ABOUT US

OUR MISSION

The Sound Running mission is to Improve the sport we love and Inspire runners everywhere. This means giving back to the community through our events, building apparel for athletes, and helping ALL runners achieve their goals with smarter training.

OUR EVENTS

Sound Running events are the best way we know to give back to the sport and community. Our goal is to create a formal professional season with a better event product for both fans and athletes. The Track Fest serves as the premier spring event while the Sunset Tour continues to evolve the domestic summer season. We also host the Cross Champs as part of the The Running Event in Austin where the best professional teams in our sport will go head to head!

We believe events are at the very center of our sport and support all creative efforts.

OUR TEAM

The Sound Running team combines for over 30 years experience helping athletes become Olympians, win U.S. Titles, World Medals, and set World Records. We are also still learning every day from YOU, and will continue to evolve and provide opportunities for runners.

JESSE

Jesse has worked with athletes of all levels for the past 15 years. He was the Head of Brooks Sports Marketing for 13 years overseeing the marketing and business side of the Hansons-Brooks ODP, the Brooks Beasts, the Brooks PR Invitational and other athlete programs. A competitive runner as well, Jesse ran at Texas Tech University where he received his Bachelor's degree in Exercise Physiology and a Master's in Biomechanics. As a runner, he has run the Boston Marathon 5x as well as the Chicago, London, Berlin, and NYC Marathons. (He won the 2002 OKC Memorial and 2011 Seattle Marathon) Jesse has a very soft marathon PR of 2:22 and was once a hand model.
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SAM

Samantha Hanson has grown up in the sport of running as her father, Kevin Hanson, co-founded the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project in 1999, when she was barely walking. Having grown up around the team and the sport of running, she had attended the Olympic Games starting at just ten years old, multiple World Championships, and countless USA Championships on the road and the track. She joins us from HAWI Management, where she worked as a World Athletics certified agent representing some of the top athletes in track and field. She has worked closely with many companies within the athletics space and has strong interpersonal skills from her time as an agent. Samantha graduated from Michigan State University in 2020 with her Bachelor’s in Marketing and earned her MBA from Oakland University in 2021. During her time at both universities, Samantha competed in both cross country and track and field at the NCAA Division I level, with a focus on the 5000m and 10,000m distances. Since her collegiate days, she now runs for fun, having competed in a handful of marathons. In her free time, Samantha coaches high school cross country/track in Michigan, and enjoys spending time with her fiancé, Will, and their miniature dachshund, Winston.
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JAKE

Jake is obsessed with connecting the dots of our sport through creative outside the box thinking and constant learning. He has worked with industry leading teams in the running world for 20 plus years. His excitement for the sport started as young as 6 years old when he would enter every event possible in area youth track meets. His main motivations were the high school medals hanging on his Dad’s bedroom wall. SHINY THINGS! He was immediately romanticized with the sport. As he got older in running, he tasted some success by winning a Texas State Championship in the 800m then became the Southland Conference 800m Champion for Lamar University. Jesse is still salty that he wouldn’t take a recruiting trip to Lubbock. He had an incredible 17 year stint with Brooks Running that showed him the ropes of the running industry and allowed him to meet and network with some of the brightest minds in our industry. As a sales representative, he was awarded with honors such as Apparel Rep of the Year and Overall Specialty Rep of the Year. His passions are helping the sport move to the next levels, his family (wife Kathy and daughters Lanah and Michaela), and providing opportunities to excel through Athletics.
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HEATHER

Coach Heather’s passion for running started in high school where she won multiple state championships, and earned All-American status all four years. She continued on to Syracuse University where she competed for The Orange in cross country, the 5k, the mile, and the steeplechase. Her passion for running, training, and competition led her to Georgetown University where she began her coaching career working alongside two of the most decorated coaches in the NCAA. After Georgetown, she moved to Seattle to work for Oiselle where she spent three years building the Volée ambassador racing team. Heather has been coaching athletes online for the past six years and loves working with newbies all the way up to elites. Heather’s other great life love is traveling. She’s circled the globe and run in over 25 different countries. Who run the world? Beyoncé of course, and technically also Coach Heather.
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CRAIG

Craig’s leadership vision and mission come from a lifetime of running, learning, and co-creating. Craig has led award winning global product teams at the highest level of sport with stints at ASICS, Brooks, and adidas. He believes in building better runs through better products and an innovation model based on athlete feedback. His international experience has given him the opportunity to work with CEO’s, Olympic medalists, and world record holders alike to create custom strategies for success in leadership, sport, and business. He holds a master’s degree in athletic leadership from Clemson University and a BA from the University of Virginia where he was a member of the Cavaliers’ varsity cross country and track teams. Now living in SoCal again, Craig spends his time logging miles with his husky Cruz and lending Sound Running his apparel expertise and humor.
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KEVIN & KEITH

Kevin and Keith Hanson are the owners of the Hansons Running Shops in the Detroit Metro area and are the founders of the Hansons Original Distance Project. Since starting the team in 1999 the coaches have seen their athletes compete on World Teams, in the Olympic Games, and even win the Boston Marathon. What makes the Hansons special is not only their knowledge of the sport and training but their connection to the running community on all levels. Kevin was a high school coach from 1982-2016 on top of his duties with the professional Hansons ODP team. They host community groups runs, give talks at events around the country, and are constantly looking to improve the sport for all runners. We are lucky to work with these icons and would be lying if we said that our training plans haven’t been influenced by what we’ve learned over the years from the Hansons systems.
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PARTNER WITH US

Sound Running can bring your event to life, provide customized training plans, build your product, and provide leadership training.

BRAND

Sound Running was formed on the idea that a brand can create a feeling. Brand can change the sport, enhance a run, think differently, and inspire any runner.

Let’s work together to take your brand or product to a place where it can ignite a feeling and inspire runners.

EVENTS

We host our own events but we also bring your event vision to life. In 2021 we debuted a new PPV model for our sport, helped build out a new track league on ESPN, and worked with several companies on their events.

Branded running events with a creative spin is music to our ears! Let us help you with your next event or creation.

PRODUCT

We can build event product, supplement your retail offering, or create a custom collection. We provide anything from the fun technical run gear to the run culture items we live in each day. Let’s build what runners need!

Check out our Apparel for the Sport Project

TRAINING

We believe training plans should be better and should add to the participants experience! We build training plans specific to the race course, weather, and even sponsors. There should be no surprises on race day and why should the customer + sponsor journey start at the expo?