Tag Archives: Run

Will Run 4 Trash Part III

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Jeremy Litchfield| 11 Comments

For those who have followed my blog for a while, you probably have noticed my fondness for writing about running for trash (Will Run 4 Trash Part I and II). I promise, I do think about other things, but I had to write about it at least one more time. This story was too good to not share.

While most people know Atayne as a brand of environmentally friendly performance apparel, that is only a tiny part of the story. Our company exists to inspire positive environmental and social change through the power of sports and active lifestyles. One way we do this is by developing high performance products that are sensitive on the environment and safe for the people who use and make them. But what about the other things we do?

: Oh, The Cups…

Today, I want to talk about how we are helping races and events clean up their act. Not that they are intentionally trying to destroy the environment, but the current model of how they are run often leaves a heavy footprint. Consider road races. When you think about all the cups, energy gel packs, plastic bottles, and cardboard boxes, the amount of waste from even small events can pile up. Where does all of this go? Most of the time, it ends up in a landfill. And then there is the less visible waste: the packaging for all that stuff and the emissions from all the travel to and from the events.

I am not advocating that we should stop these events. They are an important part of encouraging active lifestyles and fostering community. What I am advocating is that we need to change the current model. And here is the story of just one little step we are taking to play our part.

: Team Atayne

After our pilot race sweeping of the Urban Epic, we decided to take on a bigger challenge. On October 5th, the good people of Maine and the Maine Marathon greeted us with open arms as we worked together to keep as much recyclable material as possible out of their landfills. Over 30 Team Atayne volunteers (including my 80 year old grandmother Mammie) came together to help leave the course cleaner than the race found it. Our runners ran the course behind the 3,000 race participants picking up trash, while our aid station and start/finish line volunteers sorted recyclables from non-recyclables. The results speak for themselves:

Over 80 bags (30 gallons each) of paper cups were recycled
A trailer full of cardboard was recycled
Nearly 4,000 plastic bottles and jugs were submitted for redemption and recycling. This helped raise another $100 for the race charity, the Center for Grieving Children, and saved the energy equivalent of lighting a 60-watt bulb continuously for 2 years and 8 months!

Not only was this good for the environment and the community, it was good for the race. The event needed to order one less dumpster, which saved them money. Yep, the proof is in the pudding: going green saves green!

Here’s my challenge to you. Step outside of your “daily” model (or routine) and think about little steps you can take to create positive change. Even the smallest steps move us forward on a long journey. Have fun and be creative. As Dr Seuss taught us when we were young, “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!”

And who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? All 30 volunteers reported having a great time! For a more light hearted recap, check out Mike’s latest entry on his Polka Dot Shorts Blog.

Also check out Paige’s and Stephen’s recaps. Paige ran with Team Atayne instead of running the half-marathon as previously planned. Stephen ran the Maine Marathon, qualifying for Boston, and then helped to volunteer with Team Atayne.

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Tagged Atayne, Maine Marathon, Run, Running, Trash, Trash Running

Will Run 4 Trash

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Jeremy Litchfield| 6 Comments

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead

Memorial Day weekend I went out for a great trail run with a college buddy, Mike. We did about 14 miles of running and another 2 miles of hiking through the Difficult Run Trail and Great Falls Park. Everything about the run was near perfect. I was with my best friend and away from the hustle of Washington DC. The weather was in the high 60s to low 70s, and there was plenty of shade to keep us cool. We got off track a couple times (some might call it lost), but that only added to the adventure. Had we been wearing Atayne apparel it would have been absolutely perfect (sorry, that will be the only bit of shameless self promotion in this post).

Besides reminding me that I need to get off the pavement and spend more time on the trails, the run once again opened my eyes to an issue that is often easy to overlook – trash.

As we were walking back to my car at the end of our run, Mike shouted from behind me, “What are you doing?!?” Not understanding what he was talking about I turned around and noticed him pointing at a discarded empty beer can. He continued, “What? Are you going to walk right by it?”

For any of you who know me this may come as a surprise. I am often accused (with good reason) of getting a tad preachy about environmental issues and have been called an organic food snob (something I am proud of). But here I was getting called out. I turned around, picked up the can, and put it in a small pocket of the CamelBak I was wearing.

The rest of the walk to the car, Mike and I continued to pick up glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans. In a short distance, we had picked up 6 cans, 4 plastic bottles, and 1 glass bottle. Unfortunately, these 11 items are a fraction of what we had to leave behind because we could not carry them all.

I think we can all agree that littering is not a good thing. It has the “amazing” ability to turn beautiful landscapes into cluttered messes. However, some of the biggest consequences of littering are ones that we don’t even see. Consider a few things.

Recycling is a very easy way to save energy. Take the 6 aluminum cans we picked up and recycled. By recycling those cans we saved the amount of energy it takes to run a TV set for 24 hours. That is also the energy equivalent of 3 gallons of gasoline. In the US alone, we throw away almost 60 billion aluminum cans per year. So we are essentially wasting the energy equivalent of 30 billion gallons of gas: this is the amount of fuel that 60 million cars use in one year.

Now think about the plastic. I am not even going to address the energy savings. I think I already got my point across above (remember – plastic comes from petroleum). What do you think would happen to the plastic bottles if we had not picked them up? Yes, someone else might have, but more likely rain would have washed them into Difficult Run, a small stream in northern Virginia. They would have flowed into the Potomac River, the Chesapeake Bay, and then the Atlantic Ocean. Then what? Out of sight, out of mind. Right?

The plastic would have broken up into smaller pieces during its journey. Some unsuspecting bird may then have mistaken it for food. Take a look at the stomach contents of just one albatross that made this mistake (Image taken from Shifting Baselines). Or it may have gotten caught up in ocean currents and made its way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of trash in the Pacific Ocean with a size estimate that varies from the size of Texas to double that of the continental United States.

This is scary and somewhat depressing stuff, but I hope at this point you don’t feel hopeless. Yes, this could be a big challenge. But with every challenge comes the opportunity for greatness, the opportunity to change the game. Let’s think about the “game” of running. Every day millions of people in the US go out for a run, and those millions of people probably pass by hundreds of millions of pieces of trash. What if a few of them picked up just one piece of trash at the end of their run? We could make a pretty big impact.

I am not in anyway going to claim that I am the first person to come up with this idea. Eco-Runner, Samuel Huber and many others were doing it before me. But I am going to claim that I may be the first to calculate the potential environmental impact.

According to Simmons Market Research Bureau there are 13.2 million people who run every chance they get and an additional 13.1 million who run occasionally. So there are over 26 million runners in the US and millions more across the globe. What if 10% or 2.6 million runners picked up a piece of trash just once a week at the end of their run and then recycled it? That would be over 135 million pieces of trash each year. If all the pieces of trash were aluminum cans and those cans were recycled, we would save the energy equivalent of 67.5 million gallons of gas or the equivalent of removing 135,000 cars from the road.

So next time you run by a piece of trash and think that picking it up (and taking it where it can be recycled) will not have an impact, think of the other 26 million runners who might be picking up a piece of trash as well. Together we can change the world.

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Tagged Atayne, Difficult Run, Great Falls Park, Recycle, Run, Running, Trash, Trash Running, Will Run 4 Trash

The First Run of the Rest of My Life

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Jeremy Litchfield| Leave a comment

This posting is long overdue, and not because I am behind on writing for my large base of loyal readers. (Hey, I had 78 views one day last week. That’s huge from where I sit!) It is overdue because it has been about a month since I received the first Atayne samples, and I am just now writing about it.

Why did it take me so long? I am not quite sure. I think when I first received the tops I treated them like they were priceless pieces of art or ancient artifacts. I handled them gingerly and even had a hard time letting others touch them. I know it sounds odd, but they were my babies. So I finally got over that and decided it was time to treat them like what they actually are, performance tops.

After nearly three weeks of having the prototypes in hand I finally threw the men’s top on for its first flight. Decked out in Atayne’s first sample, the run I took on May 21, 2008 will have its place in my memory as the first run of the rest of my life. It is kind of hard to explain how I felt during the run. A friend of mine used a great analogy. “Was it like when you got a new pair of sneakers as a kid, and you felt like you could run as fast as Speedy Gonzales?”

Yup, it was a lot like that. I felt like I was running at the speed of light, and in fact I was running pretty fast. I would consider myself a decent runner. I usually run an easy 6 miles in the range of 43 to 44 minutes. But on this day, I ran 6 miles in 42 minutes and 16 seconds, and I did not feel like I was pushing much harder than usual. I also felt like a kid again. Like anything was possible. Nothing could get in my way.

Was the shirt perfect? I would be lying if I said yes. There are some issues with the fit that I need to work out, and I am still deciding on the optimal logo size and placement. And those are just the start. But I can say the shirt was very good, and of course in my mind it is already better than what is available. It performed just as well as my other shirts by Nike, Under Armour, Asics, and Saucony. But it did not have the hidden, compromising side effects. It was not virgin polyester, derived directly from petroleum and it did not have questionable chemical treatments. Not perfect yet, but well on its way.

What was perfect was my run that day. I don’t think many people would consider a hilly run in a thunderstorm with a stiff head wind perfect, but on this day I did. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders: the weight of years of running in apparel that also comes with guilt, but even bigger, the weight of a year of work without having something tangible in hand.

As I hit the home stretch on my run and a grueling ¾ mile stretch uphill, I thought the timing would be perfect if “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” came on my iPod (see blog on May 19 for more on this theme). It didn’t. Instead, and perhaps even more appropriate, was Keane’s “Everybody’s Changing.” I am hoping everyone will be changing from Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Brooks, Asics, and Saucony to Atayne.

So here is my final assessment of the first Atayne run. My expert research shows you will run faster without the weight of the world on your shoulders.