Instagram Runners: Deep Analysis

That's right - coaching provides accountability. It gets you out there on the days when you might skip the workout. Lots of people don't need that, but lots of people do. It's hard to get out and run every day when you have a job and a family (or a social life). I don't have a coach, in large part because I don't feel like shelling out $100 a month, but honestly, if having a coach is the difference between exercising consistently or not, I'm sure you get a huge return on investment, just in terms of overall health.

In addition, coaches get runners to do a lot of things they might otherwise skip - strength work, for example. I am good about getting in my runs, but I'm sure I'd do a better job with the boring injury prevention stuff if I had a coach. (If you're under 40, you may not need to worry about this, but for us old folks, preventing injury is half the game.)

I definitely roll my eyes at a lot of the Instagram "coaches," but most of them are no worse then my cross country and track coaches in the day, who had us doing speed work 40% of the time and eschewed "high" mileage above 25 or so mpw.

My least favorite category is the “I’m pro but won’t win a race” Ultra Runner. These are the people who’s every other post at best will be an Ad so they can show their parents they have some money incoming outside of their trust fund. Most likely sponsored by insight tracker, spring energy, and other one off brands. Will also constantly post about “playing in the mountains” and “the stoke”.

"It doesn't matter who or what training plan you follow, as long as you follow a plan you will see results." Jack Daniels

This reminds me of blogsnark doing features on social media runners.

Between Insta, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and yes even Strava never have lives less lived been more chronicled. Social media is an amusement park for clinical narcissists. Either you're one of the narcissists or you're the ride they get on for the dopamine hit.

Many moons have passed since I penned this thread, and yet still the Instagram Runners thrive and mutate into new forms. I will provide an update to this with some additional variations.

Non-Runner Athletes: a trend I've seen recently is the generic athlete who has taken up running after finishing their primary sport in college and has leveraged their base fitness into a marathon finish that makes the weekend warriors awe. Naturally, they are now experts in running and will share their secrets of running knowledge for a nominal fee, sending out color-coded Excel spreadsheets to all willing weekend warriors.

OTQ Gurus: perhaps the most entitled to their position but I have seen many D1 runners post grad with no options in traditional pro running turn to the dark side: running an OTQ marathon and claiming elite status! Again, to the untrained eye these runners may seem like the perfect experts to gain insight into training but often when I dig deeper I found runners who are merely leveraging their innate running talent and years of college training into poorly paced marathon efforts that. Still, they are gurus to the club runners and high schoolers because they have the coveted D1 pedigree and OTQ seal of approval. Just stay away from their TFRRS profile to see how they finished in their conference or at NCAAs (if they made the traveling squad).

Mental Health "Advocates": not a sect I enjoy deriding, as I feel this should be a valuable use of the social media channels but I cannot help but address the charlatanism that leeches on this subject. This banner is too often flown and dragged out as an excuse for lazy training or to shield a running content creator from any form of criticism. The mental side of running and many of the pressures that young runners feel and go through should not be taken lightly and to see this perpetrated by the very same influencer types that cause so many of the mental health/body image issues is vile.

How I went from X:xx to X:xx Runners: these are videos or IG reels I see far too often. The improvement advice showing a drastic change from some paltry 5k time to a standout time. This improvement lures in the unsuspecting high schooler who craves to emulate the improvement as they head towards college and they will gladly pay the price for the offered coaching or #sponsored products this influencer is hocking. However, the biggest tip for this improvement is usually simply to go from a high school freshman to senior and follow their coaches training plan over 4 years of track and xc. But the influencer need not mention that and can instead attribute their improvement to Athletic Greens or their own, personalized coaching plan, or whatever the mighty wallet craves.

"Running" Booty pages: perhaps one I should have included originally because these have been around since social media time began. I have seen many pages that list "Running" or "Athletics" in their name but then the page exists solely to parade women in bun huggers and sports bras. Occasionally these pages will feature real track athletes like Yuliya Levchenko, Alica Schmidt, Ewa Swoboda, or one of a few Italian long jumpers. Of course, none of these wonderful ladies are featured for their impressive feats on the track.

As before, please discus or feel free to add. Perhaps in another year I will feel compelled again to rail against these social media charlatans.