Like the Wind Media Launches Run Culture: Live Festival at London's Truman Brewery
A record 1.13 million people applied for the 2026 London Marathon, with 1.33 million for 2027, highlighting a massive demand for running experiences beyond races. On September 4-5, Like the Wind magazine, which has documented running's human stories for twelve years, will open RUN CULTURE:LIVE at Brick Lane's Truman Brewery: a two-day festival featuring talks from Olympic gold medalist Linford Christie and Run Dem Crew founder Charlie Dark, alongside workshops, social runs, and an indie makers' market, providing a much-needed physical home for the UK's burgeoning running culture.
RUN CULTURE:LIVE arrives at the Boiler House, Truman Brewery on 4–5 September 2026 — a festival-style, two-day celebration of running culture, storytelling, creativity and community, staged by Like the Wind magazine.
The timing meets a movement at full sprint. The 2026 London Marathon ballot drew a world-record 1,133,813 applications for around 17,000 places — a 1.5% chance of getting in — and the 2027 ballot climbed again to 1.33 million, with the 2026 race fielding 59,000-plus finishers, the largest marathon field ever assembled. Organisers are now exploring a two-day marathon for up to 100,000 runners. The sport has races beyond capacity and crews on every corner. It has never had a festival.
The programme reads like the culture assembling itself. Olympic sprint legend Linford Christie. Molly Seidel, the US Olympic marathon medallist turned ultrarunner. Olympic steeplechaser Colleen Quigley. International trail star Lucy Bartholomew. And Charlie Dark — founder of Run Dem Crew, DJ and writer, the man whose east London collective seeded the global run-crew movement that now defines how a generation runs.
Around the talks: hands-on workshops in storytelling, photography and craft; a curated market of independent running brands, artists and makers; social runs and challenges; a professional podcast booth open to creators; and brand experiences from a partner roster spanning Salomon, Under Armour, Puma, Ciele Athletics, Wahoo, Precision Fuel & Hydration, SportsShoes and United Repair Centre.
The organisers earned this stage the slow way. Julie and Simon Freeman conceived Like the Wind while running the Tour du Mont Blanc, struck that cycling had beautiful journals and running had nothing; Julie laid out the first issue on a 30-day free trial of InDesign, the magazine launched in February 2014 under the slogan "it's not how to run, it's why we run," and it now reaches readers in more than 40 countries. A decade of pop-up galleries, storytelling nights, a running photography prize and a legendary unofficial UTMB afterparty means RCL isn't a pivot — it's the escalation.
Trend context
The receipts of the boom are Guinness-certified: a world-record ballot smashed by 36% in a single year, then raised again to 1.33 million — one in every sixty UK adults — with 40% of applicants first-timers and women at essential parity in the UK ballot. Underneath the numbers is a cultural handover: millennials and Gen Z trading nightlife for run crews, marathon week operating as culture and commerce at once, and running's centre of gravity shifting from finish lines to Friday-night social miles.
Every boom culture eventually builds its gathering — cycling's beloved journal Rouleur grew Rouleur Live, and Like the Wind was founded explicitly in that magazine tradition. Running's version arrives in September, in the East London postcode where the run-crew movement was born, at peak autumn-marathon training season when every runner in the city is mid-block. For media desks there's a second story nested inside: a twelve-year-old independent print magazine converting readers into a live audience — the exact playbook the publishing industry keeps calling the future.
About Run Culture: Live
Why we exist
Running media told people how to run — splits, shoes, training plans — and almost never why. Like the Wind exists for the why: the belief that running's real story is human, not technical, and that a sport this loved deserves stories told as beautifully as cycling's journals told theirs. "It's not how to run, it's why we run."
How we do it
Independently, and reader-first. We publish long-form stories, illustration and photography from the global running community, printed properly on FSC-certified paper, with a share of proceeds supporting charity running projects. We stay small enough to care about every page — and for a decade we've taken the stories off the page too, through galleries, prizes, events and collaborations.
What we do
RUN CULTURE:LIVE is a two-day international festival for running culture, produced by Like the Wind Media. Held at London's Truman Brewery, with outposts in the USA, Switzerland, and Japan, it brings together the global running community through stories, art, and experiences.
Why it matters
The running world is saturated with performance data and gear, yet a million marathon applicants are rejected annually, highlighting a deep hunger for community and meaning beyond the race clock. Run Culture: Live fills this void, offering the global running community a vital physical space to connect through shared stories, art, and experiences, shifting the narrative from 'how fast' to 'why we run'.
Who it's for
The runner whose bookshelf says more about their running than their medal rack. The crew runner whose Tuesday night social is the best hour of their week. The creator, photographer or maker whose best work happens at mile four — and everyone who says "I'm not a real runner" while running four times a week.
Proof points
Publishing since February 2014. Readers in 40+ countries. A published book with Thames & Hudson, a running photography prize, a decade of live events. Festival partners: Salomon, Under Armour, Puma, Ciele Athletics, Wahoo, Precision Fuel & Hydration, SportsShoes, United Repair Centre. Speakers spanning Olympic gold to the founder of the run-crew movement.
Traction & credibility
The festival roster is the endorsement: five headline names across sprinting, marathon, steeplechase, ultra and street culture chose the stage, and ten brands — from global sportswear giants to independent repair pioneers — backed it. Early-bird tickets are selling now across two-day, VIP and single-day tiers, at the Truman Brewery, the Shoreditch venue that hosts London's defining culture festivals.
Spokespeople
Simon Freeman
Co-Founder and Editor
The origin scar: a broken leg at university gave him the excuse to quit sport entirely, and "beer and cigarettes" carried him to nearly 30 — then running rebuilt him so completely he made it his life's work. His unfair advantage: twelve years inside the culture the boom just discovered, with the address book to prove it — the festival's speaker list is his contacts page. The pivot: a conversation on the Mont Blanc trail to a magazine, to a movement's first festival.
Julie Freeman
Co-founder and Creative director
She laid out issue one on a free InDesign trial and has art-directed every page since — the reason the magazine gets called beautiful before it gets called anything else. She carries the craft story, and the movement's defining statistic: women now make up essentially half of Britain's marathon ballot.
Talking points
The shift
Like the Wind Media Launches Run Culture: Live Festival September 4-5 at Truman Brewery, Shoreditch
The story
On 4–5 September, Like the Wind magazine opens RUN CULTURE:LIVE at the Truman Brewery, marking the first festival-scale gathering dedicated to Britain's running culture. The two-day event will feature talks from headliners like Olympic gold medalist Linford Christie, Molly Seidel, Colleen Quigley, ultra-runner Lucy Bartholomew, and Run Dem Crew founder Charlie Dark, alongside workshops, social runs, a podcast booth, and a market for independent makers. The festival is staged by the independent magazine that has documented the human side of running for over a decade.
Why it matters
A record 1,133,813 people applied for 17,000 London Marathon ballot places — the demand side of running has outgrown every existing container, and the culture that grew around it (crews, creators, indie brands, sober-social nightlife) has never had a physical home. Whether running culture can sustain its own festival is a live commercial question the whole industry is watching — and ten major brands have already voted with their partnership money.
Who does it impact
London's million rejected ballot applicants get somewhere to belong in September. The run-crew generation gets its culture treated as culture, not as a marketing demographic. Independent running makers get a market. And the publishing industry gets a working demonstration of its favourite theory: that a beloved indie print title can become a live business.
Proof points
Five headline athletes and cultural figures confirmed. Ten brand partners from Salomon to Puma. A venue that hosts London's defining festivals. Twelve years and 40-plus countries of editorial credibility behind the name on the door. Early-bird tickets selling now.
CTA
Press tickets and founder interviews via Like the Wind; the full programme and tickets at runculture.co. The festival runs 4–5 September — preview week is now.
Key facts
- Event Name
- RUN CULTURE:LIVE — two-day running culture festival
- Dates and Venue
- 4–5 September 2026 · Boiler House, Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1
- Format
- Talks & panels · workshops · brand experiences · LtW Market · social runs · podcast booth · VIP
- Headliners
- Linford Christie · Molly Seidel · Colleen Quigley · Lucy Bartholomew · Charlie Dark
Get in touch
Simon Freeman
Co-Founder and Editor
Drop me a note and I'll reply by email.