Explore every episode of the podcast Long Run Labs: The Business of Endurance

Robby Sansom, co-founder and CEO of Force of Nature, joins Jon to discuss building a mission-driven food company that challenges conventional agriculture and traditional business growth models. From his early days at EPIC Provisions to launching Force ... Hosted on beehiiv. Read the full Privacy Policy at https://www.beehiiv.com/privacy.

What happens when a bestselling cookbook author decides to turn her most popular recipe into a food company? Elyse Kopecky is the co-author of Run Fast. Eat Slow., a three-time New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and the founder of Superhero Mu...

Being a professional athlete doesn't necessarily mean making a professional living. For many endurance athletes, even impressive race results aren't enough to create financial security or a sustainable career. Beau Riggs and Klodian Mitri of Resolute W...

Taylor Hoekstra, founder of Popfly, joins Jon to discuss the future of creator marketing and a massive untapped opportunity in the running and outdoor industries. Taylor explains why traditional influencer platforms are falling short, what brands get w...

Raziq Rauf has spent more than 20 years working in journalism, from covering music to building his own running media platform, Running Sucks, and writing the book This Is Running. He joins Jon to unpack the increasingly blurry line between journalism, ...

Joe Earley co-founded Tifosi Optics more than 20 years ago after spotting a gap in the market for high-quality eyewear at an accessible price. What started with 24 SKUs has grown into a brand carried by thousands of retailers around the world. Joe join...

Salomon has long been synonymous with trail and mountain sports, but the brand’s ambitions in endurance are getting much bigger. Erin Cooper, Director of Marketing for Performance and Sportstyle at Salomon North America, joins Jon for a conversation ab...

Dan Lampard is Chief Commercial and Operating Officer at Science in Sport (SiS), where his background in finance meets a lifelong interest in sport and performance. Recorded at SiS headquarters in Blackburn, England, Dan shares how he thinks about buil...

Sito Luis spent more than two decades at Camper before an idea born during the pandemic eventually brought him together with Kílian Jornet to launch NNormal. Now, as CEO, he’s helping build a trail running brand around authenticity, durability, and a g...

What makes someone choose one brand over another when the products themselves aren’t all that different? Brian Button joins Jon to talk about brand strategy, authenticity, and what companies can learn from his time helping build brands like Lyft, DoorD...

Jeremy and Adriana Nelson did not set out to build a company. Jeremy was a mechanical engineer tinkering in his garage with rollerblade wheels. Adriana was a professional runner from Romania training twice a day at altitude in Boulder. When Jeremy coul...

Karen Merlin on UTMB, women’s trail running, and growing the sport sustainably. Karen Merlin, elite athletes and inclusion programs manager at UTMB, joins Jon to talk about how UTMB is evolving its race ecosystem, how athlete feedback drives change, an...

Leland Kohere is the marketing manager at Osprey Packs, one of the most trusted names in outdoor gear. He oversees their athlete program, field marketing, content, and social media. And after five years on the inside, he has a pretty clear view of what...

John Gonzalez started the RiNo 5K in 2017 as a passion project while working full time in cybersecurity. Named after River North, one of Denver's most vibrant neighborhoods, it is a road race, a run club gathering, a fundraiser, and a community event a...

Dr. Marc Bubbs has spent twenty five years on the frontline of performance nutrition. Working with Canada Basketball, US Soccer, NBA teams, Olympians, and elite endurance athletes. And after two and a half decades of watching the same problems show up ...

Monica Devreese is the CEO and co-founder of Rabbit, a running apparel brand celebrating its tenth year in business. Hilary Fenet is the founder of Halo, a platform built to solve the logistics and community gap that exists when runners travel to races...

Alex Maier has spent his career building brands that actually listen. From Porsche and Audi to Nike to onX Maps to his current role as president of OnWater, he has consistently chosen the path of product led growth over marketing led noise. And the thr...

Vivek Gowri has spent his career at the intersection of technology and community. Six months ago he added running store owner to that list, buying San Francisco Running Company and stepping into the shoes of a brand that has been a pillar of Bay Area t...

What does AI actually think about the running industry? Not what brands want it to think. Not what their SEO teams have optimized for. What does it actually say when nobody is watching? Michael Rueckert of Centium AI ran the biggest AI visibility study...

Sara Hendershot has spent her career at the intersection of elite sport and early stage brand building. She rowed at the 2012 Olympics, was employee number three at Momentous before it became one of the most trusted names in performance supplementation...

Megan Lightcap runs the creator fund at Slow Ventures, one of the first venture funds built specifically around creator entrepreneurs. Her thesis is simple: creators are just a new type of founder. And the ones who own a niche, build a world around the...

Jason Daniel didn't set out to build a global brand. He set out to race motocross, and when that didn't pan out, he spent years working as an electrician, a bricklayer's yard manager, and a carpenter while quietly building a clothing brand out of a nic...

Trail running is growing faster than anyone predicted. New brands are entering the space, race fields are selling out, course records are falling, and the sport is attracting capital, media attention, and mainstream audiences it has never seen before. ...

Andy Blow didn't set out to build a company. He set out to stop ending up in the medical tent. As a triathlete who kept collapsing in the heat, Andy discovered that electrolyte loss is deeply individual, got a sweat test, changed his nutrition, and rea...

Des Linden has spent two decades figuring out how to build a career that outlasts the finish line. The 2018 Boston Marathon champion joins Long Run Labs to talk about the business of being an endurance athlete, what loyalty actually looks like in a lon...

Randi Zuckerberg has spent her career at the intersection of technology, media, storytelling, and entrepreneurship. But in recent years, endurance sports have become just as central to how she thinks about leadership, business, and personal growth. Fre...

Doug Waters didn’t set out to build another outdoor apparel company. He set out to solve a problem he kept running into himself. Doug is the founder of Terlingua Threads, a hot-weather adventure apparel company focused entirely on performance in extrem...

Christian Rawles didn’t just build a brand in the outdoor industry, he spent nearly two decades learning what it actually takes to run one, eventually buying and leading the business himself. Christian is now an executive coach working with entrepreneu...

Nick Dibos didn’t set out to build a scalable apparel company. He set out to build something that actually means something to the people around him. Nick is the founder of Greenville Uptempo Sports, a running apparel brand rooted in community, culture,...

Seth LaReau didn’t set out to build a media brand. He set out to create something he wished existed. Seth is the writer behind Trailwaves, a newsletter exploring the business, economics, and culture of trail and ultra running. With a background in fina...

Erin Cooper built her career in the running industry by saying yes, learning on the ground, and working her way from run specialty to leading brand marketing at one of the most influential global brands in sport. Erin Cooper is a Brand Marketing leader...

Hannah Sedgwick Shin has built her career at the intersection of running and brand. From her early days in public relations to shaping marketing at Goodr and now leading sports marketing initiatives at ASICS, her work sits inside the evolving world of ...

Kyle Siegel transformed a moment of peak frustration on Mount Rainier into the foundation story of Raide: a ski and running equipment company driven by an obsession to enable "the freedom and flow of human powered movement." Kyle Siegel is the CEO/foun...

What happens when a successful entrepreneur sells his lighting company, attempts to qualify for Olympic trials, and then decides to revolutionize the insole industry using iPhone technology? Cole Zucker is an entrepreneur with a running addiction. Cole...

When immigrant parents chase opportunity across continents, their children often become bridges between worlds. Sid Baptista discovered that running could be the vehicle to bring transformative experiences back to the communities that shaped him. Sidne...

From marathon champion to business leader, Gelindo Bordin transformed his Olympic gold medal triumph into executive expertise, now directing innovation at Italian running brand Diadora while bridging the gap between elite performance and everyday runne...

From selling braided iPhone chargers on Instagram to building an outdoor dog gear empire - Rachel Friedline's wild journey started with a red iPhone cord and a weekend ski house. Rachel Friedline is the co-founder of Wilderdog, an outdoor dog gear comp...

Jason Wiener has spent over 25 years navigating the intersection of sports and technology, transforming from an adventure sports agency owner who represented major brands like PowerBar and Specialized to a data-driven athlete development pioneer who's ...

The most successful trail sponsorships happen when brands stop asking 'what can this athlete do for us?' and start asking 'what can we build together that neither could create alone? Born in Bennington, Vermont and growing up on the Long Trail, Alyssa ...

From selling $30 shots that tasted 'completely crazy' to building a nine-figure business now sold nationwide in Target, Michael Brandt proved that scaling isn't about perfection—it's about refusing to stay in the ivory tower and dancing with your custo...

Would you trade 20 years at Coca-Cola and Amazon for the chance to democratize high-performance running gear? Meet Julien Vancauwenberghe, the Chief Marketing Officer behind KIPRUN, the most anticipated running brand launching in the USA this year. Jul...

Being an entrepreneur and building a business is like being an athlete - you have no idea what's going to come out the other side, but you put everything you can into it and hope for the best. As a Venezuelan trail runner raised in the Chilean Patagoni...

From tech hardware professional to trail running community steward - Vivek Gowri is rewriting what it means to own a running store. After a decade in the Bay Area running scene and two decades in tech hardware, Vivek is taking over San Francisco Runnin...

What if there was a framework you could follow as a content creator that would allow you to work with brands most effectively? Demitra Carter holds a Master of Science in Education in Sport Management and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Market...

From first-time finisher to changing lives: hear about how Angie Lake is breaking down barriers in trail running, one story at a time. Angie Lake is co-director of Wild Woman Trail Runs and community manager of The Cairn Project, a nonprofit closing th...

From being bullied as a kid to becoming a national triathlon champion to building the world's first reusable sweat sensor… Stefan van der Fluit’s journey proves that our greatest challenges often become our greatest innovations. Stefan is a 4x founder;...

From pushing 2:46 marathon times to pushing the boundaries of AI, Jason Kuperberg discovered that the secret to both isn't about scale—it's about building exactly what you want to use yourself. Jason Kuperberg is a tech entrepreneur, marathoner, and th...

A 67-year-old man gets bit by a snake in his backyard, nearly loses his leg at a trauma center, and his grateful donation to Stanford ends up funding a wilderness medicine app that's now saving lives across the country. Today, we're talking with Camilo...

From personal training certification to pacing athletes to PR breakthroughs, Erin Bailey turned her passion for empowering others into a thriving brand partnership agency. Erin Bailey is a founder and advocate who bridges the worlds of athletics and br...

Most leaders think their job is to have all the answers, but Kevin Rutherford built a quarter-billion dollar exit by becoming the “expert of nothing and knower of all.” Kevin Rutherford is a business executive who has served as CEO for multiple compani...