I couldn’t stop thinking (and working on) Believe in the Run. What Thomas had started was a start. The ball was rolling, the seed of something was there, but I felt like it had the potential to become something big. Running was on a cusp and I felt like we could create a new type of media that blended traditional reviews with forward-facing personalities. A mix of traditional journalism with the influencer space. At the time though, nobody was doing that, aside from Barstool Sports (kind of). We were so far ahead of the curve; now it’s something a lot of media outlets are doing, including The New York Times. I knew it could work, I knew it could be big, but I couldn’t see how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be. I was crossing a river by feeling the stones with my feet. Nevertheless, I believed in Believe. I worked on nights and weekends to craft the website voice, to get us to stand out among the crowd. I hounded reps and PR people and anyone I could track down to get shoes to review. Honestly, I probably should’ve been fired for not doing what I was actually hired to do, but luckily they kept me on. It was Thomas’s baby to begin with, he started BITR back in 2009. He was on board with prioritizing it, and once the pandemic hit, we had no choice. The race marketing side essentially went belly-up, and so we burned the boats for Believe in the Run.

As you know, it worked.

Somehow, some way, people believed in us. Trusted us. Listened to us. Loved us. I didn’t get fired. We pulled together as a team and built something crazy. We did super weird stuff like shooting Beastie Boys type promos in parking garages. We set off smoke grenades under bridges and reviewed shoes in back alleys before throwing them for touchdown passes. Thomas dared me to drink coconut water sitting on a trash can and I did. We had ideas and we ran with them.

The thing is, we weren’t doing it to hit an algorithm or go viral. We were just obsessed with running and running shoes and wanted to share that with the world.

People liked what we were doing. They still do. Brands loved what we were doing. They still do. When I first started, I hoped that someday I’d be able to just review a single pair of Nike shoes– Pegasus, Speed Rival, Vomero, whatever. I never imagined that someday I’d have early-release pairs sent to my house with my name custom-printed on the box.

I remember the first time a brand believed in us and thought we were doing something interesting. It was Diadora, and their CEO Bryan Poerner and marketing guy Alex Arslan brought us up to Philadelphia to check out their HQ. We thought it was cool as hell, and it was. We took some photos, looked at upcoming models, hung out, stayed overnight, drank too much and watched Anchorman. Surely that was the pinnacle of all that was to come.

In reality, the “yet to come” part was beyond my wildest dreams and goals. I still have a goal board from the first month I worked there. The numbers and dreams I put on it seemed absurd, impossible even. We smashed every single one of them.

Surely I never imagined that I’d be in the front row at hallowed Hayward Field for the World Athletics Championships, watching Jamaican legends Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price and Shericka Jackson fly past in the blink of an eye. Or in Tokyo for the same event as Mondo Duplantis broke the world record in the pole vault. I couldn’t believe I’d see Sydney McLaughlin run the track at the Paris Olympics and share an Uber ride with Deena Kastor. Never did I dream that I’d run the New York City Marathon three times, the Boston Marathon twice, and the Berlin, Chicago, and Tokyo Marathons once. It’s absurd that we recorded a podcast with Hoka, on a yacht, in Miami, at sunset. Or that I teamed up with Fractel to release my own signature Legionnaire hat that would quickly sell out. That’s fever dream territory.

Think about this: Twelve years ago, I couldn’t run a mile without gasping for air. It was the farthest thing from my mind, to run a marathon, let alone a dozen of them plus a handful of ultramarathons.

Since I started my running journey, I’ve covered thousands of miles around God’s green earth, from sea level in Baltimore to Magnolia Road in Boulder.

I ran on dirt in the Rocky Mountains, across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London and Yoyogi Park in Tokyo, under Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, up the Manitou Incline, around the Chicago Waterfront and Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, along the Charles River and the coast of Cape Cod, on the silent streets of Venice at sunrise, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, into the canyons of Sedona, up to Pre’s Rock overlooking Eugene and on the track at Hayward Field. I ran in the thin air of Leadville and the thick air of Jacksonville. Beneath towering redwoods and through hazy eucalyptus groves and fresh snow and bursting wildflowers and bone-dry desert and coastal beaches and cracking thunderstorms and gusting headwinds. I saw ghosts of my past life as I ran past bars in Austin that I played in 15 years before when I was in a touring band. I ran in tights and split shorts and jackets and vests and covid masks and hydration packs and a dozen GPS watches.

I’ve run in hundreds of pairs of shoes, almost every model of running shoe that’s ever been made over the past decade.

I ran 5K and 50K and 50-mile races and learned something about myself in all of them.

Then there are the interviews and live shows and podcasts. I’ve been honored to interview so many legends in the running space and beyond. Talking running with some of my favorite musicians in Julien Baker, Charles Wesley Godwin, Daniel Fang of Turnstile, and my personal GOAT– Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. Hanging out and/or talking with some of the greatest athletes in the sport: Courtney Dauwalter, Emma Bates, Clayton Young, Kilian Jornet, Noah Droddy, Conner Mantz, and so many more.

Beyond the famous people, there are so many people behind the scenes in the running space who are just genuinely great humans. On the brand side, from the PR to the reps to the designers and product managers. On the social media side, where even our competition felt like close friends.

Also, none of this would be possible without the team of reviewers that keep the website afloat. While the team has shifted over the years, I’ve always tried to make it feel like a family, building it brick by brick. I’m so thankful for them, especially as we’ve grown together and made mistakes and kept pushing forward.

Then there’s the fans. When I started at Believe in the Run, I was hoping someone would hear us and that more people would hear us, enough that I could do something that I loved and make some money doing it for once in my damn life. So many people listened and laughed and joined us at events all around the world. So many people have DM-ed me and emailed me and commented on posts and videos and shown so much love that I can’t possibly comprehend the breadth of it all. If you’ve ever read a review or watched a video or came out to an event– you let me live this life and I don’t know how to thank you enough.

Lastly, there is the core of Believe in the Run, who– without them– none of this would be possible. Going way back, our first video editor in Rachel, who somehow made me look funny despite my painful attempts at doing so in my first video reviews. Nick, who came on as a remote intern from Arizona State and suggested we do a podcast, literally changing the trajectory of our lives. Brandon, our first videographer, who elevated things to the next level and ran faster than anyone I’ve ever seen with a camera in hand. Ryan, my assistant editor who’s honestly better at me behind the scenes. Helen, the best office manager anyone could ask for and an absolute legend at figuring out Baltimore’s broken mail system. Brady, the newest video editor who’s already making a huge impact. Matt, one of my favorite running partners and a true brother who’s equally depressed by the Orioles every year. Meg Featherstun, whose nutrition advice I never follow but who is an absolute joy to be around always. Wide Foot Jarrett, who convinced me to bring his sasquatch self onto the team and has somehow managed to never leave. I’ll miss our pre-Boston Marathon “I Think You Should Leave” hotel room dates. Taylor, a spiritual brother and probably the best human I know, who has shouldered me through some dark places during dark times. I know he will take the trail team to places that will change the sport in all the best ways.

Thomas and Meg, we’ve been through so much these past 10 years since I started running with you. Thank you for giving me a chance and hiring me and keeping my employed, even when the money wasn’t there. You’ve treated me far better than any employer I’ve ever had, even though it feels more like borrowing money from friends than getting paid.

We’ve run so many races together and shared countless dinners and drinks and early mornings and late nights and you persevered through me losing my wallet in a Japanese casino and forgetting to do podcast copy and loaning me phone chargers and gels and LMNT and trusting that I’ll show up again whenever I wander off.

I do that sometimes, as you know. I wander off, away from the group. Sometimes that looked like a quiet detachment, like leaving a store in Tokyo and going off for lunch by myself and spending an afternoon walking without anyone else by my side. Other times it would be in loud places, in the middle of the New York City Marathon, when I’d find whatever my pace was for the day, the metronome I had to follow. I had every intention of running with the crew, but I would go ahead, knowing I’d see you at the finish line.

You always knew that and didn’t judge me for it. You knew that at some point, I’d leave you to go wander. I’ve always been that way, picking up a scent on the wind and following it. An onitsuka tiger doesn’t change its stripes.

Even though I’m still here in some capacity, I can already feel the change sweeping in. I sense the season in my life turning; with that, the bittersweet winds blow another page in the chapter of my life, swirling up all kinds of emotions that I’m not sure I’m ready to feel.

Heading into the darkness is always tough. I’ve done it a few other times, and it only gets harder.

But it’s time to go run another race.

Course 2

The Main: The Next Thing(s)

It’s hard to explain why, or how, but I feel like my life has moved in 7-year cycles. Ages 16-22 were the ages that defined me and my future. Ages 23-29 were spent playing in a band, exploring the United States and living out my nomadic dreams. Ages 30-36 were growing up: settling down, getting married, going back to school while working an office job, buying a house, hyper-saving to cover the financial sins of my 20s. Ages 37-43 were spent at Believe in the Run, diving fully into the world of running and combining a bunch of things I learned in the two decades before.

As far back as two years ago, I knew change was coming. I didn’t want it to. I had a job that was literally a dream for any runner– traveling to the best races in the best places in the world, drinking from the free-flowing tap of running shoes and apparel and gear, hanging out with friends and connecting with the coolest people in the industry.

And yet, I felt something calling out to me, to move beyond just running. Thomas and Meg knew this, and I tried to work through it. The more I tried to stay, the more I felt myself moving away.

I love running, I always will. Over the past decade, it has sunk its hooks into me. However, I just have so many interests in so many things, and I feel those things pulling me, especially as I get older.

I have things I want to experience, stories I want to tell, people I want to connect with.

What does that look like? For now, something like this:

First, I plan on diving into Suppertime more. Publishing on a consistent basis, at least every once every two weeks, possibly more for paid subscribers. Engaging with all of you. Building this community. Scheduling meet-ups and more. I appreciate anyone who has read this far, and you deserve more from me, which I’m more than willing to give.

Then there’s the other thing: A new outlet for all my thoughts and ideas and things I find interesting.

For one, I love the outdoors. I grew up camping with my family, but also with my uncle, who led a troop of kids with a church-based Boy Scouts clone. I’ve done three canoe trips in the Florida Everglades, backpacked sections of the Appalachian Trail, and slept in the snow in a lean-to shelter. I’ve bikepacked most of the C&O Towpath on multiple occasions. I used to run trails as much as possible, before roads became easier. I’ve searched for trout in back mountain streams and fished for stripers in the Baltimore harbor. I haven’t done much of that these past few years.

Also, as you may already know, I love storytelling. Folklore, tales of the strange, legends and curiosities that fall outside the ordinary. I love southern gothic literature, the characters in a Flannery O’Connor short story, the villains in Cormac McCarthy, the peculiar faces of William Faulkner. I love the slippery and irreverent nature of those who tread in the gray area of existence, functioning in society but bending the rules when they don’t make sense.

My all-time favorite stories are the ones about outsiders; we’re all familiar with Christopher McCandless, the dirtbag deity who achieved posthumous sainthood in Jon Krakauer’s “Into The Wild.” But what about Tyler Austin Harper, staff writer at The Atlantic, who does extreme wetsuit fishing for stripers 80 nights out of the year? Or my favorite Baltimore influencer, Evan Woodward, who magnet fishes in the harbor and digs out old latrines for pieces of past history? What about the guys snorkeling in gator-infested backwaters for megalodon teeth? Or the dude finding trash on his everyday runs through the streets of Baltimore?

This stuff is so exciting to me, these people living lives on their on terms, diving into niche hobbies in the outdoors.

Outdoors and adventure, that’s one thing.

Running parallel to that, I also have a hole in my heart for what the golden age of magazines (especially men’s magazines) used to be, and what they’ve become today. As a child, Boy’s Life was a volume of wonder, especially the back page with all its gadgets and gimmicks. Every issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids arriving in my mailbox was legitimately the highlight of my month. Then came the standard edition of Sports Illustrated, especially the back page missive by Rick Reilly, my sole inspiration for The Drop weekly email that I write each week for Believe in the Run.

As a teen, my friends and I would sit cross-legged in Readings and Greetings at the mall, flipping through the latest Thrasher and Transworld Skateboarding issues. As I grew older, I dove into Esquire to teach me the things my father didn’t (or didn’t know how). At the time, it was punchy and provocative, when it still had an annual edition devoted to “A Woman We Love,” before it descended into a thin volume of curmudgeonry and listicles. The days of Tom Junod and Tom Chiarella and Nick Sullivan at their finest. Sometimes I think my weird life experiments all stem from reading A.J. Jacobs, who basically did YouTube challenges in real life before the platform existed. I subscribed to Rolling Stone when it actually did work that mattered, in 10,000-word sagas. At the same time, I would spend whole Saturdays at Barnes & Noble and poach copies of NME to find the next great rock band. I’d buy copies of Spin and Paste off the rack.

Truthfully, I miss magazines that were unapologetically for men. Not in a manosphere way, not in a sexist way like the softcore sludge of Maxim and Stuff, but in a way that makes you feel like being a better person. Not by being preachy or talking from a perch, but by showing a little bravado and lust for life.

There are already sites that do this well, places like The Art of Manliness or even curation sites like Huckberry’s Journal. They’ve been huge inspirations and guides in my own life and you should follow them both. But I want to dive into the heart and soul of real people doing authentic things, by highlighting the stories of men– old, young, and maybe middle-aged– living life outside the lines.

The final things is this: I want my boys to have great examples of good men. We’ve all heard about the crisis of masculinity– the depression, the suicide, the looksmaxxing, the post-covid lost generation, the porn-addled and numbed-out screen-pilled minds of boys and young men. I can confirm that there is a crisis, because I see it every day. The fentanyl crippled ghosts that roam my neighborhood and overdose in alleys at three times the rate of women. Almost every week I hear of another friend or acquaintance who has been cheating on his wife for the past four years, sending shockwaves through their three-bedroom suburban house. I have family members who are losing fights to drugs and alcohol borne out of depression, lack of connection, and straight-up boredom with life. The dopamine hits have all been hit and there’s nothing left but the long march of existence.

I mean, I feel like this in my own soul more often than I’m comfortable with.

Simply put, there are too many men living lives of quiet desperation. And while I don’t think I can save all of mankind, I want to save my boys, and selfishly– myself along the way.

So I want to show them what it’s like for good men to live life. And by a good life, I mean one that’s full of risk and adventure and sometimes f*cking up. The kind of stories you tell around a campfire because that’s what we want to hear late at night. That means diving into stories of men doing cool stuff on their own terms, highlighting stories you may not hear in Outside Magazine or Runner’s World or Esquire or Men’s Health. That means living out my own wild dreams of bikepacking and camping and urban foraging and sewer fishing and the thousand other ideas that have been bouncing around my head these past couple years. That means creating a community of people, engaging with one another, lifting each other up and inspiring others.

What does that look like in practice? It will not be a traditional magazine. Currently, the plan is two-pronged: a Substack publication and a YouTube channel. Eventually a print edition.

They say go where your audience is (maybe they don’t say that, but I say it). So while my heart is in the writing world, I’m smart enough to know that the Substack platform is 65% women– which is obviously great– but it may not be the best audience for a men’s magazine. But what does that look like on YouTube, where the demographics are virtually flipped? What does it look like if you combined video and poetry and photography and advice and great storytelling and profiles?

So yes, a men’s magazine on living outside the lines, a collective of fringe elements.

Can that work? I don’t know, but it clicks in my head, so I have to try. if it fails, at least I know it won’t and we can move onto the next thing.

That said, I’ve followed the compass of my heart thus far, and it has yet to let me down. It’s led me into some canyons and has laid me in green pastures. So far it’s worked, mostly.

This is either the best or dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I guess both can be true, and time will tell. Truthfully, I’ve never been more terrified. Every insecurity is baring its teeth, like nothing I’ve done means anything, like I’m standing in front of the class naked. I feel like all my fears are out for blood and I sometimes look in the mirror, at this 43-year-old mug that’s only getting older, and think they’re right.

But then, just this past week as I was feeling this the most, I happened to hear an interview with Dave Grohl on World Cafe Live from 2021. The interviewer, Raina Douris, was talking to him about coming back to music after Kurt Cobain’s death, writing his own songs for a new band called the Foo Fighters. Here’s how it went:

“To be singing, to be at the front of the stage instead of the drums, how did that feel? From being the drummer to singing these songs yourself?”

“It was terrifying– but that’s why I did it. People don’t go bungee jumping because they know how it will feel. Or go skydiving because they’re positive they won’t come crashing into the ground. These are things in life that, you do that for the sake of adventure, for the excitement, for the not knowing. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I wanted to try. And that’s why I did it.”

So yeah, I’m not the drummer of Nirvana. But I can sing a karaoke song when it counts.

Course 3

Dessert: Deckhands Wanted

I haven’t officially announced the name of the publication yet, so stay tuned for that. I’m currently aiming for a mid-summer 2026 launch, if all goes as planned. In the meantime, I’m also looking for some great stories, whether they’re personal anecdotes or first-hand accounts or broad revelations. I’m looking for leads to great stories, for those living life outside the lines. Maybe that’s you, maybe that’s your friend or father or son, maybe that’s the dude living in the trailer at the end of the road.

Things we find interesting, but are not limited to: treasure hunting, fossil diving, Appalachian snorkeling, striper wetsuiting, explosion detonating, catfish noodling, skijoring, offroad touring, rule breaking, urban trail running, herping, low-key bikepacking, Wal-Mart tenting, analog adventures, sewer kayaking, micro adventuring, macro adventuring, desert hallucinating, stealth camping, cliff diving, cabin building, secret spelunking, fireworks exploding, ebike hunting, RC modding, pigeon racing, magnet fishing, solo sailing, bending and/or breaking the law when appropriate, or whatever you’re doing that is weird as shit and we haven’t heard of.

For instance, I don’t care about your thru-hike and how it changed you. I want you to write the first-person perspective of a blister that lasted for two weeks. Or the time you fished the pond at Disney World before security could catch you. Give me your gear recommendations for stealth camping in urban areas. Convince me why I should believe in Bigfoot, bonus points if you’ve had an encounter with him. If it’s weird, I’m willing to consider it.

Pitch us anything, whether you’re 16 or 65. If you have a story to tell, we want to hear it; if you think it’s too strange, we probably think it fits right in.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m doing as much of this as I can on my own to start out, but I’ll eventually need a team to bring it to full throttle. Perhaps you could be a deckhand on this sinking ship of fools. If you are interested in the following things, then please reach out at reddinger99 at gmail dot com:

• Writing contributions

• General artistry

• Video editing

• Video shooting

• Skeet shooting

• Sharing your ideas because you have good taste and you think we could work together and do cool stuff collectively

• Telling me your favorite fishing spots in Baltimore

• Telling me about your own channel so I can promote you

• Telling me this is a horrible idea and what I can do to make it better

• Anything else that you think would fit that I haven’t thought about

And that’s about it– only 4,500 words on me throwing away my life and starting over. I’m either a narcissist or an over-thinker, hopefully it’s the second one.

END OF MENU

Thank you for dining with me this evening, I hope the service was acceptable. Tips (whether monetary or recommendations to others) are appreciated, but not expected.