Thanks to District Vision, a Rare Running Manual From the 1970s Is Sprinting Into New Life
Just in time for the 2018 Boston Marathon, District Vision, the conscious athletic label, is publishing its first book, a reprint of the rare-ish Beyond Jogging from 1976. If you’re a runner, then this is like finding out you can now find the Holy Grail from Amazon. “It’s been out of print for years,” says District Vision’s Max Vallot. “It’s a notorious book any runner would give their right arm for.” (You'll note that unsurprisingly he didn't say 'right leg'.) Written by Dr. Mike Spino, it crosses genres like Usain Bolt whizzing past finishing lines: furiously fast and without ever seeming to lose its breath. It’s part instructional manual on how to run better, part self-help guide on how to think better, part historical artifact on how to live better. (It’s also stuffed full of factoids. Did you know, for instance, that jogging made its way to the US from New Zealand? Nope, me neither. You learn something new every day.)
Much of the admiration expressed for Beyond Jogging from Vallot and his business partner Tom Daly is down to the book’s author. “Mike wrote it in a very personal, almost Hemingway, style,” Daly says. “He expresses everything in a simple, straightforward manner that everyone can understand.” Spino also articulated an idea of conscious athleticism—a holistic fusion of mind and body—that Vallot and Daly are now exploring through their label’s eyewear and many of the projects they work on. Spino, who moved to California from New York, arrived on the west coast just as an obsession with healthy activity fused with the Eastern contemplative philosophies motivating self-change that were so inspiring back in the day; he ended up running the sports division of Esalen Institute, the human potential center, where the likes of Aldous Huxley lectured.
Of course, even using the term ‘jogging’ seems a throwback to the gloriously hirsute 1970s. (The illustrations in the book are a virtual deification of facial hair and teeny-tiny running shorts on more Burt Reynolds lookalikes than you can shake a sneaker at.) “There’s such a stigma to ‘jogging’,” says Daly, laughing, “but the original boom for running came from jogging. The aversion to it only arrived in the ’80s and ’90s.” And if the new cover art, by Filip Pagowski, who designed the District Vision logo (and also has done soundtracks for the likes of Comme des Garçons) gives a veneer of 2018, the guys think that Spino's writings remain relevant. “Mike emphasized the need for diversification of movement,” Vallot says, “to get to the deeper layers of the mind/body dynamic.” Adds Daly: “It’s a very practical book, even if you’re running for the first time. What we all want is the release we get from it, and to keep it fun, so that we do it again, and again, and again.”
To celebrate next Monday’s Boston Marathon, not to mention the publication of Beyond Jogging, District Vision is holding this Saturday a pre-run meditation session at the city’s Church of the Covenant, right by what will be the race’s finishing line. It’s first come, first served, and to attend, you just need to RSVP to studio@districtvision.com.
