The Red Bulletin UK 07/22

UK EDITION JULY 2022, £3.50 SUBSCRIBE: getredbulletin.com

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Read the magazine on your phone

Karsten Warholm’s

GREATEST HURDLE

How the Male World Athlete of the Year plans to leap beyond human physical limits. Again

Editor’s letter

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

BRUNEL JOHNSON

The London-based lensman immersed himself in the heat and beats of Dialled In festival, a celebration of British South Asian musical talent, for this issue. “It was an interesting experience,” he says. “I got to witness the diversity of the South Asian community and their music, and to see their pride in their heritage. It was also an education in how similar we all are.” Page 42

BEN FRANKE

SANDRO BAEBLER (COVER)

Much of the New Yorkbased photographer’s work focuses on urban sports and movement, so it must have felt like fate when he stumbled across two leading proponents of Extreme Pogo, or XPogo, while on vacation in Burlington, Vermont.

“We spent the next few days shooting around the city,” says Franke. “Finding such a unique and interesting sport is pretty amazing.” Page 52

GETTING IT TOGETHER Hurdler Karsten Warholm (page 30), captured mid-leap on this month’s cover, is one of the most accomplished athletes in history thanks to his performances across 400m, having obliterated the world record, taken Olympic gold and become the youngestever world champion. But Warholm is so certain of his coach Leif Olav Alnes’ part in this success, he says he’ll retire from competitive sport the day the now 65-year-old does. It’s their teamwork, Warholm believes, that’s got him this far – and will see him rise to the fresh challenges looming large this year.

Collaboration is just as crucial to the other stars of this issue.

Those taking part in The Speed Project (page 60), a high-stakes, round-the-clock relay race through the desert from Santa Monica to Las Vegas, know they’re better off not tackling it solo. Instead, teams of six battle the elements, injury and the odd stray dog to support and push each other to cross the line first, 548km later.

And then there’s Dialled In (page 42), a London festival uniting British South Asian DJs, musicians, performers and producers in a sweaty, inclusive, bass-heavy celebration of creativity that has become greater than the sum of its parts.

Enjoy the issue.

That’s the upshot: photographer Sandro Baebler shoots Norwegian worldchampion hurdler Karsten Warholm doing what he does best. Page 30 THE RED BULLETIN

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CONTENTS July 2022

8 Gallery: highlights from global

photography contest Red Bull Illume, including dusty MTB drops in the Kazakhstan desert, subsurface tension in Tahiti, a gripping scene in Mallorca, and kayaking magic in New Zealand

15 Thanks for the lift: four enlivening

tunes, as chosen by Fontaines DC guitarist Chris O’Connell

16 Deck support: the skatepark built

by volunteers but facing extinction 19 Liquid light: how the problems of

a whole community were solved by one low-tech device

21 Radio Lento: the podcast with a

whole new take on country music

22 Galaxy quest: cosmic thinking

from the French creative who’s tackling Earth’s big questions

24 A lice Hickson

The British freediving medallist on mindfulness, spider crabs, and the ever-present threat of blacking out

26 D enzel Curry

How confronting his mental health issues, rather than burying them, gave the US rapper fresh inspiration

28 Dr Mya-Rose Craig

Meet the ornithologist campaigning for climate-change action, and for diversity in the naturalist world

30 Karsten Warholm

52

American boing: think the pogo stick is just a toy?

Get ready for the high-flying thrills of Extreme Pogo

The Norwegian hurdling phenom who’s running out of races to win and world records to break

42 D ialled In

Inside the festival that champions the diversity and inclusivity of British South Asian music

52 E xtreme Pogo

BEN FRANKE

When this American photographer chanced upon a new action sport, it gave him a fresh spring in his step

60 T he Speed Project

This 548km race from Santa Monica to Las Vegas is a test of teamwork and endurance like no other

THE RED BULLETIN

73 Back to basics: one adventure

athlete’s account of the freewheeling joys of van life 78 Get cranky: Playdate – the game

91 Reasons to be cheerful: exploring

the science of happiness 92 New spin: Peloton Lanebreak

machine with a unique controller

adds a virtual gaming dimension to your daily ride

79 Twitch streamer Andy Campbell

94 Essential dates for your calendar

has the inside track on Evil Dead: The Game – his dad’s the star

98 Outdoors wisdom from Semi-Rad

80 Outside edge: the best kit you

can buy for your next adventure, from camping and kayaking to surfing and skating 07

ALMATY REGION, KAZAKHSTAN

Drop shot If you have the inspiration, nature has the canvas. This composite image of MTB rider Matvey Cheboksarov in Kazakhstan’s huge, 4,600sq-km Altyn-Emel National Park is proof. “During location scouting, we saw interesting natural drops, so we didn’t have to dig [at all],” says photographer Sergei Martynov. “Matvey suggested we shoot ‘something’ there, and that something was 360-ing it down to the desert loam.” The result: a semi-final place in Red Bull Illume, and no harm done. “In the end, Matvey rode away from the trick and didn’t break himself or any piece of the desert.” redbullillume.com

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SERGEI ALEKSANDROVICH MARTYNOV/RED BULL ILLUME

DAVYDD CHONG

TEAHUPO’O, TAHITI, FRENCH POLYNESIA

Deep heat Yes, that is a bodyboard the surfer is attached to. And yes, they’re meant to float. But such is the peril when you don’t catch Teahupo’o’s famed barrel wave just right. “There’s so much water moving that the surfer is dragged backward,” says French photographer Ben Thouard. “You’re in-between two worlds and you’re trying to escape the power of the wave, but you’re in a position where pretty much no exit is possible.” On the plus side, stunning shots like this – a Red Bull Illume semi-finalist – are possible, so swings and roundabouts, eh? benthouard.com

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DAVYDD CHONG BEN THOUARD/RED BULL ILLUME, DAN KRAUSS/RED BULL ILLUME

PALMA, MALLORCA

Land grab In bouldering parlance, a ‘dyno’ (short for dynamic movement) is a daring midair leap to reach your next hold. Which is what US climber Daniel Fong is doing – onsight, meaning without pause to prepare – in this pulse-quickening shot by photographer/director Dan Krauss, a Red Bull Illume finalist. Scary? Don’t fret: this is the discipline known as deep-water soloing, or psicobloc, so any fall will be cushioned by the churning sea below. Fourteen long metres below. dankraussphoto.com THE

RED BULLETIN

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ROD HILL/RED BULL ILLUME

DAVYDD CHONG

TAUPŌ, NEW ZEALAND

Last splash One final go. It’s an impulse that grips us all, from the teary-eyed infant hugging a plastic playground swing to the bleary-eyed gambler at the roulette table.

Kiwi photographer Rod Hill had already packed away his gear for the day when local kayaking prodigy River Mutton gave in to the urge. “It was a mad rush back down the river with my camera,” says Hill.

“I didn’t have time to get to my normal spot, so I tried this angle. All of a sudden, the light popped like I had never seen before.” And that’s how a Red Bull Illume winner – in the ‘Energy by Red Bull Photography’ category, to be precise – is made.

Instagram: @rod_coffee

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OTOCON RACE MIPS

FONTAINES DC

Mood music

Carlos O’Connell, the Irish post-punk band’s guitarist, shares his uplifting playlist When Fontaines DC released their third album, Skinty Fia, this April, it was hailed as their angriest yet.

Following the success of Dogrel (2019) and the Grammy-nominated A Hero’s Death (2020), it turned out the Irish post-punk quintet still had plenty to brood about. Unhappy at their government’s handling of the COVID crisis, and disillusioned by scandals plaguing the Catholic church, they’d moved to London only to find things weren’t any better. But it’s not all doom and gloom in the lives of Fontaines DC. Here, guitarist Carlos O’Connell (pictured, second left) lists four tracks that raise his spirits…

FILMAWI

MARCEL ANDERS

Scan this QR code to hear our Playlist podcast with Fontaines DC on Spotify

Smashing Pumpkins

Wunderhorse

Kendrick Lamar

Blur

Today (1993)

Teal (2021)

Humble (2017)

Out of Time (2003)

“When I was in my early teens I was very into grunge music.

Very. Just the noise of it.

Then I found Smashing Pumpkins have this incredible sensibility – it’s soft and supervicious at the same time, and I don’t think there’s another band who parallel that. This is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. I love the guitars in it, too.”

“What I’m excited about with [Wunderhorse, aka Jacob Slater, formerly of rock band Dead Pretties] is that he’s writing songs again. A lot of bands who emerged in the last few years haven’t paid attention to the song, the melody, the harmony. I’ve missed that. I’m sick of the formula of angular music with spoken word over it.”

“With this third song I’m choosing, I’m going a little bit different. I find Humble [a triple Grammy-winning single for the US rapper, taken from his multi-platinum album DAMN] to be such a perfectly executed song. It’s strong, it’s fearless, and it leads with the groove and just attitude. I can’t get enough of it, to be honest.”

“I think [Blur singer] Damon Albarn is one of the most incredible living songwriters, and this is a beautiful example. What I love about it is the Eastern-sounding guitar solo. It might not even be a guitar – it sounds a bit sitar-y – but the interaction of Eastern sounds and that sort of very conventional ’90s music is a beautiful thing.”

THE RED BULLETIN

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This communitybuilt skatepark in Birmingham was the first DIY spot in the UK to be awarded official park status. Now it’s under threat of being pulled down

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Oak’s Bournbrook Recreation Ground – so he and his team set about clearing the debris and installing DIY skatepark features. As word spread, the number of volunteers turning up at the site grew each day.

Professional park builders pitched in, carpenters worked for free, and volunteers planted a garden surrounding the site. A campaign on GoFundMe has, to date, raised £5,670 for the project.

Wheels in motion: building the skatepark was a labour of love

THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

Hustle and grind

What makes a park worth skating? To the uninitiated, the answer might be an arbitrary checklist of elements: a ramp to drop in on, a pole to grind, smooth tarmac for easy rolling.

But it’s only true ’boarders – those who’d actually use the park – who know the essentials that make a space skateable.

And when these are missing, the skaters move on to another space or city.

Not Shaun Boyle, however.

Exasperated by the absence of decent parks and local skate culture in Birmingham, Boyle adopted a hands-on approach.

In May 2020 he assembled a team of skaters from the city and took over a derelict space in a local recreation ground, transforming it into the UK’s first official DIY skatepark, built entirely by volunteers.

Boyle had spotted potential in the site – a rubbish-strewn slab of concrete within Selly

CELCIO SANTOS

BOURNBROOK SKATEPARK

“Birmingham is deprived of facilities for skaters, and that’s messed up,” says Boyle. “The only reason DIY parks are ever needed is if the council facilities aren’t up to scratch. Those fill a bit of land so [the council] can tick a box on a form, but they’re not good parks.”

The DIY park may have had community support, but many others in the area had been knocked down. Boyle and his team knew that gaining official recognition would be crucial to saving Bournbrook. “We had to be able to speak the suits’ language,” says Berni Good, one of the project directors. “We set up Birmingham Skate Spaces, a community interest company governed by corporate company law. And we learned what the European safety standards were so we could build a park that would pass inspection.”

Bournbrook cost just £7,000 – a vastly smaller sum than the usual £150,000 spent on similar local council structures – and in September 2021 it became the first-ever DIY park in the UK to be awarded formal skatepark status and was officially opened to the public.

But the story doesn’t end there. The fight for the site at Bournbrook has begun again, amid threats of closure. “We have temporary use of the park right now, but our biggest threat is from commercial organisations,” explains Good.

“Aldi wants to knock down the park to extend its store nearby.

The land is valuable.”

To fight these organisations, Birmingham Skate Spaces is working against the demolition of skateboarding sites, and aiming to create more. “Our goal is to build more spaces like this, designed by skateboarders and the wider community,” says Good. “Skateboarding has only just been recognised for the positive sport it is. We will continue to fight for this space, and we’ll continue to disrupt other spaces.”

Instagram: @bournbrookdiy

Sticky situations. Not usually something high on the wish list and not usually something you want to find yourself in, with just one exception that is.

When it comes to MTB shoes, a sticky situation is precisely what you’re after, it’s what you dream of, it’s the goal, the very aim of the game.

A non-sticky situation is at best a pedal slip, at worst it’s painfully gouging a chunk of flesh out of your calf or losing a race. Not good, not what you wanted at all.

Step forward, pun intended, the all-new Endura MTB Footwear Collection.

Crammed to the gills with technology and innovation to make your pedal stroke smoother, stiffer and more comfortable, with better power transfer and crucially a super durable sole made of glue… Ok, it’s not made of glue, but it’s as sticky as hell… which is precisely why we named it Stickyfoot™ Stick or Twist?

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LOU BOYD HENRY GLOGAU

Henry Glogau always wanted to use his design skills to address real-world problems.

So, after graduating in architecture in 2018, the New Zealander chose not to look for his first job in his homeland but instead take a more daring next step. The young designer moved to Denmark, joined the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and turned his focus exclusively to developing architecture in extreme environments.

“I think that as architects and designers, we sometimes sit in the comfort of our own home or studio without actually going out there and understanding the conditions or local context of the people we’re designing for,” the 26-year-old explains.

Glogau’s studies took him as far as remotest Alaska, but when he travelled to the coastal community of Nueva Esperanza (‘New Hope’) in Mejillones, Chile, in 2019 he found a real opportunity to put his untraditional ethos to the test. Here, water prices are the highest in Latin America, so Glogau looked at what was free and in unlimited supply: sunlight and seawater.

Informed by the needs of the local community, he designed and created the Solar Desalination Skylight. This low-tech home device filters sea water, making it drinkable, with the leftover brine used to generate energy and power the built-in light source.

“These informal settlement camps [in Mejillones] don’t have access to basic resources like water, electricity and sanitation,” explains Glogau.

“So the initial idea [for the skylight] was born from thinking about the challenges in those extreme conditions.”

Glogau’s invention uses a simple method of desalination to produce up to a litre of purified water every 12 hours.

The briny waste is channelled into 12 salt batteries, which, in THE RED BULLETIN

SOLAR DESALINATION SKYLIGHT

More than a bright idea Groundbreaking design doesn’t have to be high-tech. This clever device provides essential resources and can be made from bottles, cans and tape

Glow guy: Henry Glogau, creator of the Solar Desalination Skylight

combination with a mini solar panel charged during the day, provide enough energy – 9.53 volts each day – to power an LED light strip at night.

“We need to think of ways in which we can work with challenging ecosystems, rather than always trying to fight and be resilient against it,” says Glogau of his simple design. “Many of the best ideas originated hundreds of years ago. We don’t always have to reinvent the wheel.”

The Kiwi designer has now begun work on developing new and improved versions of his prototype. He’s also teaching people in Nueva Esperanza how to replicate the

device themselves. His ‘recipe’ kit and workshops allow them to create a solar desalination skylight from accessible materials such as recycled bottles, cans, knives and tape.

“I’m looking to create a finished product, but also to create these hybrid versions that can literally be made from a recipe book,” Glogau says. “So you could open a manual and create it with whatever resources you have available. Different people have different intentions for design. For me, it’s about open-sourcing this idea and making it accessible to as many people as possible.” henryglogau.com 19

ALL-NEW

MOTERRA

NEO

AND

MOTERRA

NEO

LT

WHEN

THE

ONLY

BOUNDARY

LEFT

IS

GRAVITY

RADIO LENTO

Sound garden

GETTY IMAGES

NINA ZIETMAN

The podcast that captures the stillness of nature and lets listeners bring the outside in Imagine pattering rain, the hum of crickets, waves crashing on a shingle beach…

These are just some of the soothing natural sounds recorded across the UK

by Madeleine Sugden and Hugh Huddy for their hit weekly podcast, Radio Lento.

The east London-based couple describe Radio Lento – of which there are now more than 100 episodes, none of them featuring a single human voice – as a collection of “landscape postcards in 3D THE RED BULLETIN

Natural high: Hugh Huddy and Madeleine Sugden, the east London couple who created the Radio Lento podcast

immersive sound”. As Sugden explains, “There’s beauty in everyday normal places that anyone can get to. When we go out, I take photographs and Hugh takes sound photographs.

We want to document the essence of a place.”

Huddy has been capturing the sounds of nature since the age of seven. It was only when lockdown hit in March 2020 that he and Sugden decided to turn his field recordings into a podcast. “Our lives are full of music and talking,” says Huddy.

“We go around with an audio butterfly net, capturing that beautiful aural balm you get in a place where you can relax.”

This could be anything from the call of a woodcock in the Forest of Dean to a trickling stream in North Wales.

But while the concept might sound simple, recording an

episode is no easy task. Now – with two children in tow, but no car to transport them or their surround-sound audio equipment – the duo work under tighter constraints. So, every weekend, the family take the train to secluded spots in the countryside around London and cover long distances on foot – almost 1,000km over the past two years.

Using a map, Sugden plots possible recording sites that are far away from road traffic, tourist hotspots and flight paths. After setting up the equipment, they hike a couple of kilometres further on and wait to see what the mic picks up. “Someone might be mowing or using a circular saw; other times, we’ll hear a cuckoo or a muntjac – it really is the luck of the draw,” says Sugden.

With 180,000-plus downloads, and listeners in more than 60 countries, the podcast’s impact has been remarkable. “People say it was a lifeline during lockdown,” says Sugden. “They played it to their children to help them sleep, to pets on Bonfire Night, even to soothe sick hedgehogs in an animal hospital. Some people overseas just want to listen to the sounds of home.”

Earlier this year, the British Library recognised the value of Radio Lento by adding the recordings to its archives, so now future generations will be able to listen to the sounds of the UK’s quiet places.

And, due to popular demand, Huddy and Sugden are now developing a 24-hour rolling stream of the podcast.

“I was listening to my favourite episode, Rain Garden After Dark, a few days ago,” says Huddy. “It was therapeutic, just reminiscent of childhood, sitting in a tent. Being able to put that on a podcast and share the feeling that comes through – that’s what it’s all about.”

Listen to Radio Lento via your favourite podcast app; Twitter: @RadioLento 21

Meet the French creative with designs on improving life on our planet, using the wonders of the cosmos as her inspiration “History is repeating itself,” says Dr Nelly Ben HayounStépanian of our world in 2022.

“Why can’t we imagine a new way?” The French-born and now London-based artist, filmmaker and self-styled ‘designer of experiences’ is attempting to do just that, harnessing the power of science and technology to make art that forces the public to sit up and think outside the box.

Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s experiential creations over the past 10 years have included the International Space Orchestra, a group of NASA scientists and astronauts playing music 22

Barbie girl: Dr Nelly in doll form, courtesy of Mattel, a former client

THE RED BULLETIN

NINA ZIETMAN

The truth is out there

inspired by space exploration, who have performed in concert alongside artists such as Damon Albarn, Beck and Sigur Rós. And in 2017 Ben HayounStépanian founded the University of the Underground, a free postgraduate education centre based at nightclubs in London and Amsterdam. The university’s board members include Noam Chomsky and Pussy Riot, who also feature in her 2019 film I Am (Not) A Monster – available on Netflix – a humorous search for the origins of knowledge, with the help of artists, thinkers, puppets and a dead political philosopher. It’s easy to see why her design studio has the tagline: ‘The Manufacturers of the Impossible’.

A marriage of art and science sits at the centre of Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s mission to discover original answers to our planet’s biggest questions. While these might appear disparate disciplines, in her mind they’re inextricably connected. Plurality is the way forward, according to the

NICK BALLON, JET

DR NELLY BEN HAYOUN-STÉPANIAN

36-year-old. “I’ve spent my life trying to explode empirical systems of knowledge,” she says. “You might not think there’s a deep connection between, say, a squid in the ocean and the Moon, but there is. We see things as compartmentalised, but that’s a very colonial way of thinking, which is just not needed any more.”

Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s approach is gaining traction, and in 2017 Creative Review magazine named her in its list of the top 50 creatives driving change in the world. Her most recent project, Tour De Moon, was a UK-based cosmic-themed arts and science festival that travelled the country with the aim of inspiring “radical imagination, a chance to think up an alternative future”. This psychedelic mishmash of surrealist plays and thoughtprovoking talks, accompanied by an interactive convoy pumping out live DJ sets, was created in collaboration with 18- to 25-year-olds, nightlife workers and an advisory board that included activist and former Sheffield mayor Magid Magid, WeTransfer president Damian Bradfield, and astronomer Dr Franck Marchis.

“The fact that we can bring together all of these minds, it’s completely explosive,” she says.

The Moon is a symbol that Ben Hayoun-Stépanian often returns to. “Night-time is a space for true creative innovation,” she says. “You’re out of the comfort of daylight hours.” While the Moon symbolises a blank canvas on which to project a new world vision, Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s work is firmly focused on fixing problems here on Earth.

“Ultimately, I hope we keep disseminating the idea that things don’t have to be this way,” she explains. “That you, as an individual and as part of a collective experience, have the power to change things.” nellyben.com

Go anywhere, do everything.

The all-new Roll Top. The pack that has your back, whatever the conditions.

Alice Hickson

Depth becomes her The underwater world has helped this champion freediver make sense of her life above it Words JESSICA HOLLAND

Photography DAAN VERHOEVEN

Holding your breath underwater for long stretches of time, as freedivers do, is a mind game. As your body is starved of oxygen, the diaphragm starts to contract. Panicking will only spike your heart rate and accelerate oxygen use, and there’s always the risk of going too far and blacking out.

But, for Alice Hickson, who has dedicated the last eight years to freediving, it’s life-affirming. Born in Doncaster but now Cornwall-based, Hickson signed up for a freediving course in Bristol in 2014, inspired by the Luc Besson film The Big Blue and a lifelong love of being immersed in water. She found she was a natural.

In 2015, just eight months after taking up the sport, she won gold at the Pool World Championships in Belgrade, diving 174m in one breath, without fins. Hickson now holds the national record for all four pool disciplines and one of three in depth.

That’s not to say it’s been easy.

There was a failed relationship with a partner who wasn’t supportive of her freediving dreams. COVID hit just as she prepared to open a beach café to support herself financially while training. She also suffers from debilitating pain and sickness linked to her menstrual cycle, which prevented her from competing in the Depth World Championship last year.

Hickson is now training hard for the Pool World Championships in Bulgaria this month – her first competition in three years – doing underwater sessions, gym workouts and mental preparation on top of working as an ad-hoc labourer and freediving coach to pay the bills. But, for the 32-year-old, it has all been

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worth it. “Before I found freediving, I was very lost,” she says. “It’s given me drive, meaning and a purpose.” the red bulletin: What does freediving feel like? alice hickson: I’m not very good at staying still, but in the water it’s like the flick of a switch. When you’re diving deep, you just feel completely insignificant; nothing else matters.

It can almost feel like you’re flying.

Did you expect to win gold in your first year of competing?

No! I was working two jobs and at university part-time, so I had to start a crowdfund to get there. I went with no expectations. I did two disciplines: dynamic no fins (how many lengths you can do in one breath) and static (face down in the water, holding your breath). I was really anxious on the day of the dynamic final, but I ended up winning gold. In static, I got a PB and broke the national record. It was one of the best weeks ever.

Do you worry about blacking out?

I did black out in the 2016 World Championships, during static. It was only a little one, a few seconds. I was used to a warmer pool. When you’re cold and start shivering, you’re using energy, which uses oxygen. Now I know that I needed a thicker wetsuit.

Does freediving cultivate an attitude of mindfulness?

There’s the mammalian dive reflex, which slows down your heart rate when your face is in water. The blood from your extremities goes to your core to save energy. Everything feels calmer. You learn to let everything go. If you start thinking, “I’ve left the oven on,” it raises your heart rate and

you’ll use up oxygen through panic.

This transfers into daily life: if you learn to breathe slower, calmer or deeper, it can impact on your emotions and help you manage everyday problems.

How does it feel when you start to reach your limit and your body feels the urge to breathe?

Freediving is as much a mental game as it is physical. It helps that I feel more comfortable in water than I do on land.

For me, it’s meditative. You realise the contractions are just a signal from your body, and if you relax into it you can overcome that and go a bit longer. The best dives are when you’re in a state of flow and don’t even notice them.

What’s it like to explore the ocean with no equipment?

It’s a lot less cumbersome than scuba diving, and not as scary for the wildlife – we’ve had dolphins and seals join us.

You might see spider crabs as big as footballs. There’s a reef nearby [in Cornwall] where you can see wrasse, sea bass, jellyfish… Then you come to a dark hole in the rock. You swim through and follow the light to the surface. You know when you visit an amusement park and you want go on a ride again and again? It’s like that. After not being in the sea for months because of lockdown, I went to the bottom of the line and lay down in the kelp. The sway of the ocean is like being rocked. That’s a really lovely feeling.

How has freediving changed you?

It’s helped me become calmer and more confident. When you’re aware of being a tiny drop in this huge ocean, it’s like nothing matters.

Like a tide, things come and go.

Nothing’s permanent.

What’s next in freediving?

Fifty years ago, they thought that no one could go past a depth of 50m.

I don’t think the limits have been reached yet. Freediving isn’t like most sports – you get better with age.

You get stronger mentally and your metabolic rate slows down. I’ve got loads more potential. I’m continuing that journey.

Instagram: @alice_hickson_freediver

THE RED BULLETIN

“When you’re diving deep, it can almost feel like you’re flying”

THE RED BULLETIN

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Denzel Curry

Speaking the unspeakable The US rapper explains how working on his mental health helped him make his most honest album to date Words WILL LAVIN

Photography ADRIAN VILLAGOMEZ

After more than a decade on the scene, Denzel Curry is ready for the big time. The Florida rapper began writing rhymes in sixth grade, having long harboured dreams of becoming a poet, and released his first mixtape at the age of 16. A string of acclaimed albums, mixtapes and singles later – most notably his punk-inspired breakout track Ultimate in 2015 – the now 27-year-old has gained a reputation as one of the most talented lyricists in the hip-hop underground, with numerous high-profile fans, from Thundercat to Billie Eilish.

But Curry’s readiness to take the next step in his career has as much to do with the work he’s done on his mental health as it does his industry accolades. In the past, the rapper has struggled to convey via his music the trauma and torment that have stalked him throughout his career, including the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. However, on his latest album, Melt My Eyez See Your Future, he’s finally able to be completely honest. “I didn’t play it to my friends for months because it was so real,” he admits.

Here, Curry details how working on himself has opened the door to his musical future… the red bulletin: What prompted you to open up on this new album? denzel curry: For a while I was disguising my trauma in the music I was making. But people have this perception of you, like, “Oh, man, you’re not willing to man up to whatever you’ve got going on.” And so I wanted to man up about every

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single thing. I don’t need people to tell me who I am; I know who I am.

That’s what made me write it all down. I was feeling remorseful about the majority of my actions, and I had to put it out somewhere, somehow.

When did you realise things had to change?

I was at the studio. I was saying a lot of shit that was super-suicidal, and then I had to really think about myself, like, “What am I saying?”

I went home and broke down to my girlfriend about everything I’ve been through. She had tears running down her face, and I’m crying and shit. It was just a lot. My girl was actually the one who helped me find a therapist.

How has therapy helped you?

It made me open up about a lot of things, because you’re mining and digging up some pretty deep-rooted stuff. All my previous actions were based around something that happened to me in my life. I’m shaped by trauma. But nowadays, at the age of 27, I’m shaping myself by overcoming trauma. My therapist was like, “We’re not looking for you to be perfect; we’re looking for you to progress as a human being.”

There’s a stigma surrounding therapy and mental health, especially in the Black community.

Did that delay you seeking help?

Definitely. If you told your homies you were going to therapy, they’d be like, “What you going to therapy for? Are you crazy? Don’t go to therapy, just talk to us.” But you can’t tell them half the shit you’ve been going through, because they

wouldn’t get it. I need somebody who’s on the outside, someone completely unbiased.

Thundercat, who appears on your new album, recently told The Red Bulletin how Muay Thai [Thai boxing] helped him overcome his own traumas. Have you guys ever connected through it, given you’re also a keen Muay Thai fighter?

Me and him were hanging out every day throughout quarantine. We’d watch a lot of fighting together, and I’d show him my sparring videos. I’ll go through certain arm techniques he can use to stretch out his legs and stuff, and he’ll show me boxing techniques. We related so much through that and through just being yourself. He’s actually one of the reasons why I continue to be myself, because he doesn’t give a fuck. He’s like, “Bruh, I’ma wear this. I’m gonna paint my nails. I’m gonna get a [anime series] Cowboy Bebop tattoo, and I’m gonna wear these cat ears.” He knows what he likes.

And that helped me to express what I like, and how to convey it.

You’re Billie Eilish’s favourite rapper. How did it feel to learn that one of the world’s biggest pop stars was a fan of yours?

It was dope as fuck! But I don’t see her as this huge pop star. Everyone around me sees her as the biggest pop star in the world. To me, she’s my homie. I’ve known her since she was young. So I don’t see her that way, except maybe when we were out on tour together. It was mindblowing to see these packed arenas.

Being on that tour with her opened my eyes to the possibility that I could do this, too; I could do arenas.

So it gave you new self-belief?

I wanted to be able to do arenas, and I was figuring out a way to do it. It’s gonna happen one day. Next time you interview me, it will be in an arena somewhere.

Denzel Curry’s latest album, Melt My Eyez See Your Future, is out now on PH and Loma Vista Recordings; denzelcurry.com

THE RED BULLETIN

“I had been disguising my trauma in the music I was making” THE RED BULLETIN

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Dr Mya-Rose Craig

Flying in the face of convention Thanks to a lifelong love of all things avian, the BritishBangladeshi ornithologist and diversity activist is forging new paths into the British countryside Words LAURA HOLT

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Photography OLIVER EDWARDS

Mya-Rose Craig’s brown skin and youthful appearance immediately set her apart from your stereotypical white, middle-aged bird-watcher.

But looks are just the start of it. The Somerset-born naturalist was only 11 when she set up her blog, Birdgirl; eight years on, it has had six million hits. “The unexpected thing was that people actually read it,” she says.

“Then, once I’d gained that platform, I realised I was interested in talking about more than just birds.”

At 13, Craig began organising bird-watching camps that provided access for minority ethnic groups, and then set up the Black2Nature project to tackle the lack of diversity in her field. She has since campaigned alongside Greta Thunberg, travelled to the Arctic with Greenpeace, and sparked a 14-publisher fist fight over her latest book, also titled Birdgirl.

In 2020, Craig received an honorary doctorate from Bristol Uni; she’s currently studying Human, Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge.

And if her twitching moniker makes her sound like a superhero, that’s because she quite possibly is.

What does bird-watching mean to you?

My parents stopped working in 2010 because my mum got really ill with bipolar. We’d always used birdwatching to keep us together, and after she was sectioned we decided that travel was what we’d do with our time and money. Flying to another country and immersing ourselves was incredibly good for us.

the red bulletin: At 17, you were the youngest person ever to have seen half of the world’s 10,000 bird species. Which stand out? dr mya-rose craig: I loved seeing a shoebill in Tanzania, a harpy eagle in Brazil, and the southern cassowary in Australia. Cassowaries are 6ft tall [1.8m], like [small] dinosaurs, with these strange crowns and huge talons that can shred people to pieces. As a kid, they captured my imagination.

What role can white-led organisations play?

Often, they spend money on projects, but maybe [they could work] with existing community organisations, rather than starting from scratch and assuming they’re the experts.

Why did you set up Black2Nature?

When I was growing up, the only people in the countryside who looked like me were myself, my mum and my sister. I set up a bird-watching camp, and everyone who signed up was a white, middle-class boy. So I went into Bristol to talk to parents and community organisations and track down people to bring to the camps. Black2Nature became a longterm project once I realised it might be a systemic issue. No one was talking about it. No one cared that people weren’t being given access.

The camps are still going strong: we’re doing 11 this year, and we’ve been given charity status.

How does it feel to be compared to Greta Thunberg?

I’ve met her twice: once at the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate [in 2020], and on a panel at COP26 [last year].

She’s done so much for the youth climate movement, which itself has

managed to expand the conversation around climate change from a niche issue to the heart of everything.

You’ve been everywhere from the Arctic to the Amazon. Which location resonated most?

My favourite was going to South America for six months – Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. In Bolivia, we went from the depths of the Amazon basin up to the Altiplano at 5,000m.

It’s such a beautiful country.

You’ve met many celebrities through your work: Chris Packham, David Attenborough… Any favourites?

I interviewed Jane Goodall and she was amazing. So practical and down-to-earth, self-aware and funny.

Things like gulping down a bit of whisky to help her voice before interviews. She’s lived a full life.

How did your honorary doctorate come about?

I got an email out of the blue. My parents thought it was a scam, because you had to click a link. It was incredible, especially as the previous few years had been difficult, with lots of online abuse. Campaigning can be thankless work, especially talking about diversity, which makes people uncomfortable. So this institution giving me an honour felt like a big deal. And I got to wear a funny hat.

You hold the record for the most northerly climate protest, at 82.4° N. What was that like?

One of my greatest achievements.

I was angry and I wanted to portray that. I had this lightbulb moment: “This is overlapping with that Global Day of Climate Action. We should do something.” I knew that image [Craig on the Arctic ice with a handdrawn sign] would be effective. It went viral. It showed people cared.

What does the future hold for you?

My life’s become much less exciting since [starting] university. My main goal is to get my degree. Then there’s COP27 this autumn – it feels like an important moment.

Birdgirl is out on June 30, published by Jonathan Cape/Vintage; birdgirluk.com

THE RED BULLETIN

“Growing up, there was no one in the countryside who looked like us”

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Above and beyond Three-quarters of a second: that’s all it took for hurdler KARSTEN WARHOLM to redefine the cutting edge of human athleticism. But once you’ve gone further than anyone thought possible, where do you go next?

Leaping giant: Karsten Warholm, photographed for The Red Bulletin at Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway, in April

Words RICHARD EDWARDS Photography SANDRO BAEBLER

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Restricted view: a COVID-limited crowd of 5,000 watched from these seats last July as Warholm took the world record

Karsten Warholm

“I’m obsessed with excellence.

How can you push the limits?”

T

aking gold at the Tokyo Olympics introduced Karsten Warholm to a global audience. But, almost a year on from a performance in the 400m hurdles so explosive it shattered the world record and earned him the title of 2021 Male World Athlete of the Year at the World Athletics Awards, he says it could have gone better. “It was a bit embarrassing, actually – it took me two goes to rip my top,” the 26-year-old Norwegian recalls of his impulsive, chestexposing victory celebration, beamed to viewers across the world. “There I was, trying to be Superman, and I couldn’t even tear my own costume.”

Warholm is speaking to The Red Bulletin in the bowels of the fabled Bislett Stadium in Norway’s capital, Oslo. The venue is steeped in athletics history, and its running circuit is nicknamed the ‘world record track’ for good reason: it has routinely played host to some of the greatest middle-distance races in an annual competition known as the ‘Dream Mile’.

Here, in 1980, British runner Steve Ovett broke the world record for the mile; fellow Brit Steve Cram followed suit in 1985, setting a global best that would stand for eight years. In 1990, Czech athlete Jan Zelezny cleared the javelin world record by such a distance he almost sent it flying into the crowd.

And in July 2021, at the Bislett Games, Warholm

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beat US hurdler Kevin Young’s 400m world record of 46.78 seconds, shaving 0.08 seconds off a benchmark that had held for 29 years. Warholm’s record would not last so long: just 33 days later, in Tokyo, he obliterated it himself.

Even before the gun had sounded on that sundrenched afternoon of August 3, 2021, in the Japan National Stadium, there was a sense that something special was eminently possible. It was unarguably the greatest field of 400m hurdlers ever assembled, with the world champion (Warholm) lining up alongside the US champion (Rai Benjamin) and the South American champion (Alison dos Santos of Brazil) – three of the four fastest competitors of all time (the fourth being previous record holder Young). Add Commonwealth champion Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands and the race had all the ingredients to deliver one of the greatest athletics finals over any distance in Olympic history.

One of Warholm’s final acts before race start was to slap his thighs in a manner that suggested he was ready. Benjamin, his great rival, looked on impassively. What happened next exceeded even the wildest predictions, as the Norwegian broke the 46-second barrier to claim gold with a time of 45.94s – 0.76 seconds quicker than his previous record – leaving athletic convention scattered in tiny pieces all over the stadium, which, regrettably, was 33

Karsten Warholm

incredible 9.58 seconds in the 100m at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. The latter, which stands to this day, shed more than a tenth of a second off Bolt’s previous record – the largest-ever gain in the 100m since electronic timing began.

As a reminder, Warholm sliced more than threequarters of a second off his world record.

The problem for the Norwegian is that he’s set an impossibly high bar. Welsh former 110m hurdling world champion Colin Jackson stated afterwards that he was “pretty sure [Warholm’s] world record will outlive me”. He’s 55. Warholm himself called it the closest he’s ever come to “the perfect race”.

So, what’s next? With back-to-back World and European Championships arriving this summer, the answer is… a reckoning.

I Track suited: Warholm and his esteemed coach/ mentor Leif Olav Alnes have a great camaraderie

almost entirely empty as a result of the pandemic.

Benjamin and Dos Santos, in second and third respectively, both recorded times that would have been the quickest in history just five weeks earlier.

“That was something else, wasn’t it?” smiles Warholm. “I was looking at the clock, thinking, ‘This must be wrong.’ But if you watch the race back, it almost looks like it’s in fast forward. If you compare it to other races, it just looks quicker.

“I think a number of factors were in play. First, it’s the competition and tension of the Olympics. But it was also warm and it’s a good track, a fast track.

When you get to the finish line, you know if it’s been a good race – that’s the same whether it’s the Olympics or any other meeting. I knew it had been a good race, but I didn’t know it was going to be sub-46 seconds, because that’s crazy. That just doesn’t happen.”

He’s not wrong. It’s worth remembering that until 1948 no athlete had run 400m in less than 46 seconds, even without the additional complication of hurdles. You could argue that, in athletics history, the only feats comparable to what Warholm achieved that day are US long-jumper Bob Beamon’s leap of 8.90m at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City – adding 55cm to the previous record – or Usain Bolt’s 34

t’s a cold Saturday in April on the warm-up track snaking around Bislett’s basement, and Warholm will soon be entering ‘cold storage’ – total isolation from the media and other distractions so he can focus on the impending challenges that could define his career. But, for now, a double-door entrance to the main outside track is ajar, allowing a cool Norwegian breeze to enter an area that’s very much a home from home for the hurdler.

The two-lane 400m course – itself the brainchild of Warholm’s coach and mentor, Leif Olav Alnes – appears to be a weekend magnet for men and women of all ages and abilities. Alongside the stretch of track occupied by Warholm and his coach today is a short sprint course where teenagers are being put through their paces. One is running while dragging an enormous weight; another, recovering from injury, is on a scooter, keeping pace with her teammates on two wheels.

All would doubtless love to be the next Warholm, but most are happy to just run past the famous athlete and let him go about his business. “People in Norway are pretty respectful,” he says. “If I was out in Oslo, then sure, people would probably know who I was, but they wouldn’t bother me.”

Warholm is an unlikely track icon. Born in the harbour town of Ulsteinvik on Hareidlandet, an island on Norway’s west coast, his was a family with no great sporting pedigree. His father played football, but worked as an electrical engineer in the maritime industry. Warholm, it seems, ran himself into history almost entirely by accident.

“My friend took me to a race that was held around the town’s houses,” he says. “It was only

“I like the tension, the nerves… there’s so much pressure on me to perform” THE RED BULLETIN

Duel focus: two big dates loom for Warholm – the World Championships in July, then August’s European showdown

THE RED BULLETIN

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Karsten Warholm

“I’ve learned that more is possible than you think” Clear advantage: Warholm displays the wellhoned hurdling technique that has made the Norwegian a world-beater

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Stretching himself: Warholm says that competing in both the 400m hurdles and the 400m flat is tough on his body

something like 300m, and we were very young, probably six or seven. I ran in my jeans and an oversized T-shirt, but I won the race. That was probably the first time I had ever really run; it was the start of it all, I guess. But I was always quick and had a lot of guts. It was just fun. I loved it.”

In many ways, nothing much has changed. If there’s one thing that sets Warholm apart from everyone else on the track, it’s that he looks like he’s having the time of his life every time he runs; the motivation that dragged his younger self around in jeans and a T-shirt now powering him onto a different plane entirely.

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“It’s a passion for me,” he says, “but not a passion for the 400m hurdles – it could be the 100m or the 800m. It’s more about feeling motivated to get better at something, making the most of everything I’ve got. I never had parents pushing me. Yes, they made sure I went to training, but I was always driving myself. I’m obsessed with excellence. How can you push the limits?”

Despite all the attention he’s attracted since hotfooting his way into athletic folklore, Warholm is as grounded an athlete as you’re likely to meet.

His mum is now his manager, and he speaks to Alnes every day. Warholm says that if his coach retired or THE RED BULLETIN

Karsten Warholm

“I ran my first race aged six, in jeans and an oversized T-shirt, but I won”

walked away from the sport, then he would too, such is the strength of the bond that has carried him so far in such a short space of time.

Always ready with a one-liner, Alnes is as instantly recognisable as Warholm in their home country, not least because, in 2020, they both appeared in a local fly-on-the-wall TV series titled Karsten og Leif (Karsten and Leif). The show has become something of a cult hit, with the pair’s antics shining a light on one of modern sport’s great double acts. They share the same sense of humour and the burning desire to push the boundaries of what is possible. And, like his protégé, a smile is THE RED BULLETIN

rarely far from the face of the diminutive and bespectacled mentor.

A former sprinter himself, Alnes previously coached Norwegian track stars such as Geir Moen, a European and World Indoor Champion in the mid’90s. His athlete-coach relationship with Warholm is as close as any, but their partnership owes as much to chance and inclement weather as to athletic ability.

“A member of the Norwegian Athletics Association recommended that I go and have a chat with this young guy who was doing decathlon at the time, because he thought we’d be a perfect fit,” recalls Alnes, sitting in one of the distinctive green seats in the Bislett stands as a succession of runners are put through their paces on the outdoor track.

“I went to see him and his family and there was a terrible storm, delaying my plane, so I ended up staying the night. We spoke, and after a few minutes I felt we could do this.

“I want to do some boy’s things before I die – some diving, shooting. When you’re a professional coach, you don’t get to do much of it. I was semiretired, but I was looking for the last dance. Karsten said that if I could come two days a week, that would be fine. I said no. I told him that if he was going to do it, he was going to do it right.”

Not for the last time in their near seven-year partnership, Alnes was proven correct. Within a year, a 20-year-old Warholm was competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics. In his first qualifying round, he beat the Norwegian 400m hurdles national record in a comparatively modest 48.49 seconds.

In the semi-final, he finished fourth, missing out on a place in the final.

“When he started, he could only go over [the hurdles] with his left leg in front,” says Alnes.

“We designed a race where he only used that one.

Now, we don’t talk about one good foot and one bad foot, we talk about gold and silver. They’re both good, but one is better.”

B

y the time 2017 dawned, Warholm had only one medal colour on his mind. At London’s Olympic Stadium, the Scandinavian saw off the challenge of Yasmani Copello of Turkey and the American Kerron Clement to claim his first World Championship gold. He celebrated by donning a Viking helmet on his victory lap before collapsing in the long-jump pit and asking a Reuters photographer to pinch him to ensure he wasn’t dreaming. He kept his headgear on for his post-race 39

interview, much to the delight of the assembled press. Warholm, it’s clear, is not a man to celebrate his triumphs discreetly.

“I never plan how I celebrate, because I never take wins for granted,” he says. “There are so many mixed emotions when you cross the finish line first: relief, happiness, euphoria... That’s when you do these stupid things. When I crossed that finish line in Tokyo, I had so much energy that I needed to burn it off. It was pure joy.”

Warholm’s energy is infectious. Outside the Bislett Stadium, as the sun gets lower in the sky, the number of runners doing 400m circuits thins out as the temperature drops. But inside, the longer Warholm stays on the warm-up track, the greater the speeds of those aspiring to emulate him.

He climbs into the stands to have some pictures taken, surveying the stadium where he received such acclaim last summer. “That almost felt like destiny,” he says. “We had this perfect scenario: Leif and I were dreaming about first beating the world record in front of a home crowd [at the Bislett Games in July], then we wanted to beat it in Monaco [Diamond League 2021, just over a week later], and then again in Tokyo [at the Olympics, three weeks later]. It almost happened, but not quite.” Warholm merely won in Monaco, setting a track-meet record. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Having torn up the record books, he now faces the pressure of running just as fast every time he sets foot on a track – starting at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA, this July.

There he will resume his rivalry – perhaps the greatest in any sport right now – with Rai Benjamin, son of former West Indies cricketer Winston Benjamin, and a man who, were it not for Warholm, would likely be hailed as one of the greatest hurdlers of all time.

In that same race in Tokyo last year, Benjamin finished in 46.17 seconds – a staggering half a second faster than Warholm’s 29-year-record shatterer from a month earlier, but merely second best in this race. The Wall Street Journal called Benjamin “the American who broke a world record and lost”. At least for now, he’s the warm-up act for the flying Norwegian.

“It’s a friendly rivalry,” says Warholm. “We don’t speak that often – we live in different time zones, in different places – but there’s a lot of respect there.

We both compete at a level where we know how much it takes to be there, but we still want to beat each other. He’s never beaten me – he’s probably sick and tired of me, and I can understand why.

Everybody wants to win. He’s a great athlete and he’s been giving me the hardest battles for medals.

When he competes against me, I need to be on my toes. If not, I’ll lose.”

That’s not a feeling Warholm has been familiar with for some time. And not one he’s looking to reacquaint himself with, either in Oregon or at the European Championships in Munich in August.

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“There I was, trying to be Superman, and I couldn’t even tear my costume” “I haven’t lost a race since 2018,” he ruminates, referencing his third-place finish at the Continental Cup in the Czech Republic in September of that year. “But people really to want to beat me now.

This is the thing I have to fight with all the time.”

In a sport where peaking at the right time is an art form, Warholm knows the margin for error is minuscule. “I don’t think I’m necessarily that much faster than the other guys, but I make sure that I’m just as good as them,” he says. He’s also in an occupation where performance technology can serve up fractional advantages. After Tokyo, Warholm commented on the current wave of ‘superspike’ shoes worn by Nike athletes, which have soles THE RED BULLETIN

Karsten Warholm

forward to performing against the best is probably the day that I won’t be able to run the sort of times I run now. It will definitely be on in Eugene.”

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Looking ripped: Warholm reenacts his shirt-wrecking celebration from last year’s Tokyo Olympics – and nails it at the first attempt this time THE RED BULLETIN

that contain highly responsive, energy-returning Pebax foam. “If you put a trampoline [in the shoe] I think it’s bullshit,” he stated at the time. Notably, Benjamin is a Nike athlete. Today, Warholm – who wears Puma spikes that were co-developed by the Mercedes F1 team and don’t feature Pebax – is a little more reserved. “I’ve probably said enough on this already,” is all that he’ll offer, although Alnes interjects, “It shouldn’t be about how good your shoe is. If I had my way, the athletes would run with no shoes.”

Warholm isn’t losing sleep over the things he can’t control. You might even say that he revels in it. “I like the tension, the nerves. I have to fight all these thoughts, because there’s so much pressure on me to perform. But the good thing is that I’m the one applying the most pressure, I have the biggest expectations. So, when it’s not working out, I’m disappointing myself the most.

“Then it comes down to the starting line and it’s a question of who fucks it up and who doesn’t. I look forward to being in my best shape and performing, because that’s what I do. The day I don’t look

s Warholm begins packing his bag to leave the stadium, those around him joke about the mess he’s created. He laughs, too. He laughs a lot. There’s a sense of mischief that’s almost the direct antithesis of his dedication to training. So, is it his mental strength or physical abilities that makes Warholm the best in his field?

Or is the answer a lot simpler?

“Einstein said something really smart once,” says Alnes. “He said, ‘If you can’t explain something simply, are you sure you understand it well enough?’

“When I started, people told me that I didn’t know 400m hurdles. I said, ‘You don’t need to, you just have to run one lap of the track fast.’ Of course, the hurdles aren’t going to make you any faster, so if you want to do it quickly you have to lose as little time as possible over the 10 obstacles.” Simple.

Perhaps the biggest question for Warholm moving forward relates to that first point. Given his ability to run so fast between the hurdles, would it one day be possible for him to achieve something that no other athlete in history has managed – a World or Olympic title in both the 400m hurdles and the 400m flat? “That’s a lot of lactic [acid],” he muses. “It’s three rounds in each at a world-class level. I doubled up in the European champs in Berlin [in 2018] and it didn’t go too well – the hurdles were OK, but I was hammered after that.”

Competing back-to-back for four days, Warholm took gold in the 400m hurdles, but finished eighth and last in the 400m flat. “There’s almost no break, and it’s very tough for the body to handle,” he admits, his aura of invulnerability momentarily shimmering. “If I decided to go with just the flat, that’d be more realistic. Also, when I’ve delivered the results that I have in 400m hurdles, it’s difficult to live up to the same standards in another event.

People expect that I can do 42 [seconds] in the 400m flat, but I can’t. It’s a different thing.

“What I’ve learned in my career, though, is that more things are possible than you believe.”

Whatever happens, Warholm will only be around for us to enjoy for as long as his coach is, and while Alnes is spritely and effervescent, he turned 65 this January. “If he stops tomorrow, then I stop tomorrow,” says Warholm. “I think it would be possible for us to push the limits for a long time, but when this thing is gone, the magic is gone, and then there’s no point.”

Not that Warholm needs all of his coach.

Whenever Alnes says that he’s off on holiday or doing any activity that could be remotely dangerous, the young hurdler always tells him to wear a helmet.

“We only need his brain,” says Warholm, before coach and athlete dissolve into laughter again.

The magic is still alive. And long may it continue.

Instagram: @kwarholm 41

CALLING THE SHOTS

Dialled In festival is shining a light on British South Asian artists – and empowering a generation in the process

Crowd pleasers: the view from the decks at Dialled In festival in April (Yung Singh pictured far right)

Words ALICE AUSTIN Photography BRUNEL JOHNSON

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Dialled In

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young woman standing close to the decks has been crying for the best part of three hours. She’s wearing a purple sari, matching eyeshadow, giant hoop earrings, and a bejewelled bindi in the centre of her forehead. The tears started to roll when Pxssy Palace began their set, and they keep rolling as Suchi, Yung Singh, DJ Priya and Gracie T take over. Every time a Punjabi-fused UK garage track thunders from the speakers, her face crumples into a disbelieving screw face and both hands become gun fingers. These aren’t tears of sadness but of joy, that she’s found a space that celebrates every aspect of her identity. And the tears, the sari, the UKG and the gun fingers are a fairly airtight summary of what Dialled In festival is all about.

Last year was a big one for British South Asian artistry. It was in 2021 that Daytimers, a music and art collective grounded in the creativity of the diaspora, burst onto the scene. This was also the year Sikh DJ Yung Singh played a Boiler Room set chock-full of Punjabi garage, UK breaks and hip hop.

And it was the year the first Dialled In festival took place, catapulting the community onto the world stage. A team effort between British South Asian collectives Daytimers, No ID and Chalo, Dialled In feels as if it has been running for decades. And that’s because it has, in some form or other – it’s just only recently the world has sat up and listened.

Back in the ’70s, the UK’s South Asian youth had a variety of obstacles to overcome if they wanted to party. The offspring of first-generation immigrants lacked the freedom of their white peers. Partying wasn’t seen as an acceptable pastime, and overt racism meant South Asian teens could barely get into clubs, let alone run nights in them. So the young diaspora had no choice but to create a space of their own, in a format their parents wouldn’t discover.

The original ‘daytimers’ events were underground out of necessity. They took place in the daytime so attendees wouldn’t return home late, and because 44

“Society views South Asians as uncreative. Dialled In rejects that” Shivum Sharma

venues were happier to hand over their space when no one else was using it. South Asians from across the UK would head to basements in Leicester or ballrooms in Birmingham to let off steam, dancing to a unique blend of UK-infused Punjabi and bhangra tunes, resulting in one of the most vibrant creative communities in British musical history.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, these events cultivated numerous crews and parties, including Panjabi Hit Squad, Joi, Nasha, Bombay Jungle and Asian Vibes. With no cultural blueprint to replicate, the community turned to its own heritage and Black music for inspiration. However, while Black culture was afforded ‘cool’ status sometime in the ’90s, its South Asian equivalent was either ignored or dismissed as uncreative. So, although an outsider might think Dialled In is spearheading South Asian artistry, it’s simply following in the footsteps of the parties and collectives that never got their dues.

Yung Singh is arguably the best-known artist to emerge from the new British South Asian underground. Prior to his Boiler Room set in 2021, THE RED BULLETIN

In preparation for his eventual free solo of Yosemite’s El Capitan, Honnold headed to China in 2016 to practice roof climbing on the Getu Arch.

Dial-hard clubbers: (opposite) DJ Yung Singh in deep concentration; (this page) a mix of bass, grime, hip hop and Punjabi garage and more keeps the partygoers jumping THE RED BULLETIN

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Dialled In

“We’re building our own platforms so we can be self-sustaining” Ahad Elley

Movers and shakers: (above) DJ, producer and Dialled In cofounder Ahad Elley; (opposite, top) DJs Gracie T and Priya; (bottom) Shivum Sharma soothes the ears of the crowd

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the Midlands-born DJ released a viral mix for UKG collective Shuffle ’n’ Swing, which championed Punjabi garage music from the ’90s and beyond. The revivalist mix hit the electronic music community in the jugular, but Yung Singh refuses to take all the credit for its success; whether headlining festivals, inciting moshpits and taking over Fabric, he’s never forgotten to acknowledge the OGs who came before.

In March 2019, Yung Singh attended No ID, a party launched by DJ, producer, promoter and Dialled In co-founder Ahad Elley, aka Ahadadream.

No ID’s aim – to connect and celebrate British South Asian artists – was inspired by DJ Nabihah Iqbal’s 2017 party in Tottenham, north London, and DJ Manara’s Pure Spice show on BBC Asian Network. Here, the cycle of inspiration never ends, and no one is interested in hogging the spotlight; this crew are much happier bigging up each other.

Elley is hosting today’s Dialled In festival at EartH Hackney, an arts venue in Dalston, east London. He’s wearing an orange shirt and a cross-body bag and has a lit-up look about him, like his soul is alight. When he

was approached by Waltham Forest Council last year to launch Dialled In, Elley vowed to take control of the narrative. For too long, his community’s identity had been hijacked and dictated by the British media and society, so this festival had to be run entirely by the South Asian community. Now, Dialled In hosts mentorship programmes, Q&A sessions, movie nights, and plans to launch its own publication. “The media might brand us ‘cool’ now, but we’re very sceptical of that,” Elley says. “We’re building our own structures and platforms so we can be self-sustaining.”

Elley was born in Pakistan’s fourth largest city, Rawalpindi, and moved to the UK with his family at the age of 13. He soon discovered he was one of only a few Brown Muslim people in his new hometown – Sandy, Bedfordshire – and there wasn’t much more of a community at the University of Surrey when he enrolled in the late 2000s. But, around that time, the emergence of dubstep inspired Elley to start DJing and throw parties in Guildford, championing bass, UK funky and garage.

Generally speaking, young people in South Asian communities are discouraged from taking creative paths. More often than not, their elders moved to the UK for economic stability, so being a doctor, scientist or lawyer is preferred over, say, producing garage. Elley studied chemistry, but moved to London after university to work in the marketing team at Boiler Room, the online music broadcasting platform that streams live sessions.

“For my parents, music was a side thing,” Elley says. “They always encouraged me to go down the academic route.” But then he launched his own record label, More Time; started releasing music on established labels, got plays on BBC Asian Network, and was booked to DJ at London clubs Fabric, XOYO and Brixton Jamm, so his parents had to give up the ghost. But Elley was still missing a community that understood his British-Pakistani heritage, so he launched No ID to create one.

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J Priya grew up in a large South Asian community in west London, but felt like an outcast because of her red hair, piercings and penchant for punk. “I felt too Brown to fit in with the white girls and too westernised for the South Asian girls,” she says. “So I struggled with my identity.”

It certainly does not seem that way today.

Dressed in a majestic red sari with jewels that flash in tandem with her lip piercings, Priya is headlining Dialled In festival with her best mate Gracie T because, she explains, “We are sick.”

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“I was bullied for being queer… music helped me escape reality” Mya Mehmi (right)

Dialled In

Mr Entertainer: musical virtuoso Nikhil Beats has the Dialled In massive vibesing from the very first note

Dialled In works tirelessly to ensure a safe space for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Tonight we’re going to make sure female, non-binary, trans and queer people are at the front with us,” says Priya. “That’s what we do. We play for the outcasts.”

In many ways, DJing saved Priya’s life. She grew up in foster care, fell in with the wrong crowd, and was flagged a flight risk. During a particularly bad period, she saw an advert for DJ lessons at the Southbank Centre. “As soon as I touched the decks, something unlocked in me,” Priya says. Now she plays bass, grime and Punjabi-infused bassline at Fabric, Adidas events, and in cities across the UK. “Music transformed me. It gave me a reason to live.”

S Pushing progress: Nadine Noor and Mya Mehmi of LGBTQ+ club collective Pxssy Palace THE RED BULLETIN

hivum Sharma’s music shimmers. He looks small on this huge stage, but his energy fills the Amphitheatre. He shines up there in his sea-green kurta – the collarless South Asian shirt – singing and playing piano, backed by his band.

Sharma takes inspiration from ’70s soul, pop ballads and classical Indian to create music that’s described as alternative pop but is indefinable like a dream.

Sharma is half-Irish, half-Indian, and grew up in south London. As a kid, he became obsessed with

NOW That’s What I Call Music CDs and would listen to Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child and Basement Jaxx on repeat. He remembers feeling frustrated when an acquaintance boarded the same bus, because it meant he had to turn off his Walkman and talk to them.

Sharma DJs, too, with a residency on Foundation FM, and his 2020 four-track Diamond EP was played on BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Asian Network and Reprezent 107.3 FM. His vocals are so soothing, half the crowd sit swaying with their eyes closed.

Before Dialled In, many of the British South Asian artists weren’t aware of each other, but now the community extends beyond music. Daytimers has a Discord group that shares recipes, music and job opportunities. And if one of the members is in LA, Mumbai or Colombo, they’ll tell the group and they might end up being fed by another’s grandparents.

Sharma says that communities like Dialled In empowered him to embrace his heritage. “A lot of the artists at Dialled In have felt very stifled by society’s idea of what a South Asian person should be: that they’re uncreative and unexciting, and that their culture isn’t something to be proud of,” he explains. “But Dialled In rejects those standards that society pushes on us.”

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One for the fans: “We play for the outcasts,” says Priya, pictured (left) alongside DJ partner Gracie T at the decks

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ikhil Beats is an instrument whisperer. He’ll lay his hands on anything – a guitar, a violin, a hornucopian dronepipe – and it’ll pretty much start playing itself. Nikhil raps, produces and sings; today he’s performing for the first time with his new live band. There’s a saxophonist, drummer, bongo player, electric bouzouki player, and Nikhil on guitar, playing a seamless blend of R&B, hip hop and jazz.

“This one’s off my new EP,” he tells the crowd in a thick, east London accent. “So when you’re feeling it, I wanna see you vibesing in it.’”

It’s impossible not to start vibesing when Nikhil Beats is in the house. His charisma is palpable, his enjoyment contagious. The man is in his element on stage, surrounded by eclectic instruments and guest artists, looking out across a sea of enthralled faces.

He’s as happy as a baby lizard on a sunlit rock.

“We were already doing our own thing before Daytimers came along,” Nikhil explains. “But if you’d asked me about other South Asians on the scene, I didn’t really know anyone. In a way, it was like none of us knew the others existed. But now

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[Daytimers] has shone a light on the community, we can all see each other.”

Nikhil grew up surrounded by instruments and began rapping and producing music at school. “It’s not like I’m an Indian artist,” he says. “I’m BritishAsian – I was born here – and I never necessarily felt excluded from things. But when you’re a person of colour, you don’t always know you’re being excluded.”

South Asia is one of the most diverse regions on the planet. People across the area – from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan and the Maldives – speak hundreds of languages in hundreds of dialects, and follow four main religions. Needless to say, this diversity extends to the diaspora. Nikhil’s parents are both Indian, but one is Gujarati, the other Punjabi. “They speak different languages, dress differently, eat differently; their cultures are completely different,” Nikhil says.

“People say I’m Indian, but there are these huge cultural differences between two sides of my family.”

Kids in the diaspora often grow up navigating two worlds: one inside the house and another outside.

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Dialled In

But with spaces like Dialled In, these two worlds can meet. “Growing up, I don’t remember thinking it was cool to be Indian,” Nikhil says, “but now it’s cool to showcase your heritage. This isn’t just a trend or a phase for us, though – it’s our culture.”

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ya Mehmi and Nadine Noor cut striking figures behind the decks in the dark, cavernous main room known as The Hall. Dressed in skintight bodysuits, they mix expertly despite fingernails the same length as their stiletto heels. This feels like a different world to the Amphitheatre: smoke and lasers shoot across the blackness, lighting up wide-eyed faces in snapshots of euphoria. The place is heaving, bodies dancing to garage, breaks and booty bass from the two Pxssy Palace representatives. The crowd lose it when Mehmi plays a Punjabi remix of Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money. As a tattooed woman in a beanie and glasses holds up her phone to film, her Apple Watch flashes 20,000 steps. It’s only 6pm.

According to its Twitter account, Pxssy Palace is “a slaggy club nite that celebrates and centres queer women, trans, non-binary and intersex BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and People of Colour].”

Pxssy Palace changes lives, and it helped Mehmi make sense of who she is.

Growing up in Leicester, music was a form of survival for Mehmi. “I was really bullied for being queer, so music helped me escape reality and gave me something to look forward to,” she says. She grew up deeply unhappy, fighting against everything that felt natural to her. “The way I walked, the way I talked…

I grew up knowing that these things coming from me were wrong.” Before Mehmi understood she was

“It’s now cool to showcase your heritage” Nikhil Beats trans, daily tasks took maximum effort. Walking to the station, going to the supermarket, chatting to a friend – everything was a battle.

As a kid, Mehmi begged her parents for singing lessons. They gave in when, during a holiday in Goa, she stood on a table in a bar and belted out Black Eyed Peas’ song Shut Up to a sea of astonished onlookers. When she was 17, Mehmi moved to London to make music, but only tuned in to her authentic self when she began her transition in 2020.

“Before then, I was just trying to find a palatable way to be a man in music,” she says. “But it never felt natural, because I wasn’t really a man.”

She found Pxssy Palace in 2017 and began to learn more about gender and queer theory and meet trans folk. When her friend Elie Che, a trans activist, passed away in 2020, Mehmi felt she could no longer live a lie; she started her transition that week.

Mehmi, who identifies as Punjabi, says there was so little representation while growing up that all her references came from Black culture. She takes great pains to credit the Black artists who inform her work, and to centre the marginalised. “I love the fact two femmes are headlining this festival,” she says. “That’ll really push the culture forward and show people our tolerance for bullshit is getting thinner and thinner.”

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Pitch perfect: Pxssy Palace DJ Nadine Noor drops garage, breaks and booty bass in The Hall THE RED BULLETIN

ung Singh has whipped the crowd in The Hall into such a frenzy that three separate moshpits have formed. The bass is so thunderous, the speakers visibly quake, and the crowd jump to his garage and grime tracks in unison, as if at a punk gig.

Young men in turbans reach out to shake his hand between mixes, and the energy feels more like a wild, euphoric celebration than a DJ set at a festival.

As Yung Singh’s last track rolls out, Elley grabs the mic. “Next up, we have our headliners,” he bellows.

“We want all the women to come forward!” DJ Priya and Gracie T step behind the decks, the latter wearing a zebra-print sari with ruched lime-green trim. From the moment Priya spins Cho’s Popalik, she doesn’t stop bouncing, and neither does the crowd. It feels like an invisible thread connects the two DJs with the audience, and when Gracie plays a UKG remix of Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina, Priya stands on a speaker and fires out banknotes printed with the duo’s faces.

The young woman in the purple sari standing near the decks jumps in the air to catch a note and clutches it like she’ll never let go. Seconds later, Priya drops Azealia Banks’ 212 and the gun fingers come out, along with the screw face. It looks like she’s just come home. dialled-in.com 51

SPRING WATER: “After an overcast afternoon, the light changed, so we went down to Lake Champlain [a freshwater lake on the US-Canada border] and found this little wall,” says photographer Ben Franke. “The black and white brings out all the tones and makes it more graphic. And the image sums their relationship and their sport – Nick [on the pogo stick] and Henry are out here having fun, taking turns, but always pushing themselves.”

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City stickers

When photographer BEN FRANKE stumbled upon two masters of Extreme Pogo – a growing action sport where athletes soar to unimaginable heights on pogo sticks powered by compressed air – he jumped right in Words EVELYN SPENCE

Photography BEN FRANKE

Extreme Pogo

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ast autumn, New York-based photographer Ben Franke was in Burlington, Vermont, to visit friends when he came across Nick McClintock and Henry Cabelus in the street, working on a promotional video – with supersized adult pogo sticks. At first, Franke didn’t know he’d stumbled upon two stars of a growing sport: McClintock, 35, helped invent so-called Extreme Pogo in the ’90s and is now the co-founder of XPogo, a company that makes films and puts on live events worldwide; and Cabelus, 22, is a master of the art. (Need proof?

He holds the world record for highest straight jump, most backflips on a stick, and the fewest jumps in a minute.)

“I’d never even heard of Extreme Pogo before,” says Franke, who has photographed parkour and bike life for more than a decade. “So I struck up a conversation with them and ended up running around town, shooting them for a few days.”

For Franke, the challenge and beauty lay in capturing each trick at the perfect moment, and in photographing his subjects without bringing in his own preconceptions. Since then, he’s watched XPogo blow up on social media – and he’s not at all surprised.

“Their culture is rad,” Franke says.

“And when you take a look at what tricks these guys can do, you’ll realise that it’s completely nuts.”

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE: “This was on our first day of shooting, and I was still learning what was even possible with XPogo,” says Franke. “We walked by this cool old building on the UVM [University of Vermont] campus and I knew it would make a great background.

Then Henry just did a Superman, pushing the stick in front of him like a BMX rider. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I need a picture of this.’”

TRICKY KID: “I love capturing both sides of action sport: the extreme moves and the quieter moments,” says Franke, who shot this portrait of Cabelus at an abandoned highway-turnedskatepark. “Henry lives both sides, too. He pulls off these risky tricks, but he has a laid-back, skater, college-student vibe.”

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BRANCHING OUT: “Nick basically came up with a bunch of the core XPogo tricks,” says Franke. “You can’t see it with the greenery behind him, but he’s up really high, and there’s nothing attaching his foot to the stick. I love how he’s expressing his creativity in the air.”

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Extreme Pogo

WE HAVE LIFT-OFF: the back of the Bandshell, a bandstand at Vermont’s Battery Park, had just enough height for McClintock to do a hand plant and shoot the gap.

“Nick’s body fills the frame of the space just how I hoped – even the curve of the roof behind him,” says Franke.

“Afterwards, a woman ran up to us and told us she was worried he’d get hurt.”

PARK AND RIDE: “We were walking around downtown Burlington and found this parking garage, and I knew the size of it would help show off just how high Henry can get,” says Franke.

“XPogo reminds me a lot of skateboarding – the way you use the urban environment to adapt your tricks, the way you make use of what you have.”

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ALLEY OOP: “Even though this trick isn’t that risky, it captures Nick’s style and movement at just the right moment,” says Franke. “For me, colour can sometimes be distracting when you’re trying to capture pure action. Black and white can render it more clearly. All the graphic patterns of the building are pure, and his shape leads you from left to right and up the alleyway.”

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Extreme Pogo

SCHOOL OF POGO: “The other people in this shot really give Henry’s trick – called a stick flip – a sense of scale,” Franke says of this image, captured in front of a UVM library. “They’re what I call happy accidents, each one reacting in their own way, whether they’re taking a video, staring up at him, or not paying any attention at all.”

HOP STAR: “It was really remarkable to randomly meet and shoot a subject who has truly invented something,” Franke says of McClintock. “Nick is a bit older, he’s a mentor, and I think that comes across in the image. Plus, the unique stickers and the texture of his stick really come across, and his hat is great.”

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Energy boost: this route, known as the Powerline Road, was first discovered by a team from Nike in 2019

Staying power Unsanctioned, unhinged, underground, and off the grid. On the road with THE SPEED PROJECT, the secret running race that few know about, fewer compete in, and no entrant ever forgets Words TOM WARD Photography JIM KRANTZ Drone pilot BLAKE WOKEN

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The Speed Project

I

t began with a rumour. About an underground foot race starting at the beachfront of Santa Monica and finishing in Las Vegas. A race without sponsors, without rules, without even a website. Where no spectators are allowed and there’s no purse at the end. And yet it attracts some of the world’s best athletes, drawn by the promise of a unique trial of pace and perseverance. That rumour led to a name – The Speed Project, a moniker coined by the founder of the race, Nils Arend – and eventually to a call.

“There’s a raw beauty in the idea of travelling somewhere on foot, running from one place to another, versus doing a community 10K and getting a free T-shirt at the end,” Arend told The Red Bulletin over the phone at the start of 2020, back when he was busy planning that year’s Speed Project.

Back when the world was a different place.

The seed of the idea came to the slender, often mohawked, 42-year-old Hamburg-to-LA transplant in 2013. “For me, running is grounded in some sort of competitiveness,” Arend explained. “If you look at the running-event landscape, there are the serious, high-performance, competitive races, or the opposite where people dress up in costumes and drink along the way. Neither appealed to me.”

He shared the idea with US marathon-running legend Blue Benadum, who insisted that this competition be about speed.

“We wanted a twist,” said Arend. So it became a relay race – no rest stops, no fancy hotels, just the runners supporting themselves with accompanying RVs. “We put our heads down and race as hard as we can without letting go, almost like pit bulls.”

They pioneered a route from Santa Monica Pier to the Las Vegas welcome sign – a relentless 548km route that climbs through Hollywood and the Antelope Valley, past a massive aeroplane graveyard at the edge of the Mojave Desert and the Inland Empire city of Barstow, through the remote town of Baker (population: 541) and along the edge of Death Valley National Park, then follows a short segment of the Old Spanish Trail and finally Route 160 into Vegas. This would become known as the

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Runners can deviate from the ‘OG route’ in any way they please, with one condition: “No freeways”

Into the unknown: runners set off on a fog-filled morning in Santa Monica; (opposite) a team line up for the start

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The Speed Project

‘OG route’ – The Speed Project’s most popular path – but it’s more of a guideline than a fixed course. Runners can deviate in any way they please, with one condition: “No freeways”.

Likewise, there are no fixed relay handoff points, no rules on how far each of the six crew members must run, or how many times they can be subbed back into the race. A map is emailed out in advance, breaking down the OG route into 39 segments ranging in length from 6.5km to 77km. Most are around 10km. How the runners tackle these sections is up to them.

Typically, they use the 10km markers as an opportunity to pass the metaphorical baton. But if they need to make up time they might do half a section each, or just a couple of hundred metres per person on the final frantic sprint into Vegas.

In the years following its inception, the Speed Project’s reputation grew, but its DIY ethos remained. Today, there’s still no website, no invite, and minimal mainstream press coverage. In 2020, after sounding us out on the phone, Arend agreed to let The Red Bulletin tag along.

You know the rest. Pandemic. Plans on hold. Then, in early 2022, another phone call. The message was simple: “Get to LA.”

The Chilean

The fog rolling in off the Pacific lends an eerie hue to Santa Monica Pier at 3.30am on this late March morning. The low hum of music and laughter is audible as RV lights burn through the mist, silhouetting the figures of scores of athletes. Three hundred participants – grouped into 55 teams – have travelled here from as far afield as the UK, Europe and South America for this, the seventh Speed Project. One of them is Max Keith.

The 33-year-old from Chile’s capital, Santiago, has been running trails his whole life. Today, he’s here as part of the Maffetones Club, a Chilean team following the teachings of sports guru (and singer/ songwriter) Dr Phil Maffetone, whose ‘method of moderate running’ advocates a low heart-rate marathon plan; the idea being that the slower your heart, the more efficiently your body draws energy.

Instead of sugar, your body burns fat, and you don’t ‘bonk’ or ‘hit the wall’.

Last year, when COVID halted sporting events, the Speed Project organised a DIY race, asking teams to run the longest relay they could, wherever they were, in 31 hours and 15 minutes (the course record set in 2019). The Maffetones 64

“When you realise you’re able to cover distances at pace, it gets addictive” THE RED BULLETIN

Making light work: (left) a competitor heads out of LA at sunrise on Friday; (below left) Max Keith at the start

covered 425.26km of the Atacama Desert, ranking them in the top 10 of more than 160 teams. With temperatures there ranging from 40°C in the day, and dropping to below freezing at night, it was also the perfect proving ground for the searing plains of Death Valley.

As the 4am start approaches, the countdown begins, then they’re off – 55 runners, one from each of the sixperson teams. Some are in flashing vests and neons, some with head torches, others in ordinary running gear, all disappearing in different directions, intent on finding THE RED BULLETIN

the fastest route out of the city. Most dart down Santa Monica Boulevard, passing a large Mormon church, while the team RVs roll out into the night like a herd of migrating elephants.

Understanding the importance of these early moments of the race, the Maffetones have planned out a 6.5km shortcut directly to the hills north of the city. Instead of the usual 10km handovers, they’ve put their fastest runners into 3km sprints to cement their head-start. Keith is one of them. This focus on speed over pace is a new challenge for him, but after

years of lockdown he has a renewed appreciation for being out here, opening up his stride and pushing hard. “When you realise you’re able to cover distances at pace, it gets addictive,” he says. “You get this feeling of freedom. You’re focused on your form, motion, steps, how you’re breathing – you’re hyper-aware of your surroundings. The more in-tune you are with yourself, the wilder the experience gets. The more speed you can achieve, the more intense the experience.”

At 4.22am, a message in the group WhatsApp warns of a man waiting with 65

The Speed Project

energy inside the Maffetones’ RV akin to an airborne sugar rush. “I feel good because I have to. We’re only two hours in.”

There’s a long race ahead, but for Keith right now it’s about tackling the rice and burritos, and the cold brew and energy drinks in the RV’s fridge, rebuilding his strength until it’s his turn to run again. With no breaks, it’s all about staving off injury and fatigue. For when the team reaches Death Valley there will be a single cold beer to be shared among them. By that point, they may need it.

The latecomer

Born to run: (top) Mexican athlete Alex Roudayna; (above) a Maffetones handover in action

“We’re all part of a community and you just understand each other with a nod” 66

a plank behind a turn in the road. At 5.16am, the first runners puff uphill past the famous Chateau Marmont hotel at 8221 Sunset Boulevard. By 5.53am, it’s already 14°C and the front runners have left the bulk of the crowd behind.

By 6.10am, with half an hour until dawn, the Maffetones are 14km ahead of the rest. At 6.41am, the sun is beginning to rise over the hills of the industrial San Fernando Valley on the northern outskirts of LA. Four members of the team swapped out the first 32km in 3km stretches, hitting a top pace of 3.4 minutes per kilometre before subbing in their hill runners for fresh legs on the uphill climbs.

Shortly after, on a winding stretch of hillside, Keith sprints to finish his fourth section. “I’m super-excited,” he says, the

Alex Roudayna didn’t expect to be running in The Speed Project. Aged 32, the ultrarunner from Mexico City has been competing since 2013, but it was only last year that a friend suggested she apply for a place on the international women’s team being put together by ON Running – one of two teams sponsored by the sports apparel brand, and one of five teams in the race made up entirely of women. Usually averse to pitching herself in such scenarios, this time Roudayna went for it, won a place, and met her teammates for the first time near LAX just 12 hours before the race began.

By mid-morning, it’s 21°C in Soledad Canyon – the ninth section of the OG route, and Roudayna’s second of the race. Halfway between valley and desert, the buzz of LA has been left behind for long, empty roads with only the occasional camping ground and distant commuter train to break up the monotony. As the heat haze rises from the pavement, Roudayna is easy to spot, even from a distance, thanks to her dyed green hair. Moving at a rapid pace, she’s soon swapping over with her waiting teammate.

In the build-up to The Speed Project, Roudayna had been running a lot. One of her recent achievements was 11th place in the USA Track & Field 100 Mile Road National Championship in Nevada in February, something she says she undertook mainly to gauge her speed.

Most days, she trains eight to 10 hours.

As someone with Asperger’s, Roudayna explains that “nothing really makes a lot of sense socially to me”, but that when she’s running she can stay in her own head without the need to talk to others.

“We’re all part of a community and you just understand each other with a nod,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what you’re going through or where you come from.”

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Route force: Speed Project runners pound the tarmac in the desert outside LA (top) and near Death Valley (above)

Good to glow: two of Team Lululemon approach Barstow, undeterred by lairy truck drivers and wild dogs

As she finishes her section, sweat covering her tattooed arms, Roudayna looks tired, but she bounces excitedly on the spot.

“I’m not looking forward to having a break,” she says. “I want to keep going!”

Despite only lately becoming acquainted with her teammates, Roudayna has fitted comfortably into the dynamic, especially when it comes to pushing harder and faster. “If they tell me to run fast, I run fast,” she laughs. “It’s not easy, but once you hit the pain cave it’s groove time.”

It’s clearly working: the team are ahead of schedule and one of the most promising in the competition. Seven hours into a possible 40-hour race, optimism and adrenalin are running high. Heading into the RV for recovery drills and a cold drink, Roudayna offers some parting thoughts. “It’s just about seeing how far I can go and what’s possible. The goal is to give it all. Even if we fall short, it’s about knowing we died on the line.”

snow-capped San Gabriel mountains and, in this dry landscape, road-side reservoirs feed water to LA. Drivers along the route are by now used to the sight of lone runners trailed by RVs bearing taped-on messages like “Todo es mental [Everything is mental]”, “Wish you were running” and, simply, “Grit”.

An empty lot on a desert crossroads forms a natural meeting point for teams.

The power line

As the day progresses, the race reels out into desert proper. Here, the route is marked by mines and concrete factories; rundown towns with buildings like dusty shoe boxes. In the distance stand the 68

Team Brand-it: self-confessed “pace junkie” Kam Casey in his RV (note the custom socks)

There’s a vendor selling orange juice from a cart. Another is offering vivid religious portraits from Mexico. One runner, stripped to his shorts, reclines in a large cooler full of ice water in the bed of his team’s truck. Others shelter under the shade of a single palo verde tree.

At 2.13pm, a message comes through that one of the runners, Tilly, has lost her crew. It’s now 26°C, and fatigue has begun to bake the desert runners. The wind picks up. Tensions are frayed as one team accidentally clips the wing mirror of another’s RV. In the group chat, there are warnings of stray dogs chasing runners. This is common enough that, in 2018, Team Hunter carried pepper spray as a precaution against enthusiastic canines; luckily, they didn’t have to use it.

By 2.30pm, Tilly has been reunited with her team. On El Mirage Road, a redhaired woman appears on a black horse and gallops alongside the runners, sending up clouds of desert dust. Beyond El Mirage, one group is trying something different. An old 151km service road – the aptly named Powerline Road – runs between electricity pylons. The route was discovered ahead of the 2019 Speed Project by a team from Nike, who had THE RED BULLETIN

The Speed Project

Going the distance: Londoner Angela Tomusange, still far from Barstow on the Friday evening

been desperately scouting for new ways to beat their rivals, Team Adidas. It worked – Nike won, Adidas came second.

It’s here that Kam Casey finds himself on this hot Saturday afternoon in 2022.

Tall and wiry, with a buzzed haircut and a way of speaking in soundbites that suggests media training, the 29-year-old Indianapolis native, now based in LA, could surely make a career out of wearing clothes on Instagram if the running thing doesn’t work out. Indeed, the day before the race, when all the teams met up, Casey and his crew – Team Bandit – were hanging out on top of their RV in matching black velour tracksuits and shades. It’s clear they’re here to make an impression, and look stylish while doing it. Which isn’t to say they’re not dedicated to the cause.

Drawing inspiration from Nike’s discovery, Bandit scouted the route for three months, pouring over satellite imagery before concluding that the power lines route would bring them in at 464km – 84 less than the OG runners.

Before The Speed Project came knocking, self-confessed “pace junkie” Casey had been struggling. A 2h 30m marathon runner, he hadn’t run one since the start of COVID, and his last THE RED BULLETIN

The race has no website, no invite, and minimal mainstream press coverage attempt had been aborted mid-race when, he says, his body gave up on him.

“I was losing control of my emotions; on the verge of tears in the middle of running,” Casey recalls. “I couldn’t make sense of it. It was mentally very tough.”

It dented Casey’s confidence. He knew he could do better. The Speed Project is many things to many people; for Casey it’s a chance at redemption.

Emerging in the heat haze, flanked by twin rows of power lines, Casey looks strong. His LA move has helped familiarise him with heat, but the ground underfoot is nonetheless unforgiving. Sharp downhills lead into long uphills lead into rolling ups and downs without respite.

But, at 3.4 minutes per km, with a few

sub-3.3s thrown in, Casey feels confident that Bandit have everything to play for.

As afternoon slides into evening, they’re just a few fast relays behind the leaders…

The long slog

Speed, of course, is relative. The Speed Project’s 2019 winners, Team Nike, completed the race in 31h 15m – that’s very fast, averaging 15kph. But while Casey and the front-runners are tactically analysing shortcuts to reduce that time even further, for others finishing at all is achievement enough. Five hours behind Bandit, the Black Trail Runners, a team from the UK, are doggedly pounding on.

Angela Tomusange, a Londoner of Ugandan heritage, began the race feeling nervous. “[In the running scene] I don’t see a lot of people who look like me,” she says. “Black Trail Runners appealed to me because I want to inspire others to take it up.” At 40, she’s somewhat older than The Speed Project’s average runner age (mid-twenties) but Tomusange applied as a fresh challenge, to prove that anyone can compete alongside some of the world’s best runners, even if it means travelling 8,800km across the Atlantic and the breadth of North America to do it.

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“Even if we fall short, it’s about knowing we died on the line”

Keeping pace: a runner braves the road near Death Valley just after sunrise, with his teammates close behind

The Speed Project

Viva Las Vegas: Team Bandit (with Kam Casey in black, centre) celebrate at the finish line

She prepared by training on hills in and around London, but London isn’t the Mojave and the going here is tough.

On her third relay section, Tomusange finally finds her rhythm, but by the first evening of the first day – and with the fastest teams expecting to finish just after dawn the next day – it’s clear that the Black Trail Runners are in it for the long haul. Unacclimatised to the desert heat, they’re slowing down. Add a change of plans to help an injured teammate rest up, and the UK team is feeling the strain.

As the race stretches into night, the fatigue is evident to all the runners.

Most are on the outskirts of Barstow, running along deserted sandy roads. For Tomusange, the cool night air offers a welcome respite and, fears of encounters with wolves or mountain lions aside, she’s beginning to enjoy herself. “I’m going with the flow,” she says. “It’s a nice experience. I’ve got used to running in the dark with our RV in the distance.”

After a long night, the dawn casts a blue light over the yellow sage flowers of Death Valley. A national park, the desert here is pristine and protected – the opposite of the trash-strewn wastes between LA and Barstow. It was here in the late 1960s that Charles Manson and his followers set up shop in the abandoned Barker Ranch, and that the area’s last gold prospector, Seldom Seen Slim, lived alone in the empty town of Ballarat before his death in 1968. It was here that the drugs kicked in and THE RED BULLETIN

Hunter S Thompson hallucinated bats shrieking low around his Great Red Shark convertible, as detailed in the opening paragraphs of his 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.

For Tomusange and crew, the new day brings nothing quite so sinister.

They run the sun up just before the park entrance. A chance encounter with another team at a petrol station in the night has spurred them on. But Vegas is still roughly 240km away, and in the casino capital of America the lucky frontrunners are about to cross the finish line.

The finish

Sixty-five kilometres out from the Vegas sign, and Bandit aren’t doing so good.

With rumours that Team ON Running were in the lead, the Bandits chanced an unknown path, heading off-road over sand and rock – in the middle of the night, no less. The gamble didn’t pay off, costing them valuable kilometres.

Now, surrounded by drab cookie-cutter houses that mark the desert between

On the group chat are warnings of stray dogs chasing runners

Death Valley and Vegas, runner Allison Lynch is having trouble with her knee, and teammate Evan Schwartz’s quads are burning up. The team have no choice but to cover the remaining distance with the four remaining runners.

Casey and the others dig deep.

There’s a downhill slope into Vegas and they’re able to push a kilometre every 3.25 minutes; that’s around 18.5kph – a Herculean pace after 30-something hours. At 11.34am, they storm into Vegas as a team, joined by their injured runners as they finish in 31h 45m, taking fourth.

“We went for the win and we didn’t get it, but that’s what it is,” says a proud but exhausted Casey. “You take your chances.” His Bandit vest is soaked in sweat and champagne, his Speed Project medal – a poker chip on a necklace – hanging on his chest. Having signed up to run around 80km, Casey estimates he has clocked at least 98.

The Maffetones take eighth place, reaching Vegas in 36h 24m. “It was brutal,” says Keith. “We were so tired during the last climb on the highway, but we kept pushing because we wanted to finish quickly. I’m destroyed.”

Roudayna’s ON Running women’s team complete the race in 42h 49m.

Next year, she’s considering running it all by herself. Right now, though, she’s going to bed – the Vegas lights and postrace celebrations hold no allure.

For Tomusange and the Black Trail Runners, the final slog became a blur.

Pushing on through the desert on that first night, they ran all through Saturday and into another night and day, rotating runners every 1km for the last run into Vegas, eventually completing the race in 59h 30m. “When we could see Vegas, it felt surreal that we were actually about to reach it,” recalls Tomusange.

“It gave us that extra push. I couldn’t believe we’d done it. I took so many positives away; if someone asked me to do it again, I definitely would.”

The winners are ON Running’s other team, who set a new race record of 29h 26m. But this journey from one place to another is as figurative as it is literal, and every runner at the finish will take away more than the poker chip around their neck. For Casey, it’s personal redemption, and perhaps he was speaking for everyone when, exhausted at the finish line, he summed it up: “We did it one by one. A mile at a time. A half mile at a time. And we never lost face.”

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2022

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VENTURE Enhance, equip, and experience your best life

ADVENTURE NOMAD

NICK BUTTER

ALEXANDRA ZAGALSKY

The globe-trotting van life of an endurance athlete

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VENTURE Travel

“My van doesn’t just get me from A to B; it connects me with nature – the roof is open, you climb in and out, your life is spent outdoors”

I

t’s 2am on Christmas Day 2020 and I’m driving rapidly north through Italy. Just a few hours ago, I dipped my hand into the cool Mediterranean waters at Italy’s southernmost point in Sicily, marking the completion of my Italian Grand Tour – 100 marathons in 100 days, 4,216km from northern to southern Italy, running on foot. The idea was that we – me, my better half Nikki, and our one-year-old Vizsla pup Poppy – would spend Christmas in Sicily before heading to the Alps. But a second wave of COVID restrictions has changed those plans, and now we’re racing across the borders of Italy’s 20 regions as quickly as they go into lockdown. It’s akin to the parting of the Red Sea.

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Miraculously, that day we make it to the mountains, where we camp down for the next four months. But even if we hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been so bad, because we’ve brought our home with us – the van that I’m driving.

Today, in 2022, the world has opened back up, but I’m blessed to have never really been locked indoors. I’m parked just a stone’s throw from Newquay’s Fistral Beach, working on my latest book, Running Britain, which chronicles my post-Italy endeavour: a record-breaking 100-day, 200-marathon run around the British coast last year. Fistral is my base when I’m not crossing countries and continents. On a clear day like this, it’s all golden sand and blue sky as far

as the eye can see. And it’s the place where I park my rolling home.

I moved into the van in November 2019. Having just completed my Running the World expedition [a marathon in each of the 196 countries in 96 weeks], I felt that I didn’t want to be confined by four walls any more. I also felt I didn’t need them. My van – a Mercedes Sprinter with a high, extra-long wheelbase – isn’t fancy, but it’s robust and reliable. My brother is a brilliant carpenter and he converted it, purpose-building all the storage cabinets for me. We named the van Christopher, after him.

I like to swim in the sea every day, but for today’s routine here in Cornwall I’ve added a run, some paddleboarding, THE RED BULLETIN

NICK BUTTER

Nick Butter, adventure ultrarunner

VENTURE Travel

Moving images (from top): Poppy inside the van a few weeks after Butter moved into it; French Alps, winter 2020; hooking up with other nomads at the Dolomites on the Italian Grand Tour; Butter and Poppy on the same trip; Christmas 2020 in the Alps after the epic drive from Sicily; Fistral Beach, Cornwall, summer 2019 THE RED BULLETIN

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Fully fitted Inside the marathon runner’s maison-on-wheels “Inside, I have everything you’d expect to find in a conventional home,” says the 32-year-old Dorset-born runner. “A hob and grill, fridge-freezer, hot shower… I even have dimming lights and a pizza oven in the back. On the roof is a TentBox that pops up to create an ‘upstairs’ space with another double bed, stretching the sleeping capacity to six. We’ve fitted a solar panel on top of it, so all our power is sustainable.

One thing I love is the LPG heater. It’s efficient, quiet and heats under the bed, sending warmth to your toes when you’re making tea on the stove.”

1

and a three-hour gym session. I’m in the flow of my ‘Fit in 50’ Challenge – spending 50 weeks working with fitness-research specialists who are performing monthly health checks on me, including blood tests, 3D body-mapping, DEXA [bone density] scans and testing my VO2 max [the maximum amount of oxygen the body uptakes during exercise], to help me better understand how to get the very best out of my training, and which will hopefully be useful to others, too.

I’m also trying to strengthen my body for future trips. I’m planning to run north-to-south through New Zealand, so I need to be on top form. I’ll be taking the van and Poppy. She likes to keep up with me, although I’ve recently trained her to hop into a specially adapted stroller when I’m on a particularly long run.

Living in the van gives me flexibility and freedom; being able to just pack up and go is invaluable. In a few weeks I’m off to do some running in Spain, France and Portugal. That said, my van does more than just get me from A to B; it 76

3 2 4

Coasting it Butter’s favourite British beaches “On my Run Britain project, my van followed me to almost every UK beach. In the north-west of Scotland [1] are white sands and turquoise waters to rival Pacific islands – gorgeous, but lacking heat.

Rhossili in Wales [2] is massive and Atlantic-feeling.

The expanses of Norfolk and Lincolnshire [3] are flat but windy. The 1,014km South West Coast Path [4] is stunning, but difficult to run. We saw dolphins, minke whales... Britain has so much that we take for granted.”

Nick Butter’s book Running Britain is out in October; Running the World is out now; nickbutter.com

allows me to connect with nature in a more immersive way. What most people don’t see about being in a van is that most of your life is spent outdoors – you have the doors or the roof open, you’re climbing in and out to go running, or you’re by the beach – so you spend very little time inside it.

It’s also a cheap way to live. When I want to travel, I have to pay for fuel, but if I stay in one place it costs me nothing – everything is powered by solar.

I’ve met a lot of like-minded people who’ve travelled the world in their van.

Being part of that community is so enlightening – you hear about their adventures and exchange ideas for a better van-life experience.

I’m often asked if there are any drawbacks. I’ll admit, I’d like an extra cupboard or two to just chuck things in.

When you have limited space, every cubbyhole counts, so you either use something or it goes. Not every day is Instagram perfect, either. Although there are some amazing #vanlife shots on social media, they don’t illustrate the more pragmatic side of living on four wheels. You can’t always stop within sight of the ocean, and you may have to stay in a supermarket car park for the night. But it also doesn’t matter – when you’re safely cocooned in your camper with the blackout blinds pulled down, you can forget where you are. I’ve frequently woken up trying to remember.

Then you have a check out of the window and half the time you’re right, half the time you’re not.

I only think about safety when I leave the van, because my whole life is in it, and especially if I leave the dog inside.

In Italy, we got broken into a couple of times, but I frequently go to sleep with the door unlocked, sometimes even open.

What I’ve learned from travelling the world is that 99.9 per cent of people are good.

It’s an unconventional way to live, but knowing you have a paddleboard at the back, a surfboard on the roof, and a stove to make hot food makes life reassuringly simple. And nothing beats lying in the bed and looking up through the huge overhead skylight. When the weather is warm, you can climb through it and lie on the top deck. At night, it’s a very special thing to be able to gaze at the stars and drift off to the sound of the waves. There really is no better way to sleep.

Nick Butter is a British adventure athlete, author and speaker, and the first person to run a marathon in every country.

Follow him on Instagram: @nickbutterrun THE RED BULLETIN

NICK BUTTER

VENTURE Travel

©2022 Marchon Eyewear Inc.

https://uk.dragonalliance.com

@dragoneurope

VENTURE Gaming

Co-built by Swedish designers Teenage Engineering, Playdate will soon get add-ons like this Bluetooth stereo dock and pen holder

PLAY

Cranking one out The long and winding story of a games machine born out of love and now turning the art of play on its head

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was met with derision. The anniversary came and went.

Eleven years passed. Then, this April, Playdate arrived.

The device, which features a black-and-white non-backlit screen, receives (via Wi-Fi) two new games a week for 12 weeks. And the crank is used to play many of them, including Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure (pictured right), which allows players to wind back and forth through time.

Playdate has proven so popular that orders taken today won’t ship until 2023. But then, as its creators could tell you, the best experiences are worth persevering with. play.date

AARON LEE

“What if there’s a crank?” This was one of the control methods put forward in the development of Playdate – the portable gaming console you see here.

And it’s not even the craziest part of the story...

It began in 2011 as the idea of Steven Frank and Cabel Sasser of Panic Inc, a US software company that makes file-transfer and MP3-player apps. To mark Panic Inc’s 15th anniversary, the duo wanted to reward its most loyal customers with a keepsake, so, despite zero hardware experience, they decided to build a gaming device. A first meeting with an industrial design company

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VENTURE Gaming PLAY

Evil dad

SABER INTERACTIVE, ANDY CAMPBELL

TOM GUISE

In the Evil Dead films, the hero gets possessed by demons. In the game, he’s possessed by his real-life son US gamer and Twitch streamer Andy Campbell is, in his own words, “the nerd of the family” who grew up playing Nintendo.

Campbell’s father, however, has never shared his geeky hobby: “We’ve only ever played one game together – Grand Theft Auto 5.”

Now, though, the 34-yearold gets to play games with his dad all the time. Or rather, he gets to play them as his dad.

You see, his father is Bruce Campbell – the actor who has portrayed Ash, the hero in the Evil Dead horror film and TV series, since the first movie’s debut in 1981, and who now voices the character in Evil Dead: The Game. “They did an amazing job,” says Campbell of his father’s in-game avatar.

“When I showed it to my dad, he was very on board with how they represented him.”

While growing up, Campbell was aware of his father’s cult stardom, but he says, “It never got in the way – we could still go out to [US restaurant chain] Applebee’s and eat dinner.” Bruce, for his part, tried to shield his son from his horror films. “He didn’t want me to see them when I was a child,” recalls Campbell.

“So, me being a child – I was 10 – I went against that and I watched Evil Dead 2. It scared me to my core. Maybe seeing my father go through everything in the movie is why it affected me so much.”

Lesson one: listen to your dad.

So, what other lessons has Campbell learned from his father – about life, gaming, the movie industry, and battling hordes of the undead? As Ash himself imparts in Evil Dead 2 when inserting his ‘boomstick’ into the mouth of a Deadite that’s threatening to swallow his soul: “Swallow this.”

THE RED BULLETIN

Always be the last man standing

Ash’s enduring appeal in the Evil Dead franchise is all down to one factor: he’s the only person left alive at the end of each film. This is a philosophy that Campbell applies to his Evil Dead gaming sessions.

“Don’t be afraid to run away,” he advises. “Sometimes being the hero means not being the hero. In horror movies, there’s always that someone who’s dead weight. Let the slower runner get eaten.”

want to accomplish.’ He very much didn’t push me into show business, but he also didn’t actively push me away from it.

He knows how hard it is to break into that industry. But if I was to go into it, he’d have my back.”

“At the age of 10, Evil Dead 2 scared me to the core” Andy Campbell

Stay true to yourself

The greatest advice that Campbell’s father has given him? “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying,” he quotes, before adding, “No, honestly it was, ‘Just go after what you

Take out the trash

Having witnessed Ash’s razorsharp tongue in the Evil Dead films, you might expect Bruce to be the same off-screen, but Campbell reveals a gentler side to his dad: “He’s not so much a zinger guy as a really chill dude.”

As a gamer, though, Campbell has his own line in smack talk.

“I have a background in competitive fighting games, and I’ve had my moments when I’ve been sitting next to an opponent with money on the line.” His advice to anyone who can’t handle the spitballing: “Get good or quit. That’s usually the biggest fire you can light under [a player]. It’ll make them try even harder.”

Respect your elders

“As we age, we become our parents,” observed UK author Neil Gaiman. As someone who’s done that in a virtual sense, Campbell finds the experience cathartic. “I enjoy it. I’ve played [Dad] in other games, too. In Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick [2003, on PlayStation 2 and Xbox] there’s a button to make him say oneliners. And in Dead by Daylight [a 2016 game with characters from various horror franchises] you can hear his weird groans throughout. To me, there’s nothing odd about it. I love representing him in games.”

Groovy: Bruce Campbell’s in-game likeness flexes his Power Glove, a prosthetic hand built for on-screen Ash in the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead

Evil Dead: The Game is out now on PlayStation, Xbox and Windows; evildeadthegame. com. You can also follow Andy Campbell on Twitch; twitch.tv/ andycampbellgg 79

Adventure time Wherever you venture this summer – be it on solid ground, vertiginous rock, or wild water – don’t leave home without packing the essentials Photography TIM KENT

CAMPING Top-notch equipment for the perfect pitch

From left: HELINOX Tactical Chair One and Sunset Chair, helinox.eu; VOITED Outdoor Poncho, voited.co.uk; SNOW PEAK Takibi Fire & Grill, snowpeak.co.uk; POLER 2+ Person Tent, poler.co.uk;

MARMOT Bantamweight 15° Sleeping Bag, marmot.eu; YETI Roadie 24 Cool Box, uk.yeti.com; LEKI Makalu FX Carbon Walking Poles, leki.com; OSPREY Transporter WP Duffel, ospreyeurope.com

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VENTURE Equipment

CAMPING Top-notch equipment for the perfect pitch

Left page, from top, left to right: MIZU Urban Cutlery Set, mizulife.eu; SOUNDCORE Flare 2 Speaker, uk.soundcore.com; NEBULA Apollo Portable Projector, uk.seenebula.com; VSSL Camp and Cook, vsslgear.com; SNOW PEAK Multi Compact Cookset, snowpeak.co.uk; MIZU D7 Bottle, mizulife.eu; EXPOSURE HT1000 Head Torch, exposure-use.com; GARMIN Instinct 2 Camo Edition Watch, garmin.com Right page, from top, left to right: POLER Sign Painter Cap, poler.co.uk; SILVA Pocket 7X Monocular, silvasweden.uk; ON RUNNING Cloudmonster Shoes, on-running.com; ANKER 521 Portable Power Station, uk.anker.com; SNOW PEAK Field Barista Kettle, snowpeak.co.uk; THE JAMES BRAND The Ellis Multi-Tool, thejamesbrand.com; PICTURE ORGANIC The Picture Hammock, picture-organic-clothing.com

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VENTURE Equipment

THE RED BULLETIN

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VENTURE Equipment

KAYAKING State-of-the-art gear that’s sure to float your boat

This page, from top, left to right: O’NEILL Reactor ISO Impact Vest, uk.oneill.com; SALOMON Five Panel Cap and Crossamphibian Swift 2 Shoes, salomon.com; DRAGON DR Tidal X LL Polar Sunglasses, dragonalliance. com; SUUNTO 5 Peak Watch,

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suunto.com; ROXY Time To Pretend Sports Bra, roxy-uk.co.uk; POWERTRAVELLER Solargorilla, powertraveller. com; VSSL Catch and Cook, vsslgear.com; DOMETIC TMBR32 Thermo Tumbler, dometic.com; JBL Flip 6

Speaker, uk.jbl.com; SLOW TIDE Breakers Towel, slowtide.co.uk; ROXY Time To Pretend Bike Shorts, roxy-uk.co.uk

Opposite page, from top: ORU KAYAK Inlet Kayak, eu.orukayak.com; MARMOT Superalloy 2P Tent, marmot.eu; DOMETIC Patrol 20 Ice Chest, dometic.com; POLER The Reversible Napsack, poler.co.uk; YETI Panga 50L Waterproof Duffel, uk.yeti.com THE RED BULLETIN

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VENTURE Equipment

BOULDERING High-performance must-haves that’ll take your rock climbing to the next level

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Abel wears: Organic cotton Hooded sweat top

by Satisfy Running £235satisfyrunning.com

Opposite page, from top, left to right: JBL Charge 5 Speaker, uk.jbl.com; 1000 MILE SPORTSWEAR Chunky Crushed Chalk, 1000mile. co.uk; MONTANE Tucana Shorts and Crag Calls T-shirt, montane.com; POWERTRAVELLER Phoenix THE RED BULLETIN

90 Multi Voltage Charger, powertraveller.com; 686 Waterproof Hooded Puffer Blanket, 686.com; BLACK DIAMOND Spot 400-R Headlamp, blackdiamond equipment.com; 1000 MILE SPORTSWEAR Bamboo Climbing Brush, 1000mile. co.uk; MONTANE Finger Jam

Chalk Bag, montane.com; YETI Rambler 18oz Bottle uk.yeti.com; FIVE TEN Niad VCS Climbing Shoes, adidas.co.uk/five_ten This page, from top: BLACK DIAMOND Vision Helmet, blackdiamondequipment. com; BACH EQUIPMENT Dr

Duffel 40 Limited Edition, bach-equipment.com; DOMETIC CFX3 35 Powered Cooler 36L, dometic.com; BLACK DIAMOND Circuit Crash Pad, blackdiamond equipment.com

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SKATE & SURF Cool kit you need to get on board with – on the waves or the ramps

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VENTURE Equipment

Opposite page, from left: QUIKSILVER Surfboard (from the Quiksilver archives), quiksilver.co.uk; FOAMLIFE Mully Cork Flip Flops, thefoamlife.com; ARBOR Axis 40 Flagship Longboard, arborcollective. com; STUBBLE & CO The Adventure Bag stubbleandco.

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com; O’NEILL Hyperfreak 3/2mm Chest Zip Full Wetsuit, uk.oneill.com This page, from top, left to right: PICTURE ORGANIC Smeeth Jkt, pictureorganic-clothing.com; SMITH OPTICS Pinpoint

Sunglasses, smithoptics. com; MIZU M8 Bottle, mizulife.com; MILO The Action Communicator, okmilo.com; SLOW TIDE Sol Throw Blanket, slowtide. co.uk; GLOBE Bootleg Dreams Bucket Hat, eu. globebrand.com; ETNIES Josl1n shoes, eu.etnies.com;

QUIKSILVER Originals T-shirt, quiksilver.co.uk; SANTA CRUZ Cabana Moon Dot Hood, santacruz skateboards.com; NIXON Regulus Expedition Watch, uk.nixon.com; QUIKSILVER HempStretch 69 18” Board Shorts, quiksilver.co.uk

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PROMOTION

BORN TO EXPLORE Roam freely like the Danish explorers of old with the ECCO 2.1 x COUNTRY – a trail shoe as well-equipped for your next off-road adventure as for that all-action city break

D

anish feet have been exploring the world since the Vikings. Even today, it’s a country whose right to roam extends far and wide, over coastal dunes, windswept beaches and matchstick forests.

Since 1963, many of those adventures have been underpinned

by Karl Toosbuy, a free-spirited shoemaker who set up his own factory in the Danish town of Bredebro and created one of the world’s leading footwear brands.

Today, ECCO continues to enable everyday exploration around the world, whether that’s

traversing lichen-laced landscapes or tracking down that hot new restaurant. And with its sporty, built-for-speed styling, the new ECCO 2.1 x COUNTRY trail shoe has all bases covered, from cross-country adventures to classic city breaks.

Since 2009, ECCO has been perfecting the shoe’s BIOM® technology in partnership with the German Sport University Cologne, which managed to replicate a barefoot running experience for ECCO’s boundarypushing performance footwear.

That’s gone straight into every fibre and feather-edge of this shoe, which encourages the foot to move freely and efficiently. “ Crafted from premium textiles with leather elements – produced in ECCO’s own tanneries – the shoe combines midsole energy return (to move you forward), shock-absorbing PHORENE, and added bounce.

Stability on the trails is guaranteed thanks to the grip and traction of the sturdy outsole.

The three-layer design comprises a stretchy, sock-like inner; a ribbon-laced heart and a semitransparent outer mesh, making the shoe gossamer-light and breathable, but supportive, too.

You can trust a shoe that’s been almost 60 years in the making, created by a single-minded man who sold his house to finance his search of the perfect sole. While Karl is no longer with us, ECCO is still owned by the Toosbuy family, who are busy driving the next generation of footwear from their base in southern Denmark.

From that single factory in Bredebro, the company’s shoes are now sold in 101 countries worldwide. Slip on the new ECCO 2.1 x COUNTRY and stride into the future with them.

The ECCO 2.1 x COUNTRY, priced at £130, is available in numerous colourways for male and female adventurers; ecco.com

VENTURE How To

“A

lways look on the bright side of life,” sang Monty Python comedian Eric Idle. But in a world that seems increasingly crazy and uncertain, that can be a difficult thing to do. In an article in April this year, entitled ‘It’s Harder Than Ever to Care About Anything’, Time magazine pointed to evidence that suggests people are more apathetic than ever. This creates a feedback loop where we’re less likely to ‘get up and do something’, making the world ever more uncertain.

Fortunately, the cycle can be broken and even reversed.

“Who doesn’t want to be happy or happier?” says British ‘positive’ psychologist Vanessa King, the author of 10 Keys to Happier Living, and board member of the charity Action for Happiness. King advocates the ‘broaden-andbuild theory’ of positive emotions, developed by US social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson in the ’90s, which suggests that a feel-good attitude can encourage higher engagement, increased action, and an upward spiral of shared positivity.

“When we’re in a pleasant emotional state, our perceptual fields broaden,” she explains. “We literally see more. We build relationships, adapt to our environment, come up with better ideas.”

But how to get that good energy flowing? Here are King’s steps to happiness.

RACHAEL SIGEE

Measure your pleasure Classical Greek philosophy identified two types of happiness: hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (fulfilment in life). The trick, King notes, is balancing these short- and long-term aspects. “When working towards something fulfilling – say, a new project or relationship – it can often not feel good in the moment, painful even. So little moments of hedonia, like the instant hit of [buying] a new pair of shoes, can help us along the way.”

THE RED BULLETIN

Retrain your brain

Are you a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of person? That’s normal, says King – it’s a survival instinct. “Our brains have evolved with a negativity bias.

They’re hardwired to notice possible dangers. If you’re out on the savanna and the grass rustles, it’s safer to interpret that as a potential predator.” What we have to do, she says, is recalibrate that natural tendency using the following methods…

Record the highlights

One practice King suggests is reflecting on three good things from your day and writing them down. “They don’t need to be huge. It could be [something as simple as]: ‘A work colleague noticed that I was having a tough time and sent me a funny message.’”

Struggling to find even one positive moment? “Reflect on the least bad moment.

With repetition, even on the toughest of days you’ll start to look for the good things and savour them.”

GENERATE

Positive vibes

Feel there’s too much negativity in this world?

Maybe you’re looking at it all wrong…

Share the love

When we exchange pleasant moments with others, our brains produce a feel-good chemical called oxytocin, known as ‘the love hormone’ for good reason – it’s also released during sex, childbirth (to speed it up), and during bonding between mother and child. “It attunes us to others.

It’s also something we can stimulate. If someone shares something nice that has happened to them, engage

“Emotions might not feel good, but they’re not ‘bad’, they’re normal” Psychologist Vanessa King

with that – ask questions. But you have to do it genuinely.

That interaction amplifies the broaden-and-build effect.”

Ride that wave

Now you’ve drawn out your inner positivity, the trick is to maintain it. That, explains King, requires a fresh perspective on how you feel.

“Talking about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions is too simplistic. Emotions might not feel good, but they’re not ‘bad’, they’re normal. If we talk about ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’, or ‘happier’ as opposed to ‘happiness’, it’s more realistic and therefore longer-lasting.”

Vanessa King’s book 10 Keys to Happier Living is available at actionforhappiness.org 91

VENTURE Fitness Game your grind

While Lanebreak is a game, it’s also a workout. “Getting a high score is just a matter of output,” says Green. “Folks who work harder are gonna be at the top,” But while there aren’t ‘cheats’ in the gaming sense, there are ways to boost your score other than through sweat.

“Look down the track and be ready to change the resistance knob and your leg speed ahead of upcoming streams. You’ll score those first few points when entering that section.”

Find your groove

Retune your workout How Peloton turned your cardio session into a video game Usain Bolt knows a thing or two about high scores: the Jamaican sprinter’s personal bests for the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay are also world records. So it’s no surprise that when the multiple gold medallist exercises at home, it’s his own performance he’s trying to beat, as he revealed in a recent interview on Peloton’s YouTube channel. “One thing I hate… and love,” he said of his own Peloton sessions, “is that because they give you personal bests, it’s hard to not try to get yours every time.”

It’s this ‘beat your high score’ mentality that Peloton explores with its latest workout experience. The US ‘connected fitness’ company is known for its slick instructor classes, streamed to its Bike and Tread exercise machines, and while these sessions incentivise users with leaderboards and achievement badges, it was time to take that further. “We wanted an interactive, gamified fitness experience that emphasised feedback and 92

mastery,” says Peloton senior product manager Jim Green.

The result is the rhythm game Peloton Lanebreak, controlled by your Peloton Bike.

Players pedal a virtual wheel down a six-lane highway filled with challenges timed to music: ‘beats’ are ridden over to collect points, ‘streams’ require your cadence (pedalling speed) to stay within a set range, and ‘breakers’ are sprints to push the score higher. Turning the Bike’s resistance knob steers

between lanes, which escalate in resistance from left to right.

In other words, Lanebreak is the metrics of a real-world physical workout visualised as video-game mechanics.

Here’s how to high-score your health in the world’s first exercise-bike video game…

“Getting high scores is all about output” Jim Green, Peloton

On a roll: in Peloton Lanebreak, you’re the wheel.

And the lane? Well, that’s your life (possibly)

Lose yourself

Lanebreak’s graphics are best described as minimal – a design decision that emerged after numerous prototypes. “We found that even with this simplified visual feedback, it was so immersive,” says Green.

“Testers were so engaged that they’d spend 10-15 minutes on a ride and not look at the clock once.” The game is also opening up workouts to a new audience.

“We’re seeing [Peloton users] on social media saying that now Lanebreak is out, their teenager has hopped on it.”

Usain had better up his game.

Peloton Lanebreak is out now for Peloton Bike and Bike+.

An All-Access membership is required; onepeloton.co.uk/ lanebreak THE RED BULLETIN

PELOTON

RIDE

Lanebreak sessions can be tailored according to difficulty, duration and workout, but the most crucial choice is music.

“Every level is designed to reinforce elements of the music,” says Green. This means a David Bowie ride is very different to a David Guetta one: “If I’m going all out to a 100bpm EDM track and the cadence is at 100, it feels great.” A workout that works particularly well with Lanebreak is the interval training of Tabata Dance Pop (20 seconds of high intensity, 10 seconds of rest). “Charging up a breaker, going through a rest and charging up a breaker again is a challenge I highly recommend,” says Green.

We make cycling accessible for the whole of the UK – all levels and disciplines.

THE NATIONAL BIRMINGHAM The premier retail experience packed full of inspiring speakers, interactive features for all the family and the opportunity to try and buy your next bike, the show is a great day out for all the family.

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• Inspiration Stage • Cycling 101 Stage • Meet & Greet Zone SIR CHRIS HOY

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MATTY TURNER

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RACHEL ATHERTON

• Yoga For Cyclists

Get your FREE TICKETS now with the code REDBULL at www.nationalcyclingshow.com PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

VENTURE Calendar

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29

June to 18 September IN THE BLACK FANTASTIC In a year when multiverses are trending, Ekow Eshun wants to share more alternate realities.

For this exhibition, the former artistic director of the ICA has curated works from leading Black artists that envision parallel worlds of folklore and futurism reframed through the lens of African diaspora. These include US artist Nick Cave’s Soundsuits (below), Ellen Gallagher’s reimagining of the Atlantic slave trade as aquatic mythology, and Sedrick Chisom’s apocalyptic art depicting a world overrun by a disease: white ideology.

Hayward Gallery, London; southbankcentre.co.uk

June onwards WILD WATERS Nouria Newman is one of the world’s most accomplished lone kayakers – a rare breed in a sport that’s comparable to free soloing in climbing – and has paddled some of the most treacherous whitewaters on the planet.

Pictured is the moment in 2021 when the French 30-year-old descended Pucuno Falls (now Don Wilo’s Falls) in Ecuador – the first person to do so, and the first woman to drop more than 30m in a kayak. “I’m always scared.

Sometimes I’m extremely scared,” she confides in this film, which reveals a very human superhuman at the heart of her expeditions. redbull.com

24

to 25 June NOH REIMAGINED When the classical Japanese dance-drama of Noh (meaning ‘skill’ or ‘talent’) was invented seven centuries ago, the world was a very different place. Today, it’s one of the oldest theatrical art-forms still performed, but there’s much the modern world can learn from these stories of demons and ghosts told through masks and metaphor. Noh Reimagined 2022: Spirits of Flowers focuses on our relationship with nature – an issue that’s fast becoming an existential crisis – as well as presenting seminars on Noh appreciation, dance workshops, and classes in utai chant techniques. Kings Place, London; kingsplace.co.uk 94

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VENTURE Calendar

18

to 19 June JUNCTION 2 FESTIVAL

CARL ZOCH/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, NICK CAVE, YUMI SHINGU, LUKE DYSON, TEDDY MORELLEC, THEATRE BY THE LAKE

Three years in the making: that’s how the organisers have billed this two-day EDM festival, which, from 2016 to 2019, was fast becoming a London summer tradition. Following two years of lockdown absence, tickets for this year’s event – with the likes of Four Tet, Margaret Dygas, Maceo Plex and Adam Beyer performing – were selling fast when it was discovered that the festival’s regular site, Boston Park Manor, was still undergoing redevelopment.

What followed was a Herculean operation to relocate, reschedule and reconfirm the big acts. Energy rerouted, power restored. Trent Park, London; junction2.london

17

June to 16 July THE CLIMBERS

14 If the British Mountaineering Council is to be believed, rock climbing was born in the Lake District in the 1800s.

While we can’t verify that wild claim, we can confirm is that this thrilling play – a mountaineering mystery set around an eventful Everest expedition – will have its world premiere there, at this theatre on the shores of Derwentwater. Theatre by the Lake, Keswick; theatrebythelake.com THE RED BULLETIN

June onwards SÉBASTIEN OGIER: THE FINAL SEASON At the beginning of last year, Sébastien Ogier – French rally driver and winner of the World Rally Championship a staggering seven times – announced his retirement from the sport. He then proceeded to win it an eighth time. This feature-length documentary is the story of that monumental final year, intercutting the drama of the 2021 WRC season with flashbacks to the incredible career that preceded it. At the end of 2021, Ogier declared he would still compete, part-time, in selected races in the 2022 season – a last opportunity for would-be usurpers of his throne to validate their claims. But the legend, as documented in this film, is already carved in stone. redbull.com 95

GLOBAL TEAM

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the cover of our US edition for July, featuring high-jump sensation Vashti Cunningham.

For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com

The Red Bulletin UK. ABC certified distribution 141,561 (Jan-Dec 2021)

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Semi-Rad Adventure philosophy from BRENDAN LEONARD

“Everyone who runs trails, I would imagine, has at one time or another been surprised as the toe of one of their shoes hits a rock or a tree root that was, up until that point, completely invisible to them.

They’re sent flying and either catch themselves somehow or go all the way down. Over 4,000-plus trail-running miles I have only fallen once. I think this is because on the first day of fourth grade my mom dropped me off at the front of the school as my entire class was waiting at the front door, and as I started to walk across the sidewalk to join them I tripped on a bit of concrete and fell flat on my face.

That’s stuck with me since 1988, I guess.” @semirad

The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on July 12 98

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