Long Run Labs: The Business of Endurance

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 Muffins. After a career at Nike and a personal journey that transformed her approach to nutrition, Elyse has spent the last decade helping runners rethink how they fuel their bodies.

Now, she's navigating an entirely new challenge: building a consumer packaged goods company from the ground up.

In this episode of Long Run Labs, Jon and Elyse explore how her friendship with Shalane Flanagan led to a bestselling cookbook, why Superhero Muffins became a breakout product, and what it really takes to grow a self-funded food brand.

They dive into the challenges of scaling production, managing margins, choosing between direct-to-consumer and retail distribution, and deciding whether outside investment is worth giving up ownership. Elyse also shares the reality of being a solo founder, the power of building an authentic community, and why learning to ask for help might be her most important lesson yet.

Topics covered include:

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Turning a beloved cookbook recipe into a growing food brand

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Building a business with an established, loyal community

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Bootstrapping versus raising outside capital

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The hidden costs of manufacturing, shipping, and retail distribution

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Balancing entrepreneurship, motherhood, and personal wellness

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Recognizing opportunities and taking risks before you're ready

Try Superhero Muffins: Visit https://superheromuffins.com/ and use code FTLR for 15% off your order.

Support our sponsors:

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 Wealth Racing join the conversation to explore what it takes to support athletes beyond the finish line. From financial literacy and the power of compound interest to personal branding, sponsorships, and building relationships with companies outside the endurance industry, they discuss the opportunities athletes often overlook while focusing on performance.

They also share how Resolute is approaching sponsorship differently, why an athlete's story can be more valuable than their results, and how investing in both financial health and long-term relationships can create opportunities that last well beyond a racing career.

Stay connected:

Klodian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klodianmitri/

Beau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beauriggs/

Resolute Wealth Planning: https://www.resolutewealthfinancial.com

Support our Sponsors:

Halo transforms race-weekend hotels into branded clubhouses where athletes and communities can stay, connect, and experience your brand at a fraction of the typical activation cost. Visit https://poweredbyhalo.com before October 31st for a chance to brainstorm your activation with Jon and Aaron from Second Nature. Only three spots available!

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 wrong about creator partnerships, and how Popfly is working to unlock billions in underutilized retail marketing dollars. They explore why authentic, long-term relationships outperform transactional sponsorships and how creators could play a much larger role in driving retail sales.

They also discuss Taylor's experience building Popfly, mortgaging his house to fund the business, using AI to accelerate development, and his perspective on raising venture capital.

Further Reading: Jon's A Guide to Raising Money as an Endurance Brand expands on the fundraising conversation with Taylor, exploring when founders should raise capital, how to find the right investors, and why the type of funding you accept can be just as important as the amount.

Support our Sponsors:

Halo transforms race-weekend hotels into branded clubhouses where athletes and communities can stay, connect, and experience your brand at a fraction of the typical activation cost. Visit https://poweredbyhalo.com before October 31st for a chance to brainstorm your activation with Jon and Aaron from Second Nature. Only three spots available!

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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, influencer marketing, and paid promotion in the running industry.

They discuss what happens when brands fund the content we consume, how creators can maintain credibility while making a living, and why trust matters more than follower counts. Drawing on their experiences at UTMB and across the running industry, they explore the difference between telling stories and selling products, the responsibility that comes with having an audience, and what brands should consider when choosing who represents them.

They also get into representation in trail running, Raziq's recent conversation with Kilian Jornet, and how media can contribute to meaningful change beyond selling the next pair of shoes.

Stay Connected:

Raziq on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raziqrauf

Support our Sponsors:

Halo transforms race-weekend hotels into branded clubhouses where athletes and communities can stay, connect, and experience your brand at a fraction of the typical activation cost. Visit https://poweredbyhalo.com/ before October 31st for a chance to brainstorm your activation with Jon and Aaron from Second Nature. Only three spots available!

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 joins Jon to talk about bootstrapping Tifosi, building through relationships and customer feedback, and how the business has evolved from cycling specialty into running, direct-to-consumer, prescription eyewear, and beyond. They also go deep on how Tifosi is using AI to analyze data, automate time-consuming work, understand its customers, and make a small team dramatically more efficient.

They also dig into sustainable growth, why bigger isn’t always better, and what more than two decades of building a business has taught Joe about success.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 about the brand’s evolution and what it means to build for the increasingly multidimensional athlete.

They dig into Salomon’s new five-year partnership with Ironman, the growth of gravel running, why the brand is expanding into road and triathlon without backing away from trail, and how athletes influence everything from product development to where Salomon invests next.

Erin also shares why run specialty remains such an important part of the equation, how a global brand adapts its strategy for different markets, what responsible brand presence should look like at events like UTMB and Kona, and why the old playbook for reaching runners may no longer apply.

Plus, Jon asks the question everyone wants answered: what’s next for Salomon at UTMB?

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 building a sports nutrition brand in a rapidly growing endurance market. They dig into why SiS wants to be just as good at telling athletes when they don’t need a gel as when they do, why education and trust matter more than simply chasing conversions, and how the company decides which athletes, experts, retailers, and markets are actually worth investing in.

Dan also talks about the rise of the multi-sport athlete, what brands can learn from training and high-performance sport, balancing financial realities with long-term brand building, expanding in the U.S. and Japan, and why a growing market doesn’t have to mean treating every other brand as the enemy.

They finish with AI, the future of personalized sports nutrition, and why technology may make human connection and real-world communities even more valuable.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

San Francisco Running Company is now a partner of Long Run Labs. SFRC is bringing one of trail running’s most storied specialty shops to a national audience, online and in store. Shop here: https://store.sfrunco.com

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 genuine connection to the sport.

Sito joins the show to talk about how NNormal came to be, why Kilian’s role as a co-founder goes far beyond having a famous athlete attached to the brand, and what he’s learned about building a company from the ground up. He explains why NNormal hires people who actually run trails, how the brand approaches growth without chasing demand too quickly, and why run specialty stores have played such an important role in its expansion.

They also get into the growing crossover between technical outdoor products and fashion, the differences between trail running consumers in the U.S. and Europe, using AI for demand forecasting, and NNormal’s decision to prioritize shoes that last longer rather than simply using materials that sound more sustainable.

Sito also shares his thoughts on the rapid growth of trail running, why brands can’t fake belonging to the community, and how the sport can welcome more people without losing what makes it special.

Stay connected:

Sito on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sito-luis-salas-15255b/

NNormal Website: https://www.nnormal.com/it_IT

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit http://poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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, DoorDash, and Instacart. Brian shares how Lyft differentiated itself from Uber despite offering essentially the same product, why founder-led brands should pull back the curtain, and why authenticity is something brands have to earn, not simply claim.

They also dig into the return of long-form content and in-person experiences, why the best brand activations feel true to who a company already is, and how a clear brand strategy can give teams permission to experiment without chasing every new idea.

Plus, Jon and Brian talk about using AI as a thought partner rather than a replacement for human intuition, creating cultures where people are allowed to be wrong, and why so many companies suffer from the same problem: urgency without clarity.

This is a conversation about building brands people actually care about and creating enough clarity that everyone knows which direction to row.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 could not find his prototype, he knew it was good because Adriana had stolen it. And that was the beginning of Roll Recovery.

Thirteen years later they have a product in Fleet Feet, Boulder Running Company, and running stores around the world. They have never taken outside investment. They barely advertise. And they built the whole thing one relationship at a time.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Tech in Running Live Panel: If you are heading to Chamonix for UTMB week, come find me. I am hosting a live panel on Wednesday of race week covering data, AI, wearables, and where the human still beats the algorithm, brought to you by TrainingPeaks. Email jon@forthelong.run and I will send you everything you need to know.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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, and why women’s trail running is gaining so much momentum. They also get into accessibility, representation, sustainability, and what race week in Chamonix is actually like on the ground.

In this episode Karen shares how UTMB thinks about growth without dilution, how the organization works with athletes and brands to make trail more welcoming, and why visibility, storytelling, and thoughtful policies matter for the long term health of the sport.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit poweredbyhalo.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Tech in Running Live Panel: If you are heading to Chamonix for UTMB week, come find me. I am hosting a live panel on Wednesday of race week covering data, AI, wearables, and where the human still beats the algorithm, brought to you by TrainingPeaks. Email jon@forthelong.run and I will send you everything you need to know.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

Training Peaks: The coaches behind UTMB winners and the athletes you've heard on this show are all using the same platform — and that's not a coincidence. Get 20% off Training Peaks premium with code FTLR https://here!

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 works and what does not when it comes to building a brand that people in the outdoor industry actually respect.

Osprey launched a major run campaign this year behind the redesigned Duro, Dyna, and new Pro series vests. That product took four years to develop with their athlete team. And the marketing behind it was just as deliberate.

Leland joins Long Run Labs to talk through how Osprey thinks about athletes versus ambassadors versus UGC creators, why they are not a podium driven brand, and what it actually means to show up authentically in a space where people can see through the fluff immediately.

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://haloracing.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Tech in Running Live Panel: If you are heading to Chamonix for UTMB week, come find me. I am hosting a live panel on Wednesday of race week covering data, AI, wearables, and where the human still beats the algorithm, brought to you by TrainingPeaks. Email jon@forthelong.run and I will send you everything you need to know.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 all at once. Kristina Cripe is the Program Specialist at the Denver chapter of Back on My Feet, a national organization operating in 14 cities that uses the power of running to help people experiencing homelessness and addiction to transform their lives.

This episode is about what a neighborhood race can actually become when the organizer, the nonprofit, and the title sponsor all share the same vision. It is about free entries and donated shoes and stories that do not get told often enough. And it is about why the 5K might be the most underrated vehicle for community building in all of running.

Jon, John, and Kristina chat about:

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how John fell in love with race organization as an unpaid intern at the Austin Marathon

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why a road race in RiNo stands apart from the park races that dominate Denver

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how Back on My Feet uses running as an entry point to employment, housing, and transformation

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what crossing a finish line for the first time actually does for someone who has experienced homelessness

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how Ultra came in as title sponsor and started donating shoes to program members

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the one plus one equals three math and why collaboration beats charity alone

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the social bib and why lowering the barrier to entry is good for everyone

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how to structure a brand partnership conversation and what to ask upfront

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why the 5K is the gateway drug to running and what that means for community growth

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what John wishes he had known when he started

Stay connected:

Back on My Feet: https://backonmyfeet.org

Kristina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-cripe-ms-ctrs-b6b32317a/

John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gonzalez-92820a33/

RiNo 5k: https://www.rino5k.org

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://haloracing.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Tech in Running Live Panel: If you are heading to Chamonix for UTMB week, come find me. I am hosting a live panel on Wednesday of race week covering data, AI, wearables, and where the human still beats the algorithm, brought to you by TrainingPeaks. Email jon@forthelong.run and I will send you everything you need to know.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 over and over, he and co-founder Paul Winsper decided to stop consulting around the problem and build the solution.

ProBio launched to consumers at the New York City Marathon last fall. Built entirely from what Marc kept seeing in the labs of the best athletes in the world.

He joins Long Run Labs in Boulder to talk about what twenty five years of practitioner experience actually taught him, what most endurance athletes still get wrong, and what it really takes to build trust in a market where everyone is constantly trying to convince someone they need something more.

Jon and Marc chat about:

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why the best elite athletes put the blinders on and stop chasing the next thing

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why building trust requires authenticity and vulnerability in equal measure

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what went wrong when ProBio tried to fast track growth with the wrong partners

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the three T model for carbohydrates: total, timing, and type

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why getting enough total energy is still the biggest mistake endurance athletes make

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why Paris Olympics became their first major proof of concept

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how a network of practitioners and athletes became both their capital base and their distribution engine

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the difference between bootstrapping and raising and how Marc is thinking about what comes next

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why time is the only asset you cannot get more of

Stay connected:

Dr. Marc Bubbs website: https://www.drbubbs.com

ProBio Nutrition website: https://www.probionutrition.com

Dr. Marc Bubbs on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbubbs/

Dr. Marc Bubbs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marc-bubbs-8a5b9124/

Support our sponsors:

Halo: Racing is easy. Getting there is not. Halo is a hospitality platform built by runners that turns race weekend lodging into a branded clubhouse where your athletes and community actually stay together. Whether you are a brand, an event organizer, or just heading to a race yourself, visit https://haloracing.com or reach out and tell them you heard about it on Long Run Labs.

Tech in Running Live Panel: If you are heading to Chamonix for UTMB week, come find me. I am hosting a live panel on Wednesday of race week covering data, AI, wearables, and where the human still beats the algorithm, brought to you by TrainingPeaks. Email jon@forthelong.run and I will send you everything you need to know.

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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. They're sitting at a partnership between their two businesses and a shared belief that the most important runner in the sport is the one nobody is talking to — the middle of the pack.

This conversation covers brand building, experiential marketing, the noise problem at race activations, bootstrapping versus outside capital, and why real community only happens in person.

Quick note before we get into it. This conversation with Monica Devreese of Rabbit and Hilary Fenet of Halo was recorded a few weeks before there was any business between us. Since then Hilary and the team at Halo have come on as a partner of the show — and that happened because of conversations exactly like this one, not the other way around. You'll hear a proper word from Halo beginning next week. For today, this conversation stands on its own.

Topics covered:

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How Monica built Rabbit without taking on significant outside capital for ten years

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Why the product is the means and the community is the point

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How Hilary had her aha moment over Christmas with a piece of yellow construction paper

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Why nobody had solved the race travel and community problem before Halo

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What a Rabbit clubhouse actually looks like and why it works

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The middle of the pack runner — why brands keep missing them and why they're the whole business

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ACG's Broken Arrow activation and what nearly a million dollars in brand spend buys you

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Whether big brand investment in trail is a rising tide or a dependency risk

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How to think about bootstrapping versus angel versus VC capital

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Tiny grains of sand — the fundraising advice that changed how Hilary thinks about building

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What experiential marketing actually creates versus what a shakeout run creates

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The UTMB clubhouse, croissant making classes in Chamonix, and why brands need to show up as your friend

Stay connected:

Hilary on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilary-fenet-b2b2358/

Halo Website: https://www.poweredbyhalo.com

Monica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monid/

Rabbit Website: https://www.runinrabbit.com

This episode is supported by:

The Huddle: If you're at the point where going at it alone isn't working or you're ready to level things up in your business, go to https://findmyhuddle.com/ and fill out the application

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 throughline across all of it is the same: get curious, listen to the customer, and build something worth talking about.

OnWater is building the operating system for water-based recreation globally. Two products, a fishing utility and a paddling platform, powered by community, conservation, and a genuinely different approach to how outdoor brands think about creators, consumer insights, and product feedback.

Jon and Alex chat about:

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what Porsche and Audi taught him about activating a brand at every level from global to local enthusiast club

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why being a generalist is a competitive advantage in small outdoor marketing teams

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the difference between product led growth, marketing led growth, and sales led growth

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why consumer insights are the soul of every decision a company makes regardless of growth model

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how OnWater brings creators and beta testers behind the curtain before they ever post a single piece of content

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the gatekeeping problem in outdoor recreation and why fewer people doing the thing hurts conservation

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how hunters and anglers are the number one contributor to conservation of clean water

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finding common ground between paddlers and anglers, overlanders and hunters, left and right

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why word of mouth moves mountains and bum rushing your way to growth does not

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how OnWater is using AI to estimate fish length and weight from a photo to support fisheries conservation

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why the data you own is the most powerful thing you can feed an AI model

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the Strava MCP and where hyperpersonalization is headed

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what a decade of blood work and running data revealed when fed into Claude

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why the outdoor industry has needed a platform like Popfly for a long time

Stay connected:

Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmaier2/

This episode is supported by:

The Huddle: If you're at the point where going at it alone isn't working or you're ready to level things up in your business, go to https://findmyhuddle.com/ and fill out the application

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 trail running for nearly 15 years.

He joins Long Run Labs at TrailCon in Tahoe to talk about what it actually takes to build a more diverse trail running community, why doing the right thing and doing the profitable thing are more aligned than most brands want to admit, and what he is building at SFRC that he hopes will matter long after the race results are posted.

Jon and Vivek chat about:

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what run specialty actually does in the running ecosystem and why shoes are better bought in person

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how Vivek thinks about buying for the store and balancing innovation with staple product

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bringing e-commerce to SFRC and what that opens up beyond the Bay Area

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how races factor into the store ecosystem from bib pickup to training programs

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the women's trail half marathon in the Marin Headlands and why they brought it back bigger

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the childcare grant and free 12 week training program built into the race

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why The North Face said yes immediately and what that conversation looked like

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how to pitch a brand on funding a community initiative when ROI isn't immediate

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green flags that tell you a brand is actually down to build something together

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the commercial argument for diversity and why it's an argument for funding not for why

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why Broken Arrow is the most diverse trail race and what intentionality actually looks like

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Tommie Runz and the power of showing up so others know they can too

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why diversity doesn't grow organically without a push

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angel investing in Avelo and Laurel and where those intersect with the store

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what fires Vivek up about running right now and the Chi and Miles Friday crew

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why trail running is booming and what responsibility brands and consumers have to steer it right

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the cognitive dissonance of a sport that is open and accepting on trail but occasionally gatekeepy off it

This episode is supported by:

The Huddle: If you're at the point where going at it alone isn't working or you're ready to level things up in your business, go to https://findmyhuddle.com/ and fill out the application

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 ever done on the running industry. Five models. 2,200 unaided prompts. 21 product categories from shoes to gels to headphones to race destinations. And what came back was a landscape that is far less equal than anyone assumed.

Nine brands carry most of the conversation. More than half the brands that surfaced appeared exactly once. Runner's World shows up in four out of every ten AI answers. And AI referred traffic converts 45% better than any other source.

Michael joins Long Run Labs to break down what it all means and what brands, creators, and marketers should actually do about it.

Jon and Michael chat about:

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why AI visibility is the new marketing KPI nobody is measuring yet

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how unaided prompts reveal what AI actually thinks versus what brands want it to think

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why nine brands carry most of the conversation across 2,200 prompts

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how Nike dominates cross-category while niche brands can still win their vertical

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why Runner's World shows up in 40% of all AI answers and what that means for PR strategy

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the query fan out concept and how AI actually searches before it answers

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why the average age of a cited web page is just four months

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why brand-owned websites are cited less than 5% of the time

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the best of and top content format that drives 49% of all AI searches

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how Boulder dominates running destinations at 55% and what tourism boards can learn from it

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why Weston Hotels owns the runner-friendly travel category and how little it took

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the wide open races category where nobody has claimed authority yet

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why Puma's Hyrox sponsorship hasn't fully registered with AI yet and when it will

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how AI traffic is collapsing the entire marketing funnel into one conversation

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what Jon's own AI brand perception looks like across five different models

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the Wikipedia strategy most brands are completely ignoring

Stay connected:

Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rueckert/

http://Centium.AI: https://centium.ai

This episode is supported by:

The Huddle: If you're at the point where going at it alone isn't working or you're ready to level things up in your business, go to https://findmyhuddle.com/ and fill out the application

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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, and is now employee number four at Loonen, a water company doing something nobody else in the category has been willing to do.

Loonen combines the highest quality spring source with the highest quality filtration, tests for over 350 contaminants across every production run, and publishes every single result. The FDA requires none of it. That's the point.

Sara joins Long Run Labs to talk about the athlete to entrepreneur journey, what she learned building Momentous from the ground up, and why the bottled water category is overdue for exactly this kind of disruption.

Jon and Sara chat about:

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growing up in a competitive athletic household and finding rowing

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making the 2012 Olympic team and what two very different Olympic cycles taught her

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turning down Wall Street to pursue sport and then figuring out what came next

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working at Smack Media and getting exposure to early stage sports brands

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being employee number three at Momentous and what those early days looked like

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how the athlete as creator shift changed the marketing landscape between 2018 and 2021

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the therapy work that helped her transition out of elite sport and into the real world

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why outcome based values are just goals in disguise

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what empathy actually looks like inside a high performance team culture

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the founding story behind Loonen and why Clara started it during IVF

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why the FDA's bottled water requirements are shockingly low

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how Loonen combines spring sourcing and filtration in a way nobody else has done

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why fear mongering is never going to be part of their brand voice

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showing up at Boston Marathon, Rich Roll live recordings, and Nike Skims events to build community one person at a time

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the wave surfer surfboard framework for evaluating a startup

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what success means to Loonen and what success means to Sara

Stay connected:

Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahendershot/

Loonen Website: https://loonen.com

Thank you to our sponsors:

The Huddle: If you're at the point where going at it alone isn't working or you're ready to level things up in your business, go to https://findmyhuddle.com/ and fill out the application

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands

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 themselves, and treat their audience like a community rather than an audience are the ones who will build empires.

Megan joins Long Run Labs to break down the creator landscape in 2026, why individuals are beating brands, what AI is actually doing for creators right now, and where she sees the biggest opportunities being overlooked.

Jon and Megan chat about:

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why people matter and brands don't in 2026

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own the niche not the category and what that looks like in practice

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the difference between a creator and a creator founder

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why haters are actually a good signal when evaluating creators to back

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how AI is washing away undifferentiated creators and accelerating the rest

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the AI boot camp Slow Ventures ran for 30 creators in San Francisco

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building in public and why staying top of mind matters more than going viral

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why eyeballs and follower counts are the lowest signal metrics in 2026

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where venture capital is looking in the outdoor and trail running space

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the fringe to mainstream pipeline and what categories are next

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the wide open lane Megan is looking to fill around aging parents and end of life decisions

Stay connected:

Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-lightcap-513ab96b/

Megan's website: https://www.meganlightcap.com

Support our sponsors:

Amazfit - If you're heading to Western States as a runner, pacer, or crew member, join us for a shakeout run in Olympic Valley before race weekend. Learn more about the new Amazfit Cheetah 2 Ultra and connect with the community that helps make race day possible. Visit https://Amazfit.com for more information, and you can use the code FTLR2026 for 10% off!

Popfly: If you're a brand trying to reach outdoor, travel, and adventure audiences, Popfly is where to do it. It connects you with the largest communities of adventure creators and handles the entire process from start to finish. Creators click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabscreators. Brands click here: https://popf.ly/longrunlabsbrands