STORY
Tools, Toys, and Tantrums
There is a version of gear obsession that is a disease and a version that is a form of attention. The diseased version accumulates. The attentive version selects, uses, discards, and sometimes replaces.
This year I carried one vest for all runs over six hours. A single pair of shoes for everything under marathon distance. One insulation layer. The reductions were not austere — each item was genuinely the best available option for its task.
The best tool is the one you forget you are carrying.
The tantrums come when the tool fails not from quality but from misapplication. That is always the user, not the thing.
