In Case You're Wondering What Happened to the Homepage...

Annoyingly slow to load, but you're the best source of what I like to read so...

1/10

but seriously, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00000000000000OOO000 SL00OO00OO00OO00OOW. to be honest, im mad that i responded, because now i have to stare at the stupid blue bar scratching, clawing, and fighting for every pixel that it can advance to the right.

Thanks for writing in everyone. We are very happy with the design of the homepage and in some ways think it's better than our normal homepage. Remember, it's not going to always be like that. It's sort of like a tuxedo - it's fun for special occasions and we think of this as a cool special promotion.

As for the slowness, that shouldn't be happening at all and is unacceptable and is something we'll have fixed shortly.

As for the messageboard in general, we too agree with you that it's too narrow and we'll be trying to make it feel like the old one a bit more. Everything should be fixed soon.

Thanks for your support.

Wejo and Rojo,

Work with the design so pages load faster. It was just really, really slow. Maybe there were just too many flash items trying to load at the same time.

Besides the slow loading times I noticed my laptop heating up during the page loading. Not sure if anyone else experienced that.

I often load letsrun on my smart phone. I didn't get a chance, before the site forum reverted back to the old format, to check if the site was usable or not. My guess was that the forum , which had small text but was readable, would get compressed to less than 1/2 the size. So, maybe no longer readable on my smart phone.

Anyway, just some a few of my observations with the "tuxedo" design.

The front page is like a tuxedo. It's like the site put on a tuxedo and then said, "HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME, I'M WEARING A MOTHERF***ING TUXEDO, HEY DO YOU WANNA BUY THIS F***ING TUXEDO? USAIN BOLT WEARS THIS SAME TUXEDO SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD! In all honesty, I know you're probably making a bunch of money from Puma, but this would be more effective over at Runnersworld.

I'm on here daily and I checked out the ad. Played the Bolt video game and got my but kicked three times. I'm going to buy one of those Bolt shirts.

Nice job Puma!

You are an illiterate idiot, stop posting stuff that is difficult to read.

did they already fix the message board or what? I see lots of complaints on here, but it looks exactly like it usually does on firefox here. only the homepage is different.

also, I love the little whiny bitches moaning about the ads. You're still going to come to letsrun, and the guys who run the thing are going to make more money. good for them.

who cares, i'm just here to troll.

Hello LRC'ers - Thanks for the feedback, positive and negative. The load issue was a disaster, we know, but it looks like that issue is being fixed. We also agree that turning the message boards into 3 columns, rather than 1 or 2, was a not a good idea from a readability standpoint, so we've fixed that.

But just a little more on why we did what we did:

We want to support LRC because a) they provide a great service to the running community . . . even if they can't spell, b) we share a lot of the same values (e.g., being the underdog and not taking ourselves too seriously), c) their followers - you - are loyal and passionate, and d) they need to make a living and we need to communicate a message.

Design is always subjective: some people will love it, some people will hate it. That's normal. But what most concerns LRC and PUMA is if the user experience suffers. Clearly that was the case with the terrible load times and hard-to-read message boards. But we've quickly addressed those two issues.

So now we're opening it up to you. What would you suggest PUMA does to enhance, not detract, from your LRC experience? Knowing that the Brojos need to make a living, and therefore will always have advertising, what do want advertisers to do?

We feel as if we have some pretty unique and engaging things going on with this design. For example, the video player will show a series of short videos we're producing that chronicles Usain's life off the track at his various races. A behind-the-scenes look at one of the most popular athletes in the world.

The "custon" race singlet is something we're doing for each of Usain's DL races starting with Paris. Rather than having him run in a blue or black or yellow singlet, we've found local artists in each city to do a completely customized singlet, allowing the artist to interpret the inspiration behind the Bolt Collection graphics in his or her own way.

And the "Guess Bolt's Time" contest is simple. Guess correctly Usain's finish time for Paris and you could win one of only three pairs of custom spikes designed for Usain for Paris.

Of course, if you don't want to click on any of it, you don't have to; your LRC content is still in its usual, if slightly squeezed, spot.

Wejo,

I'll be back in a few day (maybe) you sell out.

I think the new homepage is awesome. However i think 3 sides of advertising is a bit much i would put the right side under where the left ends but its not a major drawback. I had no trouble loading anything and the forum doesn't seem any different so congratulations in fixing these problems really fast or it might just be some peoples connections.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, didn't bother to read the whole thread, but the ads make it really hard to read the page on a mobile device such as iPhone/Touch because they take up so much of the screen and make the text font so small.

I personally think the site looks great. The Brojos have always been there for us by providing first rate news and stories about the sport we love while asking nothing in return. The least we, the dedicated users of the site, could do is be patient with Letsrun and Puma as they do their best to customize the site in a way that would please the majority of the Letsrun aficionados. This is only their first trial; allow them time to work with the design and I'm sure you'll be impressed.

Thank you for listening and the quick fixes. You guys (wejo, rojo, and "Puma guy") are truly awesome to be so open to suggestions from the users of this site.

After these changes, the "tuxedo" look works well for me. Great job. I also love the idea of contests and collaboration with local artists. Now if you could sponsor Christophe Lemaitre, that would be swell.

Why not subtley change some of the colorings on the message board to use a similar scheme/theme as the puma ads on the home page? Maybe add some purple coloring/backgrounds that way the message boards feel different, but aren't completely reworked and made difficult to read.

After your fixed the slow load time and the message board format, I have no problem with this at all.

With the message board fixed, I love this. I think the front page looks pretty sweet, love the graphics and the colors. So yeah, this works for me. Thanks for fixing the boards.

I think it is 10/10 cool how much people take 'ownership' of this site - the over the top criticism must sometimes make the Johnsons a little crazy, but it's all in love.

I don't know of another site that so many people clearly feel so close to - I'm trying to figure it out.