50% More People Are Running Now. Here's What It Means for Sneakers

Raziq Rauf writes the Running Sucks Substack, coaches runners, and just finished his first book — This Is Running, a cultural history of running in the 21st century, out April 2026 via Batsford/Rizzoli. We got into a lot. Carbon plate technology and what it actually does to your stride. Why run clubs exploded out of the pandemic. Whether $300 super shoes are worth it for the average runner. The question of brands buying their way into grassroots communities. And the moment in 2016 that changed competitive running forever. We also went deep on the sneaker side of all of this... can performance running shoes cross over the way Air Jordans and Stan Smiths did? What does the Alpha Fly at fashion week actually mean? And who's buying these shoes, really? This is one of those conversations that started as a sneaker episode and turned into something bigger. Worth the full listen. 📚 This Is Running by Raziq Rauf: https://amzn.to/4lVzGpe 📸 Follow Raz: https://www.instagram.com/runningsucks101/ 📬 Running Sucks newsletter: https://www.runningsucks101.com/ 📬 The Sneaker Newsletter: https://thesneakernewsletter.com 🎙️ More episodes: https://sneakerhistory.com Timestamps: 0:00 — Intro 1:00 — Meet Raziq Rauf: London, LA, running, writing 1:50 — "Running is a radical act" — what that means 3:22 — Why he didn't write a training book 6:43 — Thinking about a book as a big special edition magazine 9:39 — Using run clubs to find community in a new city 12:50 — What sneakerheads and runne