The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

I’m…iffy about her current coach. Caveat that YouTube is a pretty limited view and the athlete certainly plays a big role, but based off her videos I don’t get the impression it’s been particularly productive, and the switch does seem to correlate fairly closely with a bit of a backward slide.

We’ve gone from someone who was previously on a solid trajectory, raced often and generally performed well, and now you’ve got an athlete who’s avoiding racing, putting in big weeks only to underperform on the day, and seems to be pretty down and unfocused mentally. I think that says a lot about whether things are on the right track, and while the coach isn’t always the reason for getting into a funk I don’t hear a hell of a lot of guidance or review coming from his end. I think there was that video where he basically told her to hammer progression runs until she was used to them, but it wasn’t really evident to me how that addressed anything in a larger sense. Kind of feels like he’s phoning it in a bit and just going along with whatever, which IMO is not a great move when you’ve got someone who’s clearly going through a rough patch and just bombed their first A race under your coaching.

I do think Chicago will be pretty telling in any case. This is the first time she’s really fallen short in a meaningful sense, and not to be cliche, but I think the ability to bounce back from that is as important as the good days.

Entry fee (thanks to really favorable exchange rate): $145

Flight (the Believe in the Run crew goes on and on about how they fly business on international trips, I would assume Kofuzi demands the same, or maybe he scrimps a little bit and goes premium economy). $8k-$10k for business class to Australian, $2,500 to $5,000 for premium economy. $1,500 if he flies coach. Hotels in Sydney, all over the place in cost. Let's assume they go with something between the bottom end ($600 for a week) and the top end $7,500 for a week. So let's say $3,000 for the week. Food: probably another $500 based on per diems. So that's anywhere from $5,000 if coach and modest hotel to $18,000 of Business class and the most expensive hotel. Kofuzi's whole travel vlog series wouldn't be feasible from a financial point of view without that kind of sponsorship. Let's say he does an appearance for Asics and gets $2,000 for it, and maybe another one for Rabbit and gets $1,000 for it and makes $500 off the video, he'd be losing money on the race without the free travel. His business model kind of sucks for that reason. If companies decide they're not getting $5k worth of value out of the videos, he won't get more free travel. (Sport Tours is probably the best fit for him bc if he sells even two packages to Sydney or Boston or whatever, he's netting them a profit).

I think she's probably nursing injuries. The not racing, and not racing well when she does race, is a give away. The algorithms demand constant uploads and when you take time off, they punish you for a long time. They do have some diversity of an income stream (Daniel's channel, her online coaching side hustle), but I doubt that's enough to pay for long altitude camps in Arizona and France.

I think Philly Bowden might be suffering a bit from burnout. Her actual running would probably benefit from living somewhere cheap and modest in Manchester or elsewhere outside London, having a part-time or flexible job (her husband can pay the other half of the rent), and training in a group with a good affiliated club (which others have suggested). She could still have a social media presence, e.g. on Instagram which is way less work than YouTube. Ditch all the pressure of brands and promos and hassle.

Transatlantic travel through numerous times zones is exhausting, probably unnecessary, and exposes you to hazards like illness caught on planes, and injury by running on trails at altitude in Arizona when you could just be running on the road and track in boring England.

This "runner as rock star" thing is going to end for all of them at some point.

Never watched any of the running YT'ers. But recently started with 'Ran To Japan'. Jake Barraclough, a 2:38 guy from the UK, moves to Japan, runs crazy mileage ~180mpw, and first drops to a 2:17, then a 2:14. The talent is to be able to withstand that mileage. Really enjoy his vids and his look into Japanese culture, especially how it relates to running.

Like his motto too, "Train harder, not smarter". LOL

You're a little late to the party, but yes on all RTJ points.

Kind of funny you say "exposes you to hazards like illness caught on planes" given that Philly *was* the hazard, flying unmasked while knowingly sick and then oh look, it was COVID, oops.

Training in Flag under Jon seemed to work fine for her for the Berlin build. I think the obvious difference is that she got way more popular after that, and feels the burden of expectations of both having to perform to that level + pump out content to take advantage of her growing popularity. I do agree she needs to get off the internet

Let's be serious for a moment. Bowden needs one thing and one thing only: she needs to hop on the good stuff.

The good stuff being therapy?

What I don't understand is why some of the Youtubers make it look so difficult to make small improvements over time. I don't see altitude or overseas training camps as being a necessity for improvement. While I haven't run as fast as Phily's marathon PB, I have run faster (just) than her best time this year in a marathon and I only entered that a few days beforehand with no specific build or taper. I did that by consistent training over the year (and years beforehand), whilst managing the usual life things like a 9-5 that we all deal with. I would be surprised if she wasn't able to run better, as you say, by basing herself in somewhere like Manchester and running with the local good runners. In Australia there are plenty of people that can, and do, smash me in races. I don't need to travel overseas for that!

But then she couldn't call herself "Pro runner" - that appears to be her entire identity

Nick Bester and Ben Felton are running 11/12 hours a week to shave 1 min or less off their marathon time. A time that even if they hit it, will be beaten by people with full time jobs who train as a hobby.

While we all love watching Ran To Japan he is running nearly 20 hours a week and while this is his gimmick you do wonder when that amount of training starts to become a detriment

It would become a detriment only if something really crazy happened like, say, just hypothetically, his immune system got so compromised he had to be hospitalised due to a near-fatal infection resulting from a minor cut.

She keeps mentioning her ADHD, maybe something as simple as a TUE for some good old Adderal would help.

Agree 100% with this.

Travelling back from the States knocks me out for a good week.

It really affects sleep patterns too and probably increases injury risk.

Sticking to boring runs in Manchester and maybe the odd trip to the Alps for altitude would be more beneficial imo, really don't see the need to travel so much to the US.

It's because "Flag" is the place to be where all the cool kids go

She would probably be in a much better place if she’d actually raced more than once since London instead of having a massive headloss over one bad race. Wasn’t too long ago she was doing a race as part of her MP long run sessions

Really good training is consistent and that's usually pretty boring. Quietly do the miles and the sessions, do the work that allows you to do the work and sessions without getting injured. Build a support network and a training environment that allows you to do the above.

I don't think any of the above makes for good YouTube content.

Other than mileage and race time, the real biggest difference between Ran To Japan (Jake) and those two (Bester and Felton) is that Jake is so likeable. Makes you makes you want to see him succeed and have good things happen. Not so much with the other two.