Month: March 2019

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Outdoor gear is notoriously expensive. Three-layer waterproof rain shells, puffy coats, and basic two-person tents can run you several hundred dollars. Skis and bikes are often more than ten times that. Now a French company called Decathlon is flipping that paradigm on its head.

Decathlon is a retailer that designs and manufactures all the gear it sells, marketing each sport’s products under a different brand name (Kalenji for running, Simond for climbing, Quechua for hiking and camping). It sells only through its own website and brick-and-mortar stores. Since Decathlon doesn’t have to go through third-party retailers, it’s able to offer its gear at astonishingly low prices. Walk into any of its 1,350 stores throughout Europe and you’ll see walls crowded with $3.50 backpacks and $50 two-person tents.

The Decathlon family of brands has been popular in Europe for years, and it tried to gain a foothold in the U.S. in the early aughts but abandoned those efforts in 2006. Now it’s trying again. In April, Decathlon launched a flagship store in San Francisco. Starting Wednesday, anyone in the U.S. can buy from Decathlon online.

We wanted to know whether this startlingly cheap gear was any good, so we got our hands on a sampling of hiking and camping products. In short, we were pleasantly surprised by how solid everything seemed. Read on for more details. 

Your morning latte costs more than this ultralight nylon daypack, which stuffs to the size of a small apple in a built-in pouch. Admittedly, the bag is about as simple as it can get—just a single main compartment that holds ten liters of gear, no hipbelt or sternum buckle, and thin shoulder straps that are adjustable but offer relatively little support. Yet as a backup travel pack to use for town walks and light hikes, it’s all you need.

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High fill-power down traps a lot of heat in a light, small package, and it usually comes at a premium of hundreds of dollars, which makes this hooded 800-fill down jacket a steal. Its tapered hem keeps your rear warm and flatters the hips, while a drawcord helps keep out frigid air. The cuff elastic is internal, so the sleeves extend an extra inch, which helps prevent cold hands.

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Pull it out of the zippered pouch, undo four buckles and one strap, and voilà, this tent pops open in roughly one minute with the fly already attached (you can remove it once the tent is set up). The polyester fabric is heavier and less breathable than the nylon used on most tents, though it’s also more durable and water-resistant. The 2 Seconds’ large, circular shape and 6.4-pound weight make it impractical for backpacking, but the astonishingly low price and easy setup will appeal to folks who are new to pitching a tent or just want something for low-key car camping.

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Soft, high-loft fleece makes this layer perfect for summit lunches, chilly belays, or overly air-conditioned offices. The dropped hem fits under a harness and offers extra coverage, as do the high neck and super-long sleeves, which are nice for sheltering cold hands but roll up easily when you want them out of the way. An internal zippered mesh pocket stashes snacks or a small wallet. A waist drawcord dials in the fit.

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In the month we’ve been using this bag, it’s flown across the country and driven to the Grand Canyon. Like many in its class, this bag has backpack straps and many external handles for easy carrying and hauling, and it outperforms others thanks to a zippered flap that lets you expand the duffel by 20 liters. The thick polyester body is basically bombproof and hasn’t shown any signs of wear. The Extendible is not fully waterproof, though, so be careful with anything you want to stay dry.

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Ready for one-night backpacking treks or single-day summit bids, this pack has everything you need for short trips. A stretch pouch stores an extra layer or snacks, a rain cover pops out of the base for quick deployment, a full-length vertical zipper opens wide for easy access, and the trampoline-style mesh suspension keeps the load off your back for more breathability. At this price and with these features, this pack is perfect for people new to backpacking or day-tripping.

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We’ve always been taught that you pay for comfort, especially when it comes to footwear. But we were shocked at how comfortable these sub-$60 hiking boots are. Fully waterproof, with a roomy toe box and smooth lacing system that’s easy to dial in, they seem perfect for a hiker who is just starting out and wants more protection than a traditional shoe provides (though I can’t yet speak to their durability).

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With its low prices, relatively good quality, and wide selection, Decathlon promises to lower the barrier to entry for people looking to get into the outdoors. If you’re hoping for bomber gear that will last decades, the jury is still out. Certainly the craftsmanship and materials don’t compare with what you’ll find from companies like Arc’teryx or Patagonia. But the gear has all the features you need and, once you figure out the Europe–U.S. sizing conversion, it fits well (not boxy or baggy). Most of all, it offers incredible value.

There’s even something here for experienced athletes who want gear that performs, though it’s a bit hit-and-miss. Out of the dozens of items we tried, most were ideal beginner options, and a smaller handful stood out as solid choices for anyone, regardless of experience level. For example, the duffel, 30-liter pack, hiking boots, and puffy coat listed above contend with some of the big-brand gear we editors have lining our office shelves.

The upshot is that we should all be excited about Decathlon’s grand entrance in the U.S. It means more people will be able to afford decent gear to get started in the outdoors, and the rest of us will be able to indulge in new items that may have otherwise been out of our price range. 

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It’s time to ditch those free race T-shirts and upgrade your running kit. Apparel companies are taking a stylish approach to run gear these days, which means you can look good while you’re putting in the miles. Here are some of our favorite picks.

Aviator running glasses? Yep. Roka makes super-stylish shades for high performance. The Phantom takes the classic aviator style and gives it a titanium frame with a crazy strength-to-weight ratio, fingerprint-resistant lenses, and sticky nose and temple pads that absolutely won’t slip when the going gets sweaty. All in, the glasses weigh half an ounce and look good enough to wear on date night.

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Myles made waves with its Everyday shorts, built for all kinds of activities, but with the Switchback it’s focusing on runners. These shorts are made of a light, fast-wicking polyester with four-way stretch and a perforated waistband and leg cuffs for added breathability. The built-in liner is soft and comfy, and there’s an elastic stash pocket for keys and a zippered pocket big enough to house a phone.

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The Cloud, from Swiss brand On, might look like a casual boat shoe, but it has serious running chops. The outsole is structured to provide a fluid ride and soft landing, while the built-in sock liner and V-molded heel provide a soft, snug fit, and the elastic “speed laces” mean you can slip them on without tying. They’re everyday runners that look good even when you’re not moving quickly.

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Tracksmith makes stylish running togs with a retro edge. If The Royal Tenenbaums had a track club, they’d wear Tracksmith. The Van Cortlandt is built from performance mesh for ultimate breathability and a barely-there feel. Apparently that dramatic sash is inspired by an 1800s track-and-field team, but we think it just makes you look fast. If you want sleeves, go for the Van Cortlandt Tee ($68).

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Brooks slays the details with this breathable, water-resistant jacket. The stretchable cuffs have thumb holes to keep your sleeves in place, the hood stashes away when you’re not using it, and the front zipper pull even works to anchor your headphone chord. There’s also an internal stretchy stash pocket that holds a phone. And the whole thing packs into its own pocket and has an elastic band that allows you to wear it on your arm if you don’t need it.

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There’s a good chance the sunscreen you slather on at the beach is doing permanent damage to the ocean’s reefs, thanks to a couple of common compounds that cause deformities in the coral. Mounting research shows that oxybenzone and octinoxate, two UV-blocking chemicals found in most sunscreens, cause bleaching, DNA damage, and death in coral when they’re washed off of swimmers. According to the nonprofit Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, an estimated 14,000 tons of sunscreen are deposited in oceans every year.

“You can actually see the sunscreen in the water,” says Colleen Gilligan, marketing director for Beyond Coastal, one of the pioneering reef-safe sunscreens on the market. “If you’re on a diving trip, or even in a swimming pool, and you notice a greasy film on the surface, that’s everyone’s sunscreen washing off.”

Combine our sunscreen addiction with other pollutants and rising water temperatures, and you get a bleak picture of coral health across the globe. Coral reefs have already declined by 40 percent in Hawaii, 50 percent in the Great Barrier Reef, 85 percent in the Caribbean and 99 percent in the Florida Keys.

So just buy sunscreen labeled “reef-safe,” right? Wrong.

“There isn’t any FDA or governmental definition for what qualifies as ‘reef-safe,’” Gilligan says, adding that it’s hard to trust a label on a bottle when there’s no real oversight. Instead, you need to look at the actual ingredients. “Your best bet is to steer towards sunscreens that are mineral-based, not chemical-based.”

Most true reef-safe sunscreens rely on naturally occurring minerals like zinc oxide (remember the white noses of the eighties?) as the active sun-blocking ingredient, instead of chemicals like oxybenzone. Hawaii has even taken steps to help you make the right choice. At the beginning of July, Hawaii’s governor signed a bill that bans from the state the sale of sunscreens that contain chemicals harmful to coral reefs. It’s the first law of its kind passed, not just in the U.S. but in the world. The ban goes into effect on January 1, 2021.

Want to do the right thing in the meantime? Wear more sun hats and sun shirts, and if you are going to use sunscreen, pick from this list.

Beyond Coastal’s SPF 34 Natural eschews the common chemicals and uses as its major active ingredient zinc oxide, which blocks 97 percent of UVB rays. In addition to the zinc oxide, the lotion has all kinds of skin-loving ingredients, like acai fruit extract, aloe vera, and cocoa butter. 

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This is the sunscreen Hawaii’s Hanauma Bay State Park recommends to its visitors. Like Beyond Coastal, it uses zinc oxide instead of the harmful chemicals to block UVB and UVA rays and runs the spectrum from SPF 8 to SPF 50. SolGuard also incorporates cucumber extract, aloe leaf, and kukui oil to help hydrate your skin.

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Even the packaging on this sunscreen is earth-friendly. Maui-based Mama Kuleana uses biodegradable containers for its sunscreen, which is loaded with organic shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, almond oil, zinc powder, and a whole bunch of other things you’d find in random Whole Foods aisles. SPF30

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ThinkSport’s zinc-oxide-based formula goes on easy and earned a perfect score from the Environmental Working Group. It’s SPF 50, and it’s even safe enough to put on your baby. Seriously.

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Some people don’t like zinc oxide sunscreens because they create an actual physical barrier between your skin and the sun, making it difficult to sweat. Beyond Coastal’s Active formula uses safer chemicals as well as the company’s cocktail of natural ingredients that hydrate your skin.

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A new book goes deep into the history and significance of our country’s 4,000-mile northern boundary

Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border (available for preorder now) offers searing portraits of the people and places that live on the line between the United States and Canada. Author Porter Fox, who also wrote Deep: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow, spent three years exploring this line—from Maine to Washington—on foot and by canoe. During his travels, he found lots of forgotten places. The Medicine Line, which gives its name to this excerpted chapter from the book, in northeastern Montana, is one of them. Named by Native Americans for how the U.S. Calvary magically stopped pursuing them at the U.S.-Canada boundary, the Medicine Line was one of the last safe havens in North America for northland tribes. Today, Medicine Line country is crisscrossed with freight trains, highways, wheat fields, missile silos, oil patches, and all the trappings of 21st-century resource extraction and life. About the only things that haven’t changed are the endless prairies and the endless wind, which sounds like someone whispering in your ear if you stand in it for a while.

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Power lines glided over the road. Ribbons of asphalt, steel, water, soil, and trees ran parallel with the highway, cutting the northland off from the rest of the country. I was on U.S. Route 2, somewhere in eastern Montana. The two-lane “Hi-Line” shadows the northern border 2,500 miles from Maine to Washington, with a break over the Great Lakes.

There were curves at the western end of the northland: river bends, winding train tracks, Swainson’s hawks banking low, wide arcs over the road. The earth slanted to the east. Sage flats skirted the road. There were sacred formations south of the highway: the Black Hills, the Bighorn Mountains, the headwaters of the Missouri.

“Montana” is a Spanish name, though Spanish explorers never made it that far. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado crossed the Rockies in 1540 near present-day Santa Fe, but he chose to trek east to Kansas instead of north. Montana license plates call their home Big Sky Country. It was easy to see why. The state is larger than Japan. You can see a good chunk of it from almost any vantage point. Humidity averages in the low sixties. The whipsaw crest of the Rocky Mountains is visible from a hundred miles away. Big Sky Country averages seven people, one pronghorn antelope, one elk, and three deer per square mile. Eighty percent of the counties are still classified as “frontier,” meaning they are occupied by six or fewer people per square mile.

There are more elk, grizzly bears, loons, and trumpeter swans in the state than anywhere else in the continental U.S.

The air was so clear that I could see the legs of an antelope five miles away. A stand of whitebark pine three miles beyond that swayed in the breeze. A teenage boy cruised past in a beige 1970s Lincoln Continental. Square head, square shoulders, pale blue eyes. Looking in the mirror, he parted his hair with his left hand while dangling his right hand on top of the vinyl steering wheel. He didn’t have to steer; the car steered for him. He didn’t look like he was driving at all. It was like something was pulling the road out from under him. Time stopped moving in eastern Montana sometime around 1973.

Montana and “Oregon Country” were some of the last unexplored and unmapped regions on the planet in the early 1800s, along with interior Africa, Australia, and both poles. Oregon Country stretched 250,000 square miles from the Pacific coast to the Continental Divide in western Montana. Thomas Jefferson considered it the last piece of America that would create an “Empire of Liberty” from sea to sea. It was a pipe dream. America was having a hard time managing the territory it already had. And the Northwest was already claimed by Russia, England, France, Spain, and dozens of Indian nations.

The Northwest was the final stretch of the northland for me as well. I was 2,500 miles from home, 1,500 from the Pacific. It was fall again and getting cold. The last miles were not going to be easy. Montana, Idaho, and Washington are home to some of the tallest peaks on the continent, scattered across remote wildernesses, rainforests, alluvial plains, and a matrix of lake and river systems. I would be camping the whole way. The weather forecast predicted a hard frost by the end of the week. I needed to make it to the coast before the first snow.

Low-angle autumn light glanced off buttes alongside Route 2. Barn swallows flitted over hay fields. Dirt driveways in Culbertson and Blair were dry and dusty. Covered porches had been closed up for winter and storm windows installed. The Continental floated ahead of me. The car was an apparition. Wheat and flax fields moved by like they were on a studio set. The land wasn’t flat like in North Dakota. Combines ran up and over knolls and ravines, harvesting wheat.

Bright-red fire hydrants had been installed every quarter-mile in one field, 30-foot-tall iron sculptures of birds in another.

Sitting Bull made his last stand near here. Shortly after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he had led what was left of his tribe through Montana’s northland. They camped and hunted across the northern plains, outwitting Colonel Nelson Miles and six companies of the U.S. Fifth Infantry Regiment. America wanted blood after Custer’s defeat, and Generals Sherman and Sheridan initiated a policy of killing every Indian their troops could find. Mainly they found women and children headed to a reservation to turn themselves in, most of whom were shot or hung.

The winter of 1876 was severe, with fierce wind and temperatures dipping to minus 30. Miles outfitted his men with buffalo robes, mittens, and face masks cut from wool blankets. Sitting Bull went largely undetected, but freezing temperatures and a lack of game weakened the tribe. They retreated farther north and, the same month that Crazy Horse and 900 Sioux tribal members surrendered at Camp Robinson, Sitting Bull crossed into Saskatchewan over what Indians had begun to call the “Medicine Line.”

The “strong medicine” of the 49th parallel stopped U.S. forces in their tracks, allowing Indians a measure of peace to the north. American officers wouldn’t have thought twice about pursuing an enemy across the U.S.-Canada border 20 years earlier. But cross-border bootlegging skirmishes in the 1860s had alerted Canadians to the porous and dangerous state of their southern boundary. After Britain granted Canada dominion status in 1867, and the line along the 49th was marked in 1873, Canadians and their North-West Mounted Police let it be known that the border was real.

Montana’s “Medicine Line” was not the first in America. The Iroquois, who lived in Ontario and upstate New York, used the same sobriquet for the French-British boundary in the Seven Years’ War. The Iroquois documented the border on their wampum as a white line between two black ones. Great Lakes tribes used the term as well for the line between British Ontario and the American colonies.

Wallace Stegner wrote about Medicine Line country. He grew up 30 miles north of the Montana border in a small Saskatchewan town called Eastend. Like many northland settlers, Stegner’s father was a roamer. The author spent time in an orphanage when he was four, then lived in an abandoned dining car near the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Saskatchewan. The family moved to a shack on the border in the summer, where they farmed wheat. In a memoir of his childhood, Wolf Willow, Stegner wrote about the evolution of small towns in the region: “The first settlement in the Cypress Hills country was a village of métis winterers, the second was a short-lived Hudson’s Bay Company post on Chimney Coulee, the third was the Mounted Police headquarters at Fort Walsh, the fourth was a Mountie outpost erected on the site of the burned Hudson’s Bay Company buildings to keep an eye on Sitting Bull and other Indians who congregated in that country in alarming numbers after the big troubles of the 1870s.”

I drove Route 2 past draws, moraines, hollows, arroyos, rift valleys, and mesas in the east near Frazer and Nashua. This is the language of Big Sky Country: laccolith, dike, shonkinite, marine shale. The state is split in two along the Rocky Mountain Front. East is prairie; west is the Northern Rockies. The front is a 50 million-year-old thrust-and-fold jumble of wetlands, forests, and vertical subranges. The wall of rock is so formidable that it shapes weather across America. Western-flowing air from the Gulf of Mexico hits the front and reflects it back onto the plains, helping to create a vortex of wind and storms across the Great Plains known as Tornado Alley.

The single-engine plane sticking out of the roof of the Hangar Bar in Glasgow, Montana, looked like it had seen some weather. Another plane, a U.S. Air Force T-33 trainer, sat in the front yard of the Valley County Pioneer Museum. There were six casinos, one rodeo arena, one Taco Shack, three car-parts stores, and the Busted Knuckle Brewery downtown. Afternoon light dropped out of the sky on my way through, touching the tips of Sudan grass growing along the soft shoulder.

The sun became a spotlight just before it set, shining through an opening in the clouds and splintering on my bug-splattered windshield. I’d been following the Continental for hours. A barbed-wire fence bordered the road most of the way. Rifts and mesas lifted, fell, vanished, then reappeared. The bluffs on the horizon looked bigger than anything I’d seen in a while. I drove past a steak house, a bowling alley, a hundred wide-screen TVs shining through double-paned windows. A pharmacy at the edge of town was closed, but a string of Christmas lights had been left on.

I passed a grain elevator at the end of Main Street, and the sky darkened like an eyelid closing. A sliver of sun held out just above the horizon. A silver moon shone through the clouds before the sun went down. It was simultaneously night and day for about seven minutes. A freight train rushed past, and the rumble shook the car windows. The train was a mile long and stacked double high with 40-foot containers. A string of black, cylindrical oil cars took up the rear. The train blasted east, and the eye closed. Then everything was gone: traffic, tracks, Continental, casinos, town. It was 35 degrees. Snow tomorrow in the high peaks, the radio announcer said. The last of the light leaked out of the clouds, leaving me at the dark edge of the Rocky Mountains.

The little green legumes are having a moment in the plant-based fitness world

According to the food pyramid of our elementary school days, protein is red, brown, and beige: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, and nuts. But peas, in all their bright-green glory, may have been misplaced the whole time. Peas are legumes, like lentils and chickpeas, and they’re a standout source of protein. Lately, they’ve trickled into the protein supplement aisle and popped up in everything from vegan cheeses and meat substitutes to shakes, yogurt, milk, and bars.

“Pea protein offers a good profile of micronutrients like manganese, folate, copper, phosphorus, vitamins B6 and B2, niacin, and molybdenum,” says Liz Fusco, sports dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. Rowing. They’re also high in fiber, which can aid in digestion and enhance fullness, she says.

Pea protein comes from yellow split peas, and unlike some other plant proteins, such as rice or beans, it’s a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids. Pea protein is a good option if you’re allergic or sensitive to whey or soy; it’s also an alternative protein source for vegans or vegetarians. Fusco emphasizes that variety is key to a healthy diet, so even if you’re dietary restriction–free, it could be worthwhile to incorporate pea protein into your diet alongside more traditional sources of protein.

Fusco notes that it’s preferable to choose whole food over supplements whenever possible, but athletes need ample protein distributed throughout the day. Sometimes the best way to make that happen is with a portable, supplemental protein source—and pea protein is an excellent option. While fresh peas are a good source of fiber, thiamine, folate, manganese, and vitamins A, C, and K, one cup of green peas contains 8.6 grams of protein, less than half of what you’d get from a serving of some of the most common pea protein powders. “You would have to eat a lot of peas to get the same benefits,” says Kelly Pritchett, a nutritionist and assistant professor in nutrition and exercise science at Central Washington University.

Peas are considered a low bioavailable protein source, meaning your body is able to absorb less protein from them than other forms of protein, but they may be easier on the stomach than whey, Pritchett says. If you do opt for pea protein, you’ll need to take more of it than whey, because pea protein contains less of the amino acid leucine per serving. Leucine is the most important amino acid for initiating and signaling pathways that stimulate muscle protein growth and recovery, Pritchett explains. You need around 35 grams to get the same amount of leucine as you would from 20 to 25 grams of whey, Fusco says. One study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition found that, despite their differences, pea and whey protein have roughly the same effect on muscle growth.

“If you are going to use a protein powder, be sure to find a high-quality protein powder that has gone through third-party testing,” Fusco advises. Look for the NSF Certified for Sport or Informed-Choice logos, which ensure products are not contaminated. Garden of Life’s Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein and Now Sports Organic Pea Protein are two third-party-certified options.

Keep getting your eight hours, but the science is more complicated than you might expect

A few weeks ago, I delved into the research on post-exercise recovery and concluded that the research backing virtually all recovery techniques is very thin—with the exception of sleep and diet. But I have a confession to make: even the research on sleep is pretty sparse. Sure, it seems self-evident that a good night’s sleep is a powerful restorative. There’s not a lot of research, though, that proves it, or that gives us much information about exactly how much we need, when, and (insert eye roll) in what sort of pajamas.

So it’s interesting to see that there’s a bunch of sleep research due to be presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Minneapolis next week. Conference presentations are inherently preliminary, so their conclusions have to be taken with a grain of salt—but they offer a sneak peek at the questions that researchers in a given field are currently tackling. Here’s a look at a few of the sleep studies that caught my eye:

Does one night of bad sleep trump a month of good sleep?

A team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Andrew Watson, put 59 female teen soccer players through a battery of physical tests after having them fill out a questionnaire about their sleep the previous night and over the previous month. It’s not immediately obvious to me which should have a greater effect on your physical performance, so I was interested to see the results.

The physical tests included VO2max, which you can think of as a measure of fitness, and a time-to-exhaustion test on a stationary bicycle, which you can think of as a measure of performance. Of course, better fitness generally leads to better performance, but they’re not identical. You can have amazing fitness but still produce a crappy race if you're nervous or unmotivated—or, potentially, as this study sought to test, if you're not well-rested.

The best predictor of VO2max was the average duration of sleep over the previous month. Those who reported sleeping more than 8 hours a night had an average VO2max of 50.4 ml/kg/min, compared to 45.2 for those who slept less. That’s consistent with the idea that getting enough sleep allows you to recover between training sessions so that you experience greater improvements in fitness. (Of course, there are plenty of other ways you could spin it. Maybe the people who train hardest get fitter, and are also the most tired at night. There are no final answers here.)

Interestingly, though, the big sleepers (based on the prior month’s sleep) didn’t necessarily have the best performance in the time-to-exhaustion test. And the length of the previous night’s sleep didn’t seem to be a key factor either; those who slept more than 8 hours lasted a bit longer, but the difference wasn’t statistically significant. Instead, the key factor seemed to the ratio of acute sleep (last night’s rest) to chronic sleep (the average nightly rest in the last month). Those who had slept more than usual the previous night lasted 16.4 minutes on average, while those who had slept less than usual the night before lasted just 14.9 minutes.

Again, there are lots of possible interpretations here. The simplest is that getting good sleep on a regular basis helps you adapt to training and get fitter, while getting less sleep than you’re used to the night before a competition can hinder your performance. That sounds like bad news for those who tend to sleep poorly the night before a big competition—which, frankly, is most of us. But there may be a difference between relatively unimportant lab tests, where the concentration lapses and demotivation that follow a restless night might easily interfere with your performance, and actual real-life competitions where the stakes are high.

What happens if you miss an entire night of sleep?

If the previous study has you worried about sleeping poorly before a competition, this one should reassure you. A research team led by Edward Coyle at the University of Texas at Austin put 27 volunteers, mostly West Point cadets, through a set of physical tests before and after missing a full night of sleep. The measures included VO2max and time-to-exhaustion tests, as well as a bunch of other things like neuromuscular power, reaction time, cognitive performance, muscle oxygen extraction, and so on. The differences after staying awake for 36 consecutive hours, the researchers report, were “small or non-existent.”

This is consistent with other studies finding that your muscle function isn’t greatly affected by short-term loss of sleep. Instead, the differences seem to be mostly in your mental state. The fact that the subjects in this study performed just as well in their time-to-exhaustion test after missing a night of sleep may have something to do with the parameters of the experiment. Their test lasted less than 6 minutes on average, compared to about 15 minutes in the previous study; longer tests tend to be more susceptible to mental factors. Or it may say something about the difference between teen soccer players and West Point cadets. It’s hard to know for sure, but it suggests that a night of tossing and turning isn’t something to lose even more sleep over if you’re sufficiently motivated.

Can sleep coaching improve performance?

Shifting back to the longer-term benefits of getting good sleep on a regular basis, a study led by Eric Neufeld of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA offers a more direct test of the idea that better sleep leads to better fitness gains. This study involved 38 members of a fitness club who each received 10-minute personalized education sessions from their personal trainer once a week for 12 weeks. For 22 of the subjects, the focus of these sessions was “sleep improvement,” while the rest of the subjects received more general wellness information. All the subjects were doing similar physical training four times a week.
 
The results were striking: the group that received sleep coaching showed significantly greater improvements in VO2max, lactate threshold, ventilatory threshold, lower body power, body composition, fat mass, blood sugar, and heart-rate variability. Basically everything they tested was better in the sleep group.

Now, you always have to be cautious when a seemingly simple intervention produces amazing results. It may be, for example, that the trainers were really enthusiastic about the sleep coaching, and unintentionally conveyed that enthusiasm to their subjects, convincing them to train harder. This is the sort of question we’ll hope to get an answer for when the study makes it into a peer-reviewed journal. To be honest, the results strike me as a little too good to be replicable—but on the other hand, they’re consistent with my own preconceived feeling that sleep is pretty much the best thing in the world.

Which brings me back to where I started. I really think that, as many sports scientists have long said, if you’re braving ice baths and downing beet juice and blowing cash on massages and compression socks, but you’re not getting 8 hours of sleep a night, you’ve got your priorities backwards. As far as the science goes, though, that’s still just an opinion—so let’s hope studies like the ones above can start to change that.

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My new book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, is now available. For more, join me on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for the Sweat Science email newsletter.

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When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn an affiliate commission that helps pay for our work. Read more about Outside’s affiliate policy.

Mountain bikers have a pack-mule mentality when it comes to days on the bike—carrying beers, rainjackets, burritos, and extra beers—so the backpack becomes a crucial component to each ride. We’ve scoured online reviews and tested several on our local trails to find five of the best mountain-bike packs on the market. Whether you’re looking for a sleek hip pack or a behemoth bag that can carry the kitchen sink, there’s something for you in this list.

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The beauty of the ten-liter Endo lies in the details. The back panel of the suspension system adjusts up and down so you can get an exact fit for your torso, while a magnetic sternum strap makes for easy one-handed operation. There’s a padded tech pocket to protect your phone, a loop for your sunglasses on the shoulder strap, and a removable tool pouch. This streamlined pack also comes in a 15-liter version if you need more room.

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The Mule has become the industry standard for mountain bikers, but CamelBak gave the pack some needed upgrades with the latest version, creating a suspension system with better airflow and a lumbar reservoir to keep the weight centered over your hips. I also like the tool roll that keeps things organized and the massive exterior shove-it pocket that expands to hold a rainjacket and empty beer cans. There are also helmet-attachment clips and a quick-deploy rain cover.

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If you ride in wet places, the Seeker is built for you, as the water-resistant nylon ripstop and waterproof roll-top closure will keep your goods dry in the worst conditions. The pack comes standard with a lumbar hydration bladder to keep your center of gravity low, and it has enough room to carry all the necessities for a long ride. Dakine makes a smaller, 15-liter version as well if you’re looking for something more demure.

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If you have a more aggressive approach to the trails, you should consider back protection. POC has a whole line of packs with integrated spine-protector plates designed to shield your back in an emergency landing. We like the vest approach to the POC Spine VPD Air, which gives you maximum protection but modest storage on your back, waist, and chest. It’s mostly mesh too, so you’ll be able to dump extra body heat.

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Sometimes you want to take the bare minimum and move fast and light. Evoc’s three-liter hip pack gives you well-organized storage for tools, tubes, and snacks, as well as a water-bottle pocket and a slot for a hydration bladder. The innovative Venti Flap system allows you to adjust the distance of the hip pack from your back, so you can fine-tune the ventilation.

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He’s the best American runner in a generation. Too bad nobody likes him.

When it comes to success in professional sports, the Machiavellian maxim that it’s better to be feared than loved appears to hold true. Many of our best athletes are not loved. Exhibit A would have to be Floyd Mayweather, the planet’s finest (and richest) boxer, whose extracurricular activities include winsome tricks like burning money. Likewise, the perennially successful New England Patriots are only “America’s team” in the sense that they are the team most of America hates. Much has been said about Michael Jordan. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever referred to him as “a really nice guy.”

Galen Rupp, on the other hand, seems like a nice guy. As the most accomplished American distance runner of his generation, he would have ample reason to indulge in a little chest-thumping, but that just isn’t who Galen Rupp is.

But who is he? For one thing, he is someone who rarely gives interviews outside of official press conferences. He abstains from social media. On the unusual occasion where Rupp does submit to a casual Q&A, the results could provide hope for even the most severe case of insomnia. However, what Rupp lacks in public charisma, he more than makes up for in athletic achievement. The results speak for themselves: two Olympic medals (so far), an American record in the 10,000 meters, a Marathon Major victory, a bevy of national titles. Rupp could hang up his shoes today and still have a strong case to be considered the best American runner in history.

So why doesn’t anybody care?

During last fall’s marathon season, the respective responses to Rupp’s victory in the Chicago Marathon and Shalane Flanagan’s triumph in the New York City Marathon couldn’t have been more different. Both races were “historic,” at least in the loose sense that the word is used by contemporary sports media: Rupp was the first American man to win in Chicago in 15 years, and it had been 40 years since an American woman broke the tape in NYC. Flanagan was feted on running Twitter by rivals and fans alike. In an op-ed for the New York Times, she was credited for “nurturing and promoting the rising talent around her.” The response to Rupp’s race in Chicago, on the other hand, was noticeably lukewarm—particularly when it came to kudos from fellow professionals. Earlier this month, Rupp won the Prague Marathon in a massive personal best of 2:06:07. It was the fastest marathon by an American on a record-eligible course since 2002 and less than 30 seconds off the national record. The response from the broader U.S. running community was largely: meh.

This sense of apathy was thrown into sharper relief prior to last month’s Boston Marathon. As part of its prerace media coverage, LetsRun.com hosted a six-person expert panel, which included coaches Steve Magness and Danny Mackey, the former Nike runner Kara Goucher, and three elite-athlete coaches who chose to remain anonymous. Of the six experts, only one said they would be rooting for Rupp to win the race. As for the question of whether Rupp was likely to win, one of the anonymous coaches didn’t hold back:

“Honestly, I couldn’t give a shit,” they said. “The approach and all of the nonsense that the Nike Oregon Project has been up to, it just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn’t care less.”

The fog of scandal surrounding his longtime training group is ostensibly the reason so many people are reluctant to join the Galen Rupp fan club. At least since the 2015 ProPublica/BBC exposé, with its insinuations of illicit testosterone gels, questionable therapeutic use exemptions, and clandestinely packaged pills, the Oregon Project has been viewed with increasing skepticism. In 2017, the New York Times published a report alleging that the training group had administered illegal quantities of the nutritional supplement L-carnitine, which didn’t do much to improve the Oregon Project’s image.

As its lead photo, the Times article features Rupp competing on the track in Eugene while Alberto Salazar, the head coach and mastermind behind the Oregon Project, peers down from above. It’s a remarkably sinister image given the context of the article, in which it is suggested that former Oregon Project runner Dathan Ritzenhein was pressured into taking a high-volume infusion of L-carnitine against his will. There’s a connotation that Salazar is the puppet master who prizes performance above all else, including the well-being of the athletes in his charge. That might sound overly conspiratorial, but former Oregon Project members Goucher and Magness’ testimony for ProPublica portrays Salazar as someone who has a “win at all costs” mentality, as Goucher put it. And the Oregon Project unwittingly perpetuates its villainous reputation. The group’s ominous logo is a winged skull rendered in black and white—a little bit Hermes, a little bit Skeletor.

Salazar has publicly responded to both the ProPublica and Times reports and insisted that he and his athletes “have nothing to hide and are hiding nothing.” For his part, Rupp, who has already been drug-tested five times this year, according to the searchable USADA database, has never failed a doping test. Last year, as Erin Strout previously noted in Runner’s World, USADA drug-tested Rupp 16 times—the most of any U.S. runner.

Assuming that everything is on the up and up, can the Oregon Project and its number one athlete do more to improve its reputation?

Absolutely. Never mind that Salazar can sometimes behave like a jerk. Never mind the Oregon Project’s forbidding coat of arms. Barring the emergence of new shadiness, the most damning thing about the group is its overall aloofness and air of secrecy. No one is expecting that Salazar host a weekly podcast in which he divulges Rupp’s tempo splits or his favorite granola recipe. But if your training group is rumored to be the subject of an ongoing USADA investigation, it seems like more transparency, rather than less, is the way to go. One month before the Rio Olympics, I tried to secure a quick phone interview with Rupp, ostensibly to lob him the softball question of what running “meant to him.” The Nike PR team informed me that, regrettably, Rupp was in pre-Olympic “lockdown,” as though he’d been caught trying to bust out of Salazar’s prison.

One of the joys of writing about distance running is that its heroes are unusually accessible compared to those sports where money and celebrity create an invisible barrier. (It still feels remarkable that I can have the personal number of so many Olympians on my phone; so far I’ve resisted the urge to drunk-dial Meb for training advice, but that day may yet come.) That has never been the case with Rupp.

Not that he’s in any way obligated to speak to the media if he doesn’t wish to. And I certainly can’t blame him for being Instagram-averse. But with Galen Rupp, you always get the feeling that he’s only in it for Galen Rupp. You might say that’s true for every elite athlete, but I would beg to differ. Deena Kastor. Meb Keflezighi. Shalane Flanagan. Des Linden. The other American runners who have won a Marathon Major all managed to exude an aura of generosity—even when they were at the top of their game.

It’s safer to be feared than loved. But the original line includes a caveat: It’s only true when you cannot be both.

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It’s no secret that American women are crushing it right now in pro running. Take Desiree Linden, Shalane Flanagan, Molly Huddle, and Jordan Hasay. But when you look at their coaches, you might notice a trend: They’re all men.

It’s a small sample size, but it reflects the larger demographics of track and field. Nearly all the coaches of the best U.S. runners are male. It’s not an issue that’s often discussed, but the pattern has prompted some curiosity about why more women aren’t taking coaching positions—and how the culture and dynamics in the sport might shift if they did.

There are many interconnected reasons for this gender disparity, but for starters, women don’t have much of a pipeline into the profession. According to a 2018 study by the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport and the Alliance of Women Coaches, in the 2017–2018 seasons, just ten women held head track and field coaching positions at NCAA Division 1 schools, compared to 83 men. And the numbers aren’t much better for cross-country: 17 women and 86 men. The study graded each sport based on the number of women in coaching positions—cross-country and track and field both earned Fs. (Field hockey scored the highest, with female coaches in 97.5 percent of the roles).

Below the NCAA level, the stats aren’t great either. The “2017 State of Play” report from the Aspen Institute found that just 28 percent of youth coaches in all sports across the country are women. Since coaching is a male-dominated profession at the lower levels, it’s no surprise that it’s even more difficult for women to break into the upper tiers.

“Title IX has been around almost 46 years now, so if there aren’t a lot of women coaches in track and field, there’s no intentionality of creating opportunities,” says Nancy Hogshead-Makar,a three-time Olympic champion in swimming who is now a civil rights lawyer and the CEO of Champion Women, an organization that provides legal advocacy for girls and women in sports. “Somebody dropped the ball—[track and field] is one of the most popular sports in the country. There’s no shortage of people with interest and expertise that should enable them to get into coaching.”

The problem starts with a lack of access to open positions. Most of the hiring for these jobs is done by men, which can be another obstacle for women who want to enter the field, says Caryl Smith Gilbert, director of track and field at the University of Southern California, who in 2015 was the first woman to win the Pac-12 Men’s Coach of the Year title.

“They fill [coaching roles] with who they’re comfortable with, and a lot of people don’t believe women are capable of the job,” she says. “It shouldn’t be a gender issue. Either you hire the best coach or you don’t. You have to be open-minded and you have to be forward thinking. We bring the same skills as men do. I also think we’re very attentive to detail. We talk through things to get to solutions. I don’t think there are that many things that separate us.”

The pattern is also self-perpetuating: Women have a lack of networking opportunities and fewer mentors, they experience gender discrimination, and the demands of the job (traveling, evening practices, recruiting, and 24/7 accessibility to athletes) often aren’t conducive to having a family.

Smith Gilbert, whose women’s team recently won the 2018 NCAA outdoor title, is one of the only female coaches in the highest position at a D1 program. She attributes much of her success to the support of her husband, former NFL linebacker Greg Gilbert, who holds down the fort at home with their three sons when she is away—and who has also been willing to move around the country as she has taken on new jobs to advance her career.

“A lot of men don’t believe a woman should have this role, so they don’t support their wives being the ones who travel while they’re the stay-at-home dads,” Smith Gilbert says. “Most of the reason women don’t last is because they’re not able to juggle personal life and professional life. You have to learn how to blend it. It’s not easy.”

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Shayla Houlihan, head cross-country and assistant track coach at UC Berkeley, says that the long hours, combined with the lower salaries track coaches earn compared to other sports, make it difficult to entice more women to follow her into the profession. “Between three competitive seasons and a recruiting season in the summer, you have to find a way to manage that time,” Houlihan says. “You’re not getting paid very much, and you’re working 60 or 80 or more hours a week. You’ve really gotta love it.” (In 2016, the NCAA reported that top programs spent an average of $103,000 on head track and field coaching salaries compared to more than $2.2 million on head football coaches’ pay. The only sports in which coaches earned less than track and field were fencing, rifle, and skiing.)

Houlihan recognized early on that she wanted to pursue coaching. When she was an athlete at the University of Northern Iowa, her coach departed during her final year of competition, and she stepped in to help lead the women’s team while the school conducted a search to fill the role. It changed the course of her career.

“I was pursuing a business degree as an undergrad, and I thought about what I was going to need to set myself up for the future. I changed my major to exercise science and kept positioning myself to be able to pursue a coaching career path at the Division 1 level,” Houlihan says.

After completing her master’s degree, Houlihan competed as a professional runner for a few years and then entered the job market in 2013. She landed an assistant coaching position at Cal, though she says it never occurred to her that she’d encounter more challenges than her male counterparts. She learned quickly that might not be the case.

“Some people said that I didn’t deserve that job and the only reason I got it was because I’m female,” Houlihan says. “That was pretty hurtful, but at the end of the day, it didn’t stop me and it didn’t make me feel like less of a coach, because I was confident in what I was capable of doing.”

Houlihan now sees subtle ways in which she sometimes experiences the gender disparity in coaching. Like when people who don’t recognize her role in athletes’ accomplishments. “If I’m in a setting where Coach [Tony] Sandoval is with me, other coaches or spectators will come up and say congratulations to him but not me,” she says. “That happens quite often. Tony will say, ‘Those are Coach Houlihan’s athletes.’”

Houlihan credits her strong mentors as an instrumental part of her success. Of course, all the people in position to play this role for her were men—underscoring the importance of male coaches deliberately helping women advance in the profession. Sandoval, director of track and field at Cal, promoted Houlihan after three years in an assistant position.

“Coach Sandoval has given me so much autonomy and let me create what I want to create with our program,” Houlihan says. “He has been a great proponent of females in coaching. Having a mentor is huge, especially navigating this male-dominated world.”

That’s also why Shalane Flanagan, the 2017 New York City Marathon champion, feels prepared to turn to full-time coaching for the Bowerman Track Club after she retires from professional running. She says she never would have thought about making the leap without the support she’s received from Jerry Schumacher and Pascal Dobert, her other Bowerman coach.

“That’s a big factor in why I feel confident attacking this goal,” Flanagan says. “That might be limiting other women from coaching at the professional level—a lot of them may not feel like they have mentors. I’ve been taught throughout the years, specifically with Jerry, observing and asking questions, kind of grooming me toward this because I expressed interest in it.”

When the time comes, Flanagan will be among the few female coaches guiding the careers of Olympic athletes. She’s also in a rare position—Nike is willing to pay her to coach. In track and field, many athletes not associated with a training group like the BTC select their own coaches and are responsible for working out individual payment agreements. Some pro coaches—who are often also working as NCAA coaches—provide services for free or little money at all, making it difficult for anybody to make a living.

Even a World Marathon Majors champion—and an Olympic silver medalist who’s been lauded for her role in creating the women’s BTC group—had to forge her own opportunity to pursue a coaching career path. “I don’t think there are a lot of companies out there recruiting women to these positions,” Flanagan says. “It’s not like Nike came to me with this job—I created it. I asked them to give it to me.”

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Whether at the professional or collegiate level, Hogshead-Makar says that adding more female influence within the sport is crucial—not only to advance gender equity but also to provide a safer environment where athletes can thrive. She says that in her research and consulting, she’s found that track and field has a significant problem with male coaches getting romantically involved with their female athletes, a violation of the Safe Sport Act that can often damage women’s careers.

Hogshead-Makar also believes that with more female coaches, the sport could better cope with the high rate of disordered eating and body image issues, which tend to be more common on women’s teams. In May, Greg Metcalf, former head coach of track and field at the University of Washington, left his job after 16 years amid allegations from male and female athletes that he verbally abused them and shamed them about their weight. Metcalf told the Seattle Times that he was “saddened” by the claims. As a result of Metcalf’s departure, Maurica Powell left her assistant coaching position at the University of Oregon to become Washington’s director of track and field and cross-country.

“When you hit 30 percent of women in leadership, the whole conversation changes—the whole culture changes,” Hogshead-Makar says. “The conversations that men have among themselves are different than if a lot more of their peers were female.”

Besides, diversity of all kinds improves performance of a group. “Intentionally including women and making sure there’s a pipeline is critical. You wouldn’t have a staff of ten middle-distance coaches,” Hogshead-Makar says. “You need sprints, throws, and jumps, right? Similarly, you need women who have the skill sets to handle all kinds of issues—and it’s just doubly important that we have women in coaching to make it safer for everybody.”

As for Flanagan, her hopes are high that she can do her part when she makes the switch from athlete to coach of a group of Olympians. “With the two wins of Americans recently—myself in New York and [Linden] at the Boston Marathon—maybe more girls will realize that running and coaching are both professions,” Flanagan says. “We can start taking it to all levels, and maybe we’ll see an even bigger women’s running boom.”

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We sent a team of eight editors to Denver for the 2018 Summer Outdoor Retailer show, where hundreds of brands, politicians, activists, and journalists come together to check out next season’s gear. From July 22 through 26, we prowled the show floor, finding innovative products and talking to the people who created them.  

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New products to get you outside. 

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Don’t let the StairMaster aesthetics fool you: this thing can move. 

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Hefty canvas and denim work apparel is experiencing a resurgence. A panel of experts at Outdoor Retailer explained why.

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Portraits of five powerhouses you should know about. 

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Next month a community initiative will present guidelines for companies on how to define, talk about, and respond to inappropriate behavior.

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Sometimes the best gear comes in small packages—and at low prices.

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The first-of-its-kind approach shoe returns in spring 2019.

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Brands go to great lengths to make their products stand out. Here are the five wildest examples.

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Heavy-duty and highly visible, the Nordwand Advanced HS jacket is making a splash at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.

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Once again, our gear editors head to the industry's largest trade show to scope out the latest, greatest outdoor tools and toys. 

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Outdoor Retail Summer Market 2018 is here, and the industry is abuzz about new gear. We hit up Confluence and Commons Parks to get in some testing time.

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Essentially a three-person paddleboard base with a mesh tent upper and nylon fly, the Universe is happy on the ground, in the air, and on the water. 

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The Zipper Gimp is a small (but important) upgrade. 

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Don’t let the funky shape fool you.