Rooting for Spencer and hope that this goal, which should be slam dunk for how talented he is, helps him get the fire back for running. Since graduating he just hasn't seemed as into it and I think he's really suffered not having a real team around him. I still think he should ditch Seattle, head back east and link up with the Empire Elite boys but it ain't my life.
I like watching his channel and hope he does well but it always seems like he's not really "all in" enough, especially for the longer distances. There are guys working 40+ hours a week and running 100 MPW but he's eating junk food and trotting around 50 miles a week. He needs to get serious, diet, rest, and up his mileage/training in a methodical way. He's got plenty of natural speed. He really needs a lot of aerobic power. Mostly, he just needs to be more disciplined and be mentally tougher. Face some adversity of some type, be strong.
He should know now he has no future in track…. pretty soon it’ll be a struggle for him to even get into decent meets.
as someone stated earlier, not sure why he’s dead set on Seattle. He and allie both can uproot and go just about anywhere. I think the two of them is still holding out hope they gonna run some trail blazing time and get picked up by some team and I just don’t see it.
he could fare well and collect some money at road racing scene. Do some conventions here and there for his channel.
He should know now he has no future in track…. pretty soon it’ll be a struggle for him to even get into decent meets.
as someone stated earlier, not sure why he’s dead set on Seattle. He and allie both can uproot and go just about anywhere. I think the two of them is still holding out hope they gonna run some trail blazing time and get picked up by some team and I just don’t see it.
he could fare well and collect some money at road racing scene. Do some conventions here and there for his channel.
The Seattle area itself is pretty nice. Seattle is great for certain kinds of people. But yeah, seeing this guy's lifestyle at his age relative to where most people are at during that point of their lives sort of bums me out and I don't even know the guy. I think he might try a job for a local company and see how that takes. He could fit it into his schedule easily enough. He could use some meaning in his life outside of running, methinks.
The first workout tells you all you need to know. Loads of 200's... hardly a staple 5K session, and yet another workout he can cruise through to keep himself happy but ultimately doesn't get him towards his goal, just looks good on camera. What happened to those 5xMile sessions he was doing under his Dad?
He spends a chunk of the video advertising this ketone-iq drink that he's only just heard of second-hand from Ari and doesn't understand the science (@Spencer, you've said "I really like this product, and I really feel the difference" about every endorsement you've ever done, it's not 'selling' it very well)
also gives us a speech about not tying self-worth to times... and then throws out a time-based target, a soft one at that, and is now two events removed from his primary event.
I don't mean to hate, I'm just tired of TAS going in the same cycles.
I think everyone (myself included) is quite nostalgic about TAS videos and so wants him to do well, but objectively this is just another play at trying to keep the channel running by avoiding his primary event yet again.
It's his training, his training environment, his diet, but ultimately it's his mindset and I think honestly Ari has a better chance at 4:00 because as we've seen from numerous burnouts, he is happy to go all in, whereas Spencer wants to try something and flakes when he doesn't get near-instant rewards
What I don't understand is why Spencer is still content to stay at ~60-70 miles per week yet expects to get better - he's been running that sort of mileage for like five years now and clearly needs to make a commitment to train more if he's going to advance much beyond the times he was running four or five years ago. If he's nervous about getting injured, then why not gradually add in a few extra hours of cross training per week to simulate the effect of increasing mileage? The truth is that many of his current competitors (and certainly those who are running the kinds of times he wishes to) are training far more than he is, so why does he insist on keeping his training volume so low? This is honestly a bit frustrating to me.
What I don't understand is why Spencer is still content to stay at ~60-70 miles per week yet expects to get better - he's been running that sort of mileage for like five years now and clearly needs to make a commitment to train more if he's going to advance much beyond the times he was running four or five years ago. If he's nervous about getting injured, then why not gradually add in a few extra hours of cross training per week to simulate the effect of increasing mileage? The truth is that many of his current competitors (and certainly those who are running the kinds of times he wishes to) are training far more than he is, so why does he insist on keeping his training volume so low? This is honestly a bit frustrating to me.
Eh I think the mileage is plenty for his goals and his body. With Brooks, he ran consistent 70-80's and ran like dogsh!t, although he was also dealing with covid at the time. But 60-70 mpw is perfectly normal for a mid-d guy, I don't know why that's the thing that people focus on. What's holding him back right now is a lack of intensity. He only does easy runs with 1 easy workout a week and some strides. I don't know if this is part of the plan but it's February now so it's time to start cranking.
What I don't understand is why Spencer is still content to stay at ~60-70 miles per week yet expects to get better - he's been running that sort of mileage for like five years now and clearly needs to make a commitment to train more if he's going to advance much beyond the times he was running four or five years ago. If he's nervous about getting injured, then why not gradually add in a few extra hours of cross training per week to simulate the effect of increasing mileage? The truth is that many of his current competitors (and certainly those who are running the kinds of times he wishes to) are training far more than he is, so why does he insist on keeping his training volume so low? This is honestly a bit frustrating to me.
Eh I think the mileage is plenty for his goals and his body. With Brooks, he ran consistent 70-80's and ran like dogsh!t, although he was also dealing with covid at the time. But 60-70 mpw is perfectly normal for a mid-d guy, I don't know why that's the thing that people focus on. What's holding him back right now is a lack of intensity. He only does easy runs with 1 easy workout a week and some strides. I don't know if this is part of the plan but it's February now so it's time to start cranking.
Most people here are distance guys who think distance is the answer. The dude had legit 49 low speed in HS. He should be running 60-70mpw and doing weights and the like to try and be a 1:47/3:35 guy . But man the time do that was 4 years ago...
How much lamer of a goal can you set? The guy ran 3:39 1500m in college. I like Spencer (we've acknowledged each other in real life ..), but if he's serious he should run 13:30, no kidding.
In running, it can work well to set a goal, achieve it, and then set a harder goal. If he set his current goal to be 13:30, would you have supported that, or would you have said, “That’s a stupid goal- he hasn’t even broken 14 yet!”
What I don't understand is why Spencer is still content to stay at ~60-70 miles per week yet expects to get better - he's been running that sort of mileage for like five years now and clearly needs to make a commitment to train more if he's going to advance much beyond the times he was running four or five years ago. If he's nervous about getting injured, then why not gradually add in a few extra hours of cross training per week to simulate the effect of increasing mileage? The truth is that many of his current competitors (and certainly those who are running the kinds of times he wishes to) are training far more than he is, so why does he insist on keeping his training volume so low? This is honestly a bit frustrating to me.
According to his Strava, he is barely running 50 miles/week...base building for a 5K. Literally WTF?
He doesn't seem to have the desire to take it to the next level. He trains like a hobby jogger. The guy has or had the talent. Sub 4 min mile is the real deal.
The first workout tells you all you need to know. Loads of 200's... hardly a staple 5K session, and yet another workout he can cruise through to keep himself happy but ultimately doesn't get him towards his goal, just looks good on camera. What happened to those 5xMile sessions he was doing under his Dad?
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video. Also struck me as odd because I thought he actually had a decent season with a 3k pr and had at least one good 1500 in the low 3:40s. Obviously not his 3:37 goal but that would've been pretty ambitious because his PR was already kind of an outlier performance if I remember and most of his college races were more clustered in that low 3:40 zone.
The first workout tells you all you need to know. Loads of 200's... hardly a staple 5K session, and yet another workout he can cruise through to keep himself happy but ultimately doesn't get him towards his goal, just looks good on camera. What happened to those 5xMile sessions he was doing under his Dad?
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video. Also struck me as odd because I thought he actually had a decent season with a 3k pr and had at least one good 1500 in the low 3:40s. Obviously not his 3:37 goal but that would've been pretty ambitious because his PR was already kind of an outlier performance if I remember and most of his college races were more clustered in that low 3:40 zone.
I assume he and ari got drunk one night and came up with this. I will stick by that his dad system was working well and he just needed a hair more speed in the base. A couple 200s after a tempo run to keep the legs turning over.
The breaking 14 would have been a good indoor goal. Give you a good base and then figure out what to do outdoors.
The first workout tells you all you need to know. Loads of 200's... hardly a staple 5K session, and yet another workout he can cruise through to keep himself happy but ultimately doesn't get him towards his goal, just looks good on camera. What happened to those 5xMile sessions he was doing under his Dad?
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video. Also struck me as odd because I thought he actually had a decent season with a 3k pr and had at least one good 1500 in the low 3:40s. Obviously not his 3:37 goal but that would've been pretty ambitious because his PR was already kind of an outlier performance if I remember and most of his college races were more clustered in that low 3:40 zone.
his dad's training was decent, but way too many workouts at race pace/close to race pace with little rest--and that's it. Not a lot of variety and not a lot of speed. Then when outdoors came around he tried jumping straight into doing 400s at 60
Hi, I'm Roger Biebert, and am here today to review Spence Brown's latest video, episode 2 of his 13:59 project:
Spencer Browns's Episode 2 of the 13:59 project is an epic of the low road, a classic Seattle story set in the shadows instead of the spotlights but containing the same ingredients: Fame, envy, greed, talent, sex, money. The movie follows a large, colorful and curiously touching cast of characters as they live through a crucial turning point in the semi-pro running industry.
When the story opens in 2023, videos are shot on phones and played on laptops, and a director can dream of making one so good that the audience members would want like, subscribe, and comment, even after they had achieved what they came for. By the time the story closes, most of social media/internet videos are basically just running loops. There is hope, at the outset, that a social media movie could be "artistic,'' and less hope at the end.
"Episode 2'' continues the story through the life of a kid named The Athlete Special from Connecticut, who is a youtuber in Seattle who was discovered by a joke cracking pro runner named Allie O. "I got a feeling,'' Allie once said, "that behind that social media is something wonderful just waiting to get out.'' She was correct, and within a few months The Athlete Special was renamed "King of Seattle'' and is a rising star of running youtube videos.
If this summary makes the video itself sound a little like running porn, it is not. Few videos have been more matter-of-fact, even disenchanted, about running. Running is a business and pursuit here, not a dalliance or a pastime, and one of the charms of "Episode 2'' is the way it shows the everyday backstage humdrum life of semi-pro running.
Ari Klau is the father figure for a strange extended family of semi-pro runners; he's a low-rent Patrick Duffy, but gives one of his best performances as a man who seems to stand outside running and view it with the detached eye of a judge at a livestock show. Klau is never shown as running himself, although he lives with other runners, now a youtube star in his own right who makes tearful midnight calls to to ex-collaborators. When Ari recruits The Athlete Special to make continue on with the lifestyle, Ari becomes his surrogate parent, tenderly solicitous of him as they prepare for their next adventure.
When away from his fellow cast members, The Athlete Special falls immediately into star mode, and before long is leading a tour of his new house, running routes, and gym, where his wardrobe is "perfect but missing high socks".
Spencer Brown wisely limits the nudity in the film. It's more fun to approach it the way the Spencer Brown does. Of course fans ask for the shirts to come off, The Athlete Special obliges, and the camera stays on the runner's face as he looks, and a funny, stiff little smile appears; Spencer Brown holds the shot for several seconds, and we get the message.
The large cast of "Episode 2'' is nicely balanced between human and comic qualities. The Athlete Special's new best friend joins him at the gym. He gets a crush on The Athlete Special and engages him in erotic bro gym talk between suggestive movements. An unnamed character is a second-tier actor and would-be hi-fi salesman.
The sweep and variety of the characters lead me to compare to Robert Altman's "Nashville" and "The Player." There is also some of the same appeal as "Pulp Fiction," in scenes that balance precariously between comedy, dread, and inspiration. Through all the characters and all the action, Brown's screenplay centers on the human qualities of the players. They may live in a disreputable world, but they have the same ambitions and in a weird way similar values as mainstream Seattle.
"Episode 2'' has the quality of many great videos, in that it always seems alive. A video can be very good and yet not draw us in, not involve us in the moment-to-moment sensation of seeing lives as they are lived. As a writer and director, Spencer Brown is a skilled reporter who fills his screen with understated, authentic details. Brown is in love with his camera, and a bit of a showoff in sequences inspired by the famous nightclub entrance in "GoodFellas," Robert De Niro's rehearsal in the mirror in "Raging Bull" and a shot in "I Am Cuba".
In examining the business of catering to lust, "Episode 2'' demystifies its running. Mainstream youtube videos use running like instagram reels do, to turn us on in a short period. "Episode 2'' abandons the illusion that characters are enjoying running; in a sense, it's about manufacturing a consumer product. By the time the final shot arrives, there is no longer any shred of illusion that it is anything more than a commodity. And in The Athlete Special's most anguished scene, as he explains his goals and running life, we learn that those who live by the sword can also die by it.
Hi, I'm Roger Biebert, and am here today to review Spence Brown's latest video, episode 2 of his 13:59 project:
Spencer Browns's Episode 2 of the 13:59 project is an epic of the low road, a classic Seattle story set in the shadows instead of the spotlights but containing the same ingredients: Fame, envy, greed, talent, sex, money. The movie follows a large, colorful and curiously touching cast of characters as they live through a crucial turning point in the semi-pro running industry.
When the story opens in 2023, videos are shot on phones and played on laptops, and a director can dream of making one so good that the audience members would want like, subscribe, and comment, even after they had achieved what they came for. By the time the story closes, most of social media/internet videos are basically just running loops. There is hope, at the outset, that a social media movie could be "artistic,'' and less hope at the end.
"Episode 2'' continues the story through the life of a kid named The Athlete Special from Connecticut, who is a youtuber in Seattle who was discovered by a joke cracking pro runner named Allie O. "I got a feeling,'' Allie once said, "that behind that social media is something wonderful just waiting to get out.'' She was correct, and within a few months The Athlete Special was renamed "King of Seattle'' and is a rising star of running youtube videos.
If this summary makes the video itself sound a little like running porn, it is not. Few videos have been more matter-of-fact, even disenchanted, about running. Running is a business and pursuit here, not a dalliance or a pastime, and one of the charms of "Episode 2'' is the way it shows the everyday backstage humdrum life of semi-pro running.
Ari Klau is the father figure for a strange extended family of semi-pro runners; he's a low-rent Patrick Duffy, but gives one of his best performances as a man who seems to stand outside running and view it with the detached eye of a judge at a livestock show. Klau is never shown as running himself, although he lives with other runners, now a youtube star in his own right who makes tearful midnight calls to to ex-collaborators. When Ari recruits The Athlete Special to make continue on with the lifestyle, Ari becomes his surrogate parent, tenderly solicitous of him as they prepare for their next adventure.
When away from his fellow cast members, The Athlete Special falls immediately into star mode, and before long is leading a tour of his new house, running routes, and gym, where his wardrobe is "perfect but missing high socks".
Spencer Brown wisely limits the nudity in the film. It's more fun to approach it the way the Spencer Brown does. Of course fans ask for the shirts to come off, The Athlete Special obliges, and the camera stays on the runner's face as he looks, and a funny, stiff little smile appears; Spencer Brown holds the shot for several seconds, and we get the message.
The large cast of "Episode 2'' is nicely balanced between human and comic qualities. The Athlete Special's new best friend joins him at the gym. He gets a crush on The Athlete Special and engages him in erotic bro gym talk between suggestive movements. An unnamed character is a second-tier actor and would-be hi-fi salesman.
The sweep and variety of the characters lead me to compare to Robert Altman's "Nashville" and "The Player." There is also some of the same appeal as "Pulp Fiction," in scenes that balance precariously between comedy, dread, and inspiration. Through all the characters and all the action, Brown's screenplay centers on the human qualities of the players. They may live in a disreputable world, but they have the same ambitions and in a weird way similar values as mainstream Seattle.
"Episode 2'' has the quality of many great videos, in that it always seems alive. A video can be very good and yet not draw us in, not involve us in the moment-to-moment sensation of seeing lives as they are lived. As a writer and director, Spencer Brown is a skilled reporter who fills his screen with understated, authentic details. Brown is in love with his camera, and a bit of a showoff in sequences inspired by the famous nightclub entrance in "GoodFellas," Robert De Niro's rehearsal in the mirror in "Raging Bull" and a shot in "I Am Cuba".
In examining the business of catering to lust, "Episode 2'' demystifies its running. Mainstream youtube videos use running like instagram reels do, to turn us on in a short period. "Episode 2'' abandons the illusion that characters are enjoying running; in a sense, it's about manufacturing a consumer product. By the time the final shot arrives, there is no longer any shred of illusion that it is anything more than a commodity. And in The Athlete Special's most anguished scene, as he explains his goals and running life, we learn that those who live by the sword can also die by it.
Three out of Four Stars
Someone definitely has toooo much time on their hands!
his dad's training was decent, but way too many workouts at race pace/close to race pace with little rest--and that's it. Not a lot of variety and not a lot of speed. Then when outdoors came around he tried jumping straight into doing 400s at 60
I guess one thing I found strange about him switching up was that he had emphasized "trusting the process" while going through the season with his dad but then once the 2022 season ended the process was over. If I were him, I'd have started this year off by circling June 2024 and saying that everything in the next 18 months has to be geared towards making the trials. Obviously you have stepping stone goals in the meantime but that has to be the ultimate goal and would hopefully take some anxiety away if he can only manage 14 something and another season of so-so 1500s come spring. 18 months of "trusting the process" and just trying to string together days of training would give him a great chance to make the trials (in my humble opinion).
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video. Also struck me as odd because I thought he actually had a decent season with a 3k pr and had at least one good 1500 in the low 3:40s. Obviously not his 3:37 goal but that would've been pretty ambitious because his PR was already kind of an outlier performance if I remember and most of his college races were more clustered in that low 3:40 zone.
I assume he and ari got drunk one night and came up with this. I will stick by that his dad system was working well and he just needed a hair more speed in the base. A couple 200s after a tempo run to keep the legs turning over.
The breaking 14 would have been a good indoor goal. Give you a good base and then figure out what to do outdoors.
They joke about their group being called "Last Resort Track Club" but it's becoming more and more a reality every video
The first workout tells you all you need to know. Loads of 200's... hardly a staple 5K session, and yet another workout he can cruise through to keep himself happy but ultimately doesn't get him towards his goal, just looks good on camera. What happened to those 5xMile sessions he was doing under his Dad?
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video.
it was a really quick talk he gave in during a random video that was along the lines of "hey guys, so I'm going to be trying something different after last season with my dad, and am actually going to be coached for a bit by Ari - he's got me doing this double thresh..."
you get the point. no detailed explanation, just flaked on his dad's training like he flaked on most of his training 'plans'
Does anyone know why he stopped working with his dad after last season? I don't remember seeing a video where he explains the switch but I don't watch every video. Also struck me as odd because I thought he actually had a decent season with a 3k pr and had at least one good 1500 in the low 3:40s. Obviously not his 3:37 goal but that would've been pretty ambitious because his PR was already kind of an outlier performance if I remember and most of his college races were more clustered in that low 3:40 zone.
his dad's training was decent, but way too many workouts at race pace/close to race pace with little rest--and that's it. Not a lot of variety and not a lot of speed. Then when outdoors came around he tried jumping straight into doing 400s at 60
hang on, was it too close to race pace, or not enough speed?..
I think his Dad was on the right track - he had Spencer doing more strength based work which clearly gave some benefits and also boosted Spencer's morale a bit as he saw progress on the more aerobic end. Agreed that Spencer jumped into those 60sec/4's quite quickly and not for very long before racing, but I think it's indicative of most of his [TAS'] training of not sticking with things for long enough
when they introduced speed work, why couldn't that be balanced with the longer reps? It didnt have to be barn-burners every session. It's obviously the balance is what he did at Georgetown (from his old videos) but Spencer prefers flashy reps every single session which burn him out. When the heck was the last time he just did some simple KM reps on his own accord? Instead he's now gone too far the other way and is doing Mile reps etc under Ari's advise at way too slow a pace (wasn't it like 3:30/km recently?). Lets not forget Ari has just as much idea what he's doing as Spencer does...
Spencer, get back with your Dad coaching, or just get a real coach -> one thing no one seems to have mentioned is Spencer seems have never considered joining an amateur club/team or getting a coach. This is no longer just a couple months post-college. He's not holding onto any of his previous fitness. It's been 3-4(?) years. Get a coach if you're still taking this seriously.