Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
curious if her sponsor gives her health insurance or if she has to pay that out of her own pocket. not many running groups cover anything outside run-related injuries.
Many of the shoe contracts make you an employee of the sponsor (kind of unique to running, as you are not on a team and then have a sponsor, rather sponsor is your team) with health insurance and of course all the wellness, recovery, physio etc.
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
I hope someday to compete at the Trials and have people say I will never seriously compete! She also was on a worlds team. Say what you want but everyone had the opportunity to be on that team and she made it.
Pretty good explanation. Of course, she can't talk about her contract but everything else was fair game. She discussed prize money, travel, accommodations (interesting: USATF retroactively covers $2,000 for travel expenses if you place in the top-8 at the Trials), and other things. I think she did a good job detailing how much a runner of her caliber makes.
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
Yes, and the vast majority of people who seriously participate in those sports wish they could spend a week in any of those roles. Most end up never competing after high school and going into some normal field of work.
Amazing how many trolls on here try to downplay the significance of someone making it that far... usually kids who have yet to experience the hard reality of adulthood.
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
trolling nonsense. at her peak, juiced or not, she was 4th in the country and went to a worlds. she regularly makes the final at nationals in 3000s. in your baseball language that translates to solid major leaguer and one time all-star.
our minors would be something like college and the ATL series.
if we're defining majors as nothing but the top notch at DL, oly, worlds then there's maybe 10 major leaguers per event in the whole world. nah, to me you're confusing champions league with regular season.
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
trolling nonsense. at her peak, juiced or not, she was 4th in the country and went to a worlds. she regularly makes the final at nationals in 3000s. in your baseball language that translates to solid major leaguer and one time all-star.
our minors would be something like college and the ATL series.
if we're defining majors as nothing but the top notch at DL, oly, worlds then there's maybe 10 major leaguers per event in the whole world. nah, to me you're confusing champions league with regular season.
I agree. He probably even craps on Grant Fisher, "What , no Gold medal?" . Seriously, she has had a solid career and ain't done. Keep going!!
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
No she was a high school phenom and college star, and has been well-known for over a decade. Has made the final at a couple USOTs in the steeple and has some top finishes at mountain racing championships and world cup events. Not a superstar, but she'd be a starter in the major leagues.
No, they make 80k a year and RUN for a living. It's a sweet setup and we all know it. Some are just jealous.
I would was jealous of people like them back when I was their age... Working while these guys were making a living running.
But now that I'm not their age anymore... I'm glad I was just jealous back then.... as opposed to actually trying to make a living off of a lower tier pro running career.
This an interesting point of view. I remember back in the 1970's (I was in high school) young people were encouraged and praised for "chasing their dream".
It could have been running, music, art, whatever their dream was, even some time to just wander around.
Runners did not get paid (ok, some did under the table).
But things were different. You never worried about money or retirement or affording a house.
You could take a few years, run 100 mpw, travel around in an old car and race and see where it would take you.
Allie Ostrander is a "pro" runner like a career minor league baseball player or practice squad NFL player. She will never seriously compete at events or be world class but is good enough to simply participate and feed the training and placings of the real pro women
Also..why move to boulder (I imagine to be a good trail runner) then stick to all the bunny slope trails. No green mountain, sanitas, bear etc. Stop trying to be an influencer and run some real trails ffs
Criminal that someone with her credentials can't carve out something a bit better in our sport. Granted, she raced a lot of track/trails this year, and might have better success on the road race circuit. The track meets that are World Athletics labeled that don't offer anything is a joke. Find a way to give some prize money out. Have age group races that you can charge for. Make it work.
Would like to see more development in prize money in US road racing. Need to expand prize purses, need it to go deeper, and need it to not fall off so steeply past the first few finishers. The US Road Racing Circuit is decent but the season end standings only pay 5 deep. Ironman has a season long series that pays 50 deep. I like having unique individual race organizers but some coordination is needed to try to bump up the money pool.
Also, that 2018 LRC article should be a yearly thing. It's dropped in like look at this great thing we did but it's been 6 years since then & it didn't cover the majority of solid athletes in the sport. Things aren't exactly improving for most athletes. This article should be a yearly staple & vastly expanded. LRC should be using it's strength to push to publish athlete salaries & appearance fees. A lot of athletes are disadvantaged because there isn't collective bargaining & they don't know what everyone else is getting.
This post was edited 5 minutes after it was posted.
When prize money came available in the open around '84 or so, many circuits or series opened up with prize money. Diet Pepsi, Natural Light, Bonne Bell, etc were all tied with prize money. I was fortunate for a couple years to have entry fees, hotels, and gas money to run races. I never asked for appearance money like this, but was grateful when race directors gave it to me. I, being only a few at the time, would have rather seen that money go to prize money and go deeper. I felt that would have encouraged the racers that put a full 40hrs in at work+running, like me, to continue with the dream. When I became a race director, the first race I rearranged the budget and came up with $1,000-$100 for first 5 men/women, and reduced that by 50% for Masters. My age-group awards I went down to 10% of each 5-year category from the year before. So if there were 100 men in the 25-29 age-group-10 would get an award(gift certificates, handmade mugs, etc). The only participation award was the t-shirt-no medals.
I would was jealous of people like them back when I was their age... Working while these guys were making a living running.
But now that I'm not their age anymore... I'm glad I was just jealous back then.... as opposed to actually trying to make a living off of a lower tier pro running career.
This an interesting point of view. I remember back in the 1970's (I was in high school) young people were encouraged and praised for "chasing their dream".
It could have been running, music, art, whatever their dream was, even some time to just wander around.
Runners did not get paid (ok, some did under the table).
But things were different. You never worried about money or retirement or affording a house.
You could take a few years, run 100 mpw, travel around in an old car and race and see where it would take you.
Wasn't that a time? Finish college, maybe rent a house with 3 or 4 other guys all chasing a dream (the olympic trials...maybe) while working part-time at a running shop or a taco time lol. I'd encourage anyone to follow the dream as long as you can and never cave in to the trad life offered here in the twilight of capitalism.
When prize money came available in the open around '84 or so, many circuits or series opened up with prize money. Diet Pepsi, Natural Light, Bonne Bell, etc were all tied with prize money. I was fortunate for a couple years to have entry fees, hotels, and gas money to run races. I never asked for appearance money like this, but was grateful when race directors gave it to me. I, being only a few at the time, would have rather seen that money go to prize money and go deeper. I felt that would have encouraged the racers that put a full 40hrs in at work+running, like me, to continue with the dream. When I became a race director, the first race I rearranged the budget and came up with $1,000-$100 for first 5 men/women, and reduced that by 50% for Masters. My age-group awards I went down to 10% of each 5-year category from the year before. So if there were 100 men in the 25-29 age-group-10 would get an award(gift certificates, handmade mugs, etc). The only participation award was the t-shirt-no medals.
Awesome that you did that. I made some money after college in road races, but certainly not enough to make a living ($100 here and there). Prize money in the 80s, 90s was better than now (at least equal inflation adjusted) and prize money was available even at local races. I see almost no prize money a the local level now.
The problem now is that races have realized they don't need elites in the race and prize money just takes away profit. The instagram crowd jumping in the air across the finish line for their pic, or the finish medal crowd does not know or care who won or what their time was (elite or themselves). Trying to achieve their maximum potential is not even a thought to most of them. There are 1000 of these people for every elite athlete so the elite athlete is nothing but a money drain to race organizer. And race organizing has gone corporate so profit matters. Local clubs don't put on the local road races anymore.
That is why a runner like Allie can hardly make a living. She made the US Team in Cross Country. She has been top 10 in US track championships several times. By the baseball analogy, she is a multi time All Star.
The way to fix this is get the athletes to band together, like baseball strikes that significantly increased pay. But that is easier said than done. Runners need a paycheck badly and something is better than nothing, so getting them to boycott races would be difficult. So the low pay actually makes it easier to keep the pay low and the cycle continues.
You people crack me up. She is living on her own terms. When she is 95 in a nursing home she is not going to be upset that she didn’t get a job as a nurse,realtor,consultant 10 years earlier. There is no such thing as the real world fyi. I’ve been a pro athlete making 30 K a year in the early 2000s, owned multiple businesses making 7 figures later in life. I honestly enjoyed the days I was making pennies eating peanut butter sandwiches traveling the world much more. After you “make it” you just realize that we are here for a short amount of time and it’s best spent the way you prefer.
When prize money came available in the open around '84 or so, many circuits or series opened up with prize money. Diet Pepsi, Natural Light, Bonne Bell, etc were all tied with prize money. I was fortunate for a couple years to have entry fees, hotels, and gas money to run races. I never asked for appearance money like this, but was grateful when race directors gave it to me. I, being only a few at the time, would have rather seen that money go to prize money and go deeper. I felt that would have encouraged the racers that put a full 40hrs in at work+running, like me, to continue with the dream. When I became a race director, the first race I rearranged the budget and came up with $1,000-$100 for first 5 men/women, and reduced that by 50% for Masters. My age-group awards I went down to 10% of each 5-year category from the year before. So if there were 100 men in the 25-29 age-group-10 would get an award(gift certificates, handmade mugs, etc). The only participation award was the t-shirt-no medals.
Awesome that you did that. I made some money after college in road races, but certainly not enough to make a living ($100 here and there). Prize money in the 80s, 90s was better than now (at least equal inflation adjusted) and prize money was available even at local races. I see almost no prize money a the local level now.
The problem now is that races have realized they don't need elites in the race and prize money just takes away profit. The instagram crowd jumping in the air across the finish line for their pic, or the finish medal crowd does not know or care who won or what their time was (elite or themselves). Trying to achieve their maximum potential is not even a thought to most of them. There are 1000 of these people for every elite athlete so the elite athlete is nothing but a money drain to race organizer. And race organizing has gone corporate so profit matters. Local clubs don't put on the local road races anymore.
That is why a runner like Allie can hardly make a living. She made the US Team in Cross Country. She has been top 10 in US track championships several times. By the baseball analogy, she is a multi time All Star.
The way to fix this is get the athletes to band together, like baseball strikes that significantly increased pay. But that is easier said than done. Runners need a paycheck badly and something is better than nothing, so getting them to boycott races would be difficult. So the low pay actually makes it easier to keep the pay low and the cycle continues.
But the problem with all that is the shoe companies and the structure of the industry really. I'd wager that the two highest paid marathoners in America are CJ Albertson and Michael Ko, AKA Kofuzi. Albertson because he is an online coach plus a runner who races often and usually cashes when he does so (and who is good enough to get appearance fees, travel comped and a shoe contract). Ko because he does a ton of brand activation at races he either runs or attends as a fan, has a sponsored contract with the Runna App, has a sponsored contract to make appearances at Asics national tour events, has contracts to do social media for Asics around major events, like the World Championships, has affiliate links, and has AdSense revenue.
I don't think either are making outrageous amounts of money, probably on the lower end of six figures, maybe pushing $350k in a good year.
So we have brands that would rather work with a guy that runs a 35 minute 8k turkey trot than elite and subelite runners because it sells more product, and they're in the business of selling more product. That offends the really good runners around here who want to be paid to run and see Ko touring the world at races they can't afford. Makes sense.
But is this really all that different from the time 30 years ago when fringe elite runners would often work for the running shoe store, which gave them free shoes and time to train, coach the running shoe store's running club, and race and win prize money?
Not really except that there are far less people who can have that type of existence now because the algorithms allow Ko to talk to 30,000 potential customers per video and few of those people are going to watch other videos. And to make it like Albertson has you have to be *really* good. There aren't many people who can cash 5 figures at CIM a month after cashing at New York, which was a month after cashing at Chicago.
You people crack me up. She is living on her own terms. When she is 95 in a nursing home she is not going to be upset that she didn’t get a job as a nurse,realtor,consultant 10 years earlier. There is no such thing as the real world fyi. I’ve been a pro athlete making 30 K a year in the early 2000s, owned multiple businesses making 7 figures later in life. I honestly enjoyed the days I was making pennies eating peanut butter sandwiches traveling the world much more. After you “make it” you just realize that we are here for a short amount of time and it’s best spent the way you prefer.