Stepen Colbert’s interviews are nearly always cold, relentless, and circuitous offensives, leaving most people turtled on their backs, pawing at the sky. Some try to fight back (they lose), others try out some deflective Judo (“the way of gentleness”) only to end up saying almost nothing at all.

Whenever I have a conversation with people about any race, training or running in general, I find myself spewing out terms that leave people with a big question mark on their foreheads. I then recall when it was not too long ago that I too was unaware of what most of the words belonging to the secret runner’s code meant.

Quadron has us convinced that somethings in the Scandavian water, that consistently produces catchy soul rhythms. We are in the rapture of Quadron, an emerging Danish band made up of two kindred spirits – Robin and Coco.

They were the scourge of the ‘80s, and eventually disappeared as a music format. But cassette tapes are back as the latest hipster accessory.

As prime mover in the design company Value and Service, Sean Murphy serves as a key element in London’s vibrant design scene. K is a prime mover in the design company Value and Service, Sean Murphy serves as a key element in London’s vibrant design scene. Murphy and Value and Service prove versatile in their many innovative projects, putting their mark on everything from books to fashion to branding:

Being born and raised in Los Angeles (by “Los Angeles” I mean LA proper) I’ve always had a natural aversion to the Valley. For those who are not familiar with the term “The Valley” it refers to any place that is a part of the San Fernando Valley in LA County (also known as known as the 818, Valle or SFV). I realized that there was a whole world of running routes just recently discovered when I finally opened up my running horizons.

Listening to “He Was Worse Than The Needle He Gave You,” It’s hard to believe The Delta Mirror was a hip-hop group once: the gossamer shoegaze atmospheres and haunted indie vocals of frontman Craig Gordon seem far away from any boom bap. But then the beat kicks in, and you realize that Delta Mirror know how to make a supple electronic groove. More importantly, they know how to write a crucial, affecting song amid all the synth swells and cathedral reverb.

Have you ever given yourself an excuse not to run – especially when it comes to a long run? It’s hard enough having to face 20 miles of road time and when it comes to having any kind of active social life, late nights, etc… getting the training runs in seem near impossible. With the LA Marathon now less than 30 days away…

Radio 1 super personality Zane Lowe has declared Tinie Tempah’s new single “Pass Out” as the hottest record right now in the world. It’s a certified banger! The track compiles various Brit sounds including grime, dub, and drum & bass – all wrapped up in an explosive pop tune.

As announced on Anthem magazine’s website last week, Vampire Weekend dropped a new single and video from the album Contra, “Giving Up the Gun.” While the band has been steadily crossing over (#1 on the charts), the band still hangs on to their more alternative roots. In the video, helmed by The Malloys (N.E.R.D., White Stripes, Silversun Pickups, etc.)…

“This is the first and last mash up we’ll ever make,” the fantastic New York neo-disco-post-electro-with-vocals-whatever duo relayed about their dreaded mash up combining Holy Ghost’s earlier single “I Will Come Back” with “Yearning,” a new release from DFA act Black Van. They claim they broke the no-mash-up rule to celebrate Chinese New Year, but we’ll take the musical dividends no matter what.

If you’re living and running in the urban sprawl that is Los Angeles, you may find it difficult at times to find a good group to run with. Have no fear, I have a Google Map* of popular running clubs in Los Angeles to help avoid such excuses in the future. The map is updated as often as possible to include accurate date and time meet information. There are also notes and reviews for some of the running clubs I or other runners have tried out.

She was handed the Critic’s Choice prize at the Brit Awards by Courtney Love, but don’t hold that against Ellie Goulding. Goulding has proven to be one of our fave elastic-voiced electro-folk-pop artistes in the past year; now that she’s chosen our fave nu remixer, Penguin Prison, to do the business to her single “Starry Eyes”…

Dutch design team Cobbenhagen Hendriksen were first out the gate to interpret ‘You Gotta Know Your Classics’ in Chapter 1 of this unique initiative and this is how they went about it: “Choosing Helvetica, which is used for the K-Swiss logo, we referred to a Helvetica sticker sheet you can buy in every office-supply shop ….”

Brakeless polo isn’t just for fixies. These kids take to the polo pit on BMX bikes and obviously not a care about the so-called elitism in bike polo. Obviously there’s no love loss between BMXers and Fixies, but this looks to be indication of common values. Here they take over the court and run shit.

Like most people, I started running for health, fitness but most importantly, extreme vanity. When I ran my first marathon last year, I ended up gaining a ton (like 4 sizes worth) of weight and swearing off the 26.2 distance “permanently”… now that I am back for round two of the LA Marathon (and 90% back to my weight) I am just as determined (if not more so) that the marathon weight doesn’t happen again.

“Mellow but uplifting” is how tastemaker DJ Rob Da Bank introduced Gui Boratto’s remix of the new Massive Attack track “Paradise Circus” on a recent radio show, and that’s a pretty good way to put it. Brazilian DJ/producer Boratto is the most maximal of the minimal techno generation, filling his insistent grooves with stirring emotion and (gasp!) something resembling pop hooks; therefore he’s a perfect choice to remix a track off Heligoland, the latest album from the trip-hop titans.

I just started working on my LA Marathon playlist (it takes a while longer than I thought it would to do a 5+ hour playlist) which made my mind wander to how few celebrities who live in LA are actually going to be running the LA Marathon. I mean really, only Shia LeBouf? What’s going on with the West Coast celebrities?! Music and motivation isn’t the only site that features celebrity running playlists. Here some cool ones I’ve found online that with music I’m actually likely to poach from:

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 was committing myself to cross-training at least two times a week. I’ve read all about the benefits of cross-training (injury prevention, active recovery, overall running fitness improvement, etc) and have really wanted to up my game as a runner. Running is my favorite form of exercise, so it’s been pretty difficult so far for me to find a cross training activity that is both beneficial and that I actually enjoy.

Eight forward-looking designers from Berlin to Bergen, Seoul to SoCal recently got inspired to look back and visually re-interpret the history of K-Swiss’ flagship shoe, the Classic – itself a timeless design that has endured since its introduction in 1966 at Wimbledon. In some ways, the K-Swiss Classic is the perfect shoe to project different design points of view onto: its pure white lines are a minimal masterpiece, a tabula rasa with which to project a fresh sensibility.