Reach Rewind #001: The 2024 New York City Marathon

I wanted to share a bit about how Reach came to life—what inspired it, what drives me, and why it’s about more than just athletic gear. It’s not just about one race or one moment, but the constant pursuit of something bigger—the drive to push limits, create, and keep moving forward. Here’s part the story.

Tuning Into the Signal

Running the 2024 NYC Marathon was unforgettable, but the real impact came long before the finish line. Training for a marathon is a series of quiet battles—early mornings, aching legs, and moments of doubt. I never found a clear answer to why I kept chasing this goal, but maybe that’s the point. I think that’s what keeps us coming back. It’s like a hazy recollection of a dream—fragments appear for a split second, but no cohesive image is immediately visible. Yet every time you return to this place that running brings you, it becomes a bit clearer, and the gravitational pull of your vision grows more undeniable. The vision itself is almost elusive, but the process of showing up brings it into sharper focus each time.

 A Lifetime in a Moment

The end of the marathon is such a strange feeling. Every human emotion under the sun is present in the same place at the same moment in time. There are people smiling, laughing, crying, hugging each other—while others have blank looks in their eyes, exhausted from the final push, having tapped into a depth of effort they hadn’t reached before.

But the finish line doesn’t just symbolize the end of the race—it marks the end of something that’s been looming over you for months. The last few hundred meters and the finish line itself are an absolute blur to me. The NYC Marathon finishes in Central Park, where the race organizers have kindly greeted you with a barricaded, one-mile trek out of the park. I snapped back into reality shortly after receiving my medal from a volunteer. That’s when I started recollecting everything from the past few hours. It felt like I had lived an entire lifetime since waking up at 4:45 AM that morning.

And as I started to recall the sights and sounds of the five boroughs I had just traversed, this collective human experience—I realized the power of this sport. Running was the purest expression of Purpose in Motion.

The Art of Beginning

I’m a bit of a perfectionist in most areas of life, and that became magnified when I first started thinking about how I wanted to share the concept of Reach with the world. For the longest time, I was stuck in analysis paralysis, unsure of where to even begin.

Even with the race itself, I carried so much anxiety about race-day performance. But all of that disappears when the cannons go off at the start line. There’s an electric energy as you cross that line—“New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra is blaring through the speakers, police officers and volunteers are wishing you good luck, helicopters are flying overhead. And after all the anticipation, things change pretty quickly as you cross the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island into Brooklyn. The nervous chatter in the start corral fades as everyone tries to find their rhythm and steady their heart rate. The Manhattan skyline stretches off to the left. Suddenly, the only sounds are the beat of thousands of footsteps and labored breathing.

My favorite moment came early in the race, just at the end of the Verrazano as you take the exit ramp into Brooklyn. There was a UPS truck parked on the median, and a delivery driver—dressed in uniform, holding a megaphone—was leaning out of his truck. Just beyond him, the first section of the race accessible to spectators was packed with people. “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” by the Beastie Boys came into earshot as we passed him, and I heard him yell, “Welcome to Brooklyn, motherfuckers!”

I couldn't help but crack a smile in that moment.

The start is what I remember most from the race. The feeling of freedom as you put one foot in front of the other, with no choice but to move forward. That’s what I want to do with Reach—provide people with the confidence to just start and see where their story takes them.

A Place to Begin

I know there are plenty of people like me—people who’ve felt a creative pull but haven’t had the right outlet to explore it. I want Reach to be that space—a place where athletes, artists, and entrepreneurs alike can bring their ideas to life.

Reach isn’t just about athletic gear. It’s about giving people the confidence to take that first step—whether in running, creativity, or any pursuit that excites them. More than anything, I want it to be a place where people can contribute, create, and connect with something bigger than themselves.

Reach is just getting started. If you’ve ever felt the pull to create, move, or step beyond what’s familiar, you’re already part of this story.

Let's see where it takes us.