I’ve decided to write about the 2013 Boston Marathon anyways, because I want you to know what it’s like. I want you to know how intimate this whole thing is, what it feels like for someone who ran it yesterday. I want you to know that this race of 26,000 people starts on a two lane road in a little town out in the country and it ends on a narrow street in the heart of one of America’s oldest cities: Boston, the birthplace of what many people call the American War for Independence.

I want you to know we rise early on a Monday in April—it’s a state holiday so as the rest of the country is meeting the federal tax deadline Boston is observing Patriots Day—and we meet at a park to board yellow school buses out to the town of Hopkinton and yes I cut the line again this year. On the bus the excitement is high but the nervous tension is higher, a young woman nervously devouring an incalculable quantity of bagels, young dude relaying the dew point to anyone who will listen, strangers debating the merits of competing brands of GPS watches. I want you to know that yes in Hopkinton there are actual NO STOPPING MONDAY towaway zone signs in which a runner breaking the tape figures as the central element of design, those aren’t for sale at tourist traps in town and yes we all lounge around in the grass at Hopkinton High School pretending to enjoy the perks of free coffee, Gatorade, bagels, bananas and a ravey remix of Soulja Boy “Superman” on the loudspeakers before jogging through a neighborhood to the corrals at the start, everyone in town so…so friendly, even the cops who pull you from behind the tree you’re using instead of a port-a-john.

Yes I‘m still me so I want you to know I jogged nonchalant to the front of the pack as befitted my low bib number and corral assignment, you’ll allow me this one indiscretion just as the grizzled race officials yelled to one another to let me through, the loudspeakers were blasting the classic “Mr Big Stuff” (“who do you think you are???”) as I climbed into the corral at the very front and anyways I got what I deserved, starting too fast or rather the pros started too slow, friends from Moscow and Mexico telling me later they saw me online or on TV coverage at the start, the worst thing to hear, really, I found myself running next to Gebremeskel before slamming the brakes and the first mile passed in 5:13. It was downhill though.

I want you to know most of the Boston Marathon is like that: “net downhill.” Doesn’t make the hills that come later feel any better but I want to tell you this year I ran with a guy who showed me how to make those hills of Newton manageable, you can actually take your time, relax and flow through those heartbreaks and everything after comes down to your preparation or critical lack thereof.

And now I want to tell you that I lived in NYC on 9/11. I want you to know that if as a New Yorker I will always run the NYC Marathon (and it is the world’s marathon), as an American I will always run the Boston Marathon because the Boston Marathon is America’s marathon, I want to tell you the entire length of this 26.2 mile race is jammed with passionate spectators year after year, for 117 years this has been their marathon as much it is yours when you’re running it, in our current running boom with its fringe fads, drugged up charlatans and overproduced outfits that underdeliver forced on us by two corner hustlers who put branding and sponsors before the runners actually putting one foot in front of the other I want to tell you that the talk around the Boston Marathon is about Bill Rodgers greeting runners at the prerace expo and about Joanie still lining up “to get a time,” I want to tell you about the Somali cab drivers treating you like royalty just because you are a marathoner and how I made it through Monday thanks in part to a young Canadian brother with a warm intelligence, full body tattoos and three years of clean blood in his veins who took six minutes off his previous marathon best, and I want to tell you about these proud Boston cops, these cops who early in the morning yesterday bellowed, Good luck guys, these cops who were out there again this morning to call out, Good morning, sir, how are we today? and likewise the handsome young priest stopping you on the street with some kind words to ask if indeed you are ok today.

I want these words to find you, catch you off guard and ask you to take pause, just as the FBI announced themselves with a soft knock and badges at the door of our rented apartment less than an hour after the explosions you’ve read and heard so much about, I hope these words will have a brief chance to move around, find you and fill you with doubt about calculus you hadn’t considered and shame for the petty destruction you planted near the finish line, just as I hope to say something counter to those who will even use yesterday’s act of cowardice and fear as yet another dull tool to confuse and divide us, I‘m talking now about the people who don’t actually run but are claiming the Boston Marathon and are talking about it for personal agendas surely as they are exercising their precious freedom to do so.

The flags were at half mast today in Boston as I made my way on Bolyston Street amid the throngs of media and tourists documenting destruction, cops stopping me with kind words and little jokes before I jumped on an anonymous Chinatown bus that will get me back to NYC in time to pick up my son from soccer practice, take him out for a burger, check his homework and put him to bed before hanging this finishers medal on the wall of his bedroom. It was only late in the day when I realized how heavy this particular medal is.

Text and photography Knox Robinson

THE FIRST LOOK: JUN TAKAHASHI GYAKUSOU FOR NIKE SS13

Over the course of six seasons Jun Takahashi’s Gyakusou line for Nike has become the standard and the shorthand for elevated fits of urban running chic. Leaving aside a few quirks—an inexplicable lack of lining in the shorts, eek!—several pieces from previous collections have been remarkable combinations of cut and sew sensibility with technical performance for all kinds of running, from track sessions to ultramarathon trail racing to running late to Sunday brunch. In this respect the new spring/summer line continues to surprise and delight when minimalist design choices meet fresh fabric combinations and shocking vibes result.

Inspired in part by the annual pilgrimage Takahashi and his Team GIRA cohorts make to the Honolulu Marathon, ss13 sees lightweight fabrics, intelligent tailoring choices and forward thinking technical twists come together to battle hot and humid weather. It’s a running jacket, but turnt up: the sleeves zip off quickly to create an ultralightweight hooded running vest with a mesh panel pockets and a fully ventilated back.

Text and photography Knox Robinson

RUNNING CULTURE INTERNATIONAL: PARIS FASHION WEEK EDITION

Paris Fashion Week nightrunning at the Louvre with Moscow’s Alexandra Boyarskaya (Rainbows & Unicorns Running Club) and Jun Takahashi / Team GIRA for the launch of Takahashi’s ss13 Gyakusou collection for Nike.

Photography by Tommy Ton

Mizuno XC racing spikes, neoprene cuff and Velcro strap enclosure, provenance and date unknown, never worn. Socks by Happy Socks for the Standard Hotel, black with metallic gold, removed from hotel minibar in NYC January 2012, never worn.

Text and photography Knox Robinson

New Balance 110 Boot. Socks by Dodd Clothing.

While pitched as a winterized version of the near-perfect trail racing shoe developed in partnership with ultramarathon icon / chill bro Tony Krupicka (dude used kitchen knives to cut away excess features and materials of preexisting models before sending the carcasses back to the design team), the boot is a lightweight weatherproof wonder that takes cues from high performance winter sports racing as much as it does Krupicka’s legendary wins at Leadville 100.

Text and photography Knox Robinson

Nike Flyknit One. Microspikes by Kahtoola. Socks by Chanel. Giraffe print leggings models own.

Photography Knox Robinson

SHOOTING IN THE GYM: STAATSBURG, JANUARY 2010

In the city I always ended up squeezing runs before or after or in between work or meetings or dinner or open bars or a Saturday if I even ran at all. Like everything else in the city it was a lifestyle choice, a commodity, a brand, a product, a talking point, an ROI, a client opportunity, a trend, a meme, a YouTube, an NYT style piece waiting to happen, a drug, an escape, a meet-up, a jumpoff, an obsession, a fuck you, a fuck me, a weapon, a shield, a badge, a bond, a joke, a jest, a gesture but it so rarely felt like running. It was only later, in the woods, that I had the space and the peace and the loneliness I suppose, when running was just running—not to or from or in between, not running to get away from anything or get over something else, someone else, just doing what by now it seems I’ve known almost my whole life and want to do for the remainder, as when the Busdriver and Phil Shea Jr dragged me from my dark apartment in early January and we drove up to Staatsburg for a 50km “race”: 10 times 5km loops, no entry fee no numbers no splits no medals table, no places, just 30 or so souls in varying degrees of damage getting it in for the New Year. 17 degrees, 30mph winds, blinding horizontal snow and ice crusting up on eyelashes—when it fell off later it looked like crying diamonds and maybe felt a bit like it too. I went about 30km, got bored and stopped. The Busdriver quit chasing a course record when his feet started to hurt at 35km. Phil Shea Jr staggered home after 35km as well. No real revelations out there—much too cold for “moments”—but the part of me that was out there in the cold and snow for no good reason is something I’m beginning to understand is just running, I love it as I know it and always have.

Text and photography Knox Robinson

I’ve passed earthdays in Buffalo, Beijing, Montreal, San Juan, Cairo, Accra, LA, Chicago, Miami, NYC, of course, and one washed out in deserted, off-season Virgina Beach following a weeks-long bender and a nighttime drive through a midwinter storm to watch migratory humpback whales as an inspired idea way banish the dark thoughts plaguing me in that season. None of this is stunt; I say it only because I know you know the life—I know you’ve been there too. This time last year I was alone in the chilly, dimly lit kitchen of the deserted, off-season Hostal El Virrey in the Tequisquiapan barrio of San Luis Potosí, no wifi, no cell reception, just a twee and twangy alt.country playlist on repeat and me solo dolo plowing through a massive bowl of quinoa and black beans with my body turned inside out from the effects of steeping off a tiny prop plane into dusty, rarefied air 8000 feet above sea level.

That’s a only a touch of melodrama since things got turned up a few days later when I moved in with Leo Manzano, Shannon Rowbury, Treniere Moser and the others in delirious pursuit of Olympic glory; Leo suggested I come down to Mexico because I might learn something about running, he said, those were his words and besides, low key—dark thoughts. Those are my words. But if years before I left our beloved Brooklyn and went to the woods because, well, I wanted to live deliberately, then I was in SLP on similar business, not just to dry out and hide out from all the things I had built up with my hands and then smashed with those same hands—then, there, in the kitchen of Hostal El Virrey I was sure what I was after. I was in pursuit of fifteen percent. I could cut back on booze, catch up on sleep, do more pushups and crunches and run a shitload more miles and I knew deep down none of it would make me faster, really, none of that would get me better…instead I had grown obsessed with this idea that there was some combination of factors, some refined approach, some final calculus to be found in those desert mountains that would yield demonstrable improvement over a given distance, what could I learn from other runners and what could I learn of myself for the long run, it was too late in the day for a wholesale ransacking of the entire operation but I had a firm understanding of the things I’d done wrong and if I could figure out the elusive fifteen percent of what I was doing then I was sure things would go right.

Text and photography Knox Robinson