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Issue #45 of Like the Wind features the beautiful story of Shaun and Shamus Evans, an athlete duo who are on a mission to break the stigma around disability. They ran the Boston Marathon together in 2024, and this year completed their second World Major – Tokyo.

For such a small word, ‘home’ carries a huge amount of meaning. In life we refer to ‘home sweet home’, we talk about how home is where the heart is and call some people a ‘homebody’. In sport, there is the home run or home advantage. And in our sport – running – we have the home straight, the leg-burning last few metres at the end of the track (we’ll come back to that soon). Home is a place of sanctuary. It’s our castle – the place that keeps us safe from the dangers the world presents.

But home is also the place that we need to leave if we want to expand our horizons. For the Navajo people, home has an especially important meaning – there is a deep connection to the land and community is a crucial part of Navajo people’s lives. Still, in many cases Navajo people do leave the place they call home and this is something Brandon Dugi knows first hand.

Earlier this spring, we sat down with Fred Comte, director of Club des Sports Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, and New Balance trail athletes Théo Detienne and Maelle Beauvir, to explore what makes the Marathon du Mont-Blanc so special. Their insights shaped the story Valley Deep, Mountain High, published in issue 45 of Like the Wind. The following is an extended transcript of those conversations, some of which has been translated from French or lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Gran Canaria – and the islands that make up the archipelago that the Spanish call Las Islas Canarias – were once known as the Fortunate Isles: a winterless paradise that, according to ancient Greek mythology, was home to especially blessed heroes.

Nowadays, the island is better known as a popular tourist destination for several million visitors each year. But, once a year, the heroes return and undertake a task of Herculean scale – racing everything from a vertical kilometre to 126km across an island famed for its variety of terrain and climate.

The North Face athletes Fernanda Maciel and Jon Albon are two such heroes.

The city of Miami, nestling on the south-east coast of Florida, has long been associated with fun. A party town for good times. Where bright colours dominate and tourists go for hot, sun-soaked days and balmy bacchanalian nights, great food and plentiful cocktails. But running? Not so much. Perhaps surprisingly to some, Miami has a thriving running scene – and a marathon that has built a great reputation over the last two decades.

For years, women have been told they can “have it all.” But having it all means doing it all – and that means navigating a landscape shaped by expectations, societal norms and, at times, a lack of representation. The first thing to go when women have their hands full? Exercise. Only 33 percent of women met weekly recommendations for aerobic exercise according to a 2024 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Women are exercising less than men and the effects go deeper than a lack of fitness.