Why Trust Us Tracksmith stirred up contention on social media with a post on Instagram announcing the brand’s 2024 BQ Singlet, a commemorative garment reserved for runners who have both qualified and registered for the 2024 Boston Marathon.
“[We] wanted to make sure it’s something special for qualifiers only,” the post read. “Hard to get, harder to earn.”
Tracksmith has been selling its BQ singlet since launching it in 2015, and it’s always been slightly polarizing because of its exclusionary premise. But this year, the announcement rankled quite a few runners with its framing. Before deleting the initial post and issuing an apology on Wednesday, it had racked up more than 1,500 comments, many from popular running accounts and members of the running community.
There was immediate pushback from fans and critics who expressed disappointment, righteous indignation, and vows to never spend another dime on the brand’s products. Many commenters said that the concept was evidence of Tracksmith’s elitism—a reputational claim that is not new to a company that hawks $78 T-shirts and has an inarguably aspirational brand identity.
Diverse We Run, a popular Instagram account that promotes racial representation in the running world, responded to Tracksmith’s apology, writing, “No one is saying we shouldn’t celebrate achievements or have standards. No one is saying a race can’t have qualifying times. The problem is when a brand (or race event, or governing body … etc) claims to be a ‘champion for the AMATEUR RUNNER‘ (ie, ‘for everyone’) in theory, but actually still reinforces exclusion and elitism in practice.”
Some argued that the outrage wasn’t just about the singlet, but larger issues they see with the brand, like its limited sizing options (women’s sizing caps out at a 32-inch waist XL, or size 12 dress equivalent), or its decision to feature predominantly thin bodies in marketing, among other critiques. Tracksmith’s brand president, Ryan Eckel, said in a phone call with Runner’s World that this was a production hangup. “It’s harder to work with factories on smaller volumes of these products,” but the company is working hard to expand their sizing, he said.
Still, others took umbrage with the words chosen to introduce the post, a quote from former Boston Marathon co-race director, Jock Semple: “This is not a jogging race.” The post went on to praise Semple’s “stern edict,” saying, “The BQ is not just a time. For many runners it represents the culmination of thousands of lonely miles; months of waking up in the darkness to get the workout done; and the defeat of the fear that they were chasing an impossible dream.”
Many found the references offensive and tone-deaf, considering the exclusionary history of both the man and the race itself. Women were excluded from the Boston Marathon until 1972, and Semple is the angry guy in Other Hearst Subscriptions, attempting to stop 20-year-old Kathrine Switzer from continuing to run the race and knocking down her coach for trying to protect her.
At the time, the rule book made no mention of sex, but the race director claimed later that her race registration was due to an “oversight.” Switzer and Semple later became friends, and he changed his position on women marathoners. Boston Marathon bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet commented that she didn’t appreciate the upholding of the 1970s as a “benchmark of amateur excellence,” when really it was a time of “amateur suppression.”
The BQ is a bit of a touchy subject lately
Tracksmith’s post may have hit a particular nerve due to its timing, right on the heels of the Boston Marathon announcing that it will be even harder to participate in 2024. After two years of allowing all qualified applicants entry to the Boston Marathon, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) has returned to its roots, Health - Injuries iconic little hare.
Anne Flower Breaks Leadville 100 Course Record strictest cutoff time to date. This means that running the qualifying time was not enough; to land a bib, Boston hopefuls had to run 5 minutes and 29 seconds faster than the qualifying time for their respective gender and age group.
By the numbers: 33,058 applicants met the qualifying time for the 2024 Boston Marathon, yet only 22,019 of them will be racing. There are 11,039 runners who met the time standard, but will not be kitted up come April.
Many commenters felt that selling a singlet that only qualified and registered runners could purchase was a particular insult to the charity runners who raise millions of dollars for cancer research and altruistic organizations every year. They also make sacrifices and wake up in the wee hours of the morning to slog out thousands of lonely miles, and deserve recognition as much as those who made the time standard, they say.
In their apology post, Tracksmith wrote that the intention was to “celebrate those who qualified for the Boston Marathon, but our approach and the words we chose to amplify missed the mark.” Eckel, the brand president, told Runner’s World that the negative reaction has caused the brand to become introspective.
“Obviously what we wanted to communicate was not being interpreted the way that we intended,” he said. “And so we needed to clarify, particularly support for runners across every part of their journey. Anybody who’s trying to be a better runner is somebody that we support and care about and actively consider to be a critical part of our community. And so when we looked at the posts through their eyes and saw that it felt exclusionary to those people, people that we care dearly about, you know, it made sense for us to kind of get to clarify our intention.”
Controversial though it may be, Eckel notes that the original post sparked valuable discourse. But he says Tracksmith ultimately decided to delete the post because the brand didn’t want something up that doesn’t reflect their intentions.
Striking a careful balance
At the end of the day, Tracksmith is a company. They’re selling not only a product, but a sense of prestige and distinction. The iconic little hare may be a common sight within running circles, but it connotes a different air than the everyman’s gear. Buying Tracksmith products is, in a sense, buying into the aspirational dream that the brand carefully creates: Wear these leggings, and you’ll feel like a collegiate running champion striding through fall leaves on campus. Many people love the Boston Marathon for a similar reason. It’s aspirational and gives people of all ages a lofty goal to shoot for.
Regarding the systemic issues people rightly called out, the company has made seemingly good faith efforts to address these types of concerns, by investing in youth programs, their Fellowship Program, and Shoes & Gear. The Twilight 5000 track races that Tracksmith hosts in several cities every summer are truly inclusive, giving every participant from the sub-elite 16-minute runners to the 35+-minute athletes an equal experience and supportive environment to try to improve on their best time. Recognizing those who have accomplished the unthinkable isn’t necessarily at cross purposes with opening the sport up to more people and making it more inclusive.
“Celebrating one achievement doesn’t take away from anyone else’s achievement,” said Eckel, “And certainly having one point of view on what makes running important doesn’t invalidate anyone else’s point of view on what makes running important to them.”
The running community’s response brings up questions about whether it’s possible to be inclusive in substantive ways and yet still reserve some things as sacred and vaunted, only earned through fast performances.
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Abby Carney is a writer and journalist in New York. A former D1 college runner and current amateur track athlete, she's written about culture and characters in running and outdoor sports for Runner's World, Tested: The Nike Vomero, Molly Seidel Is Running Happy Ahead of NYC Marathon, and other outlets. She also writes about things that have nothing to do with running, and was previously the editor of a food magazine.
