Deer everyone (brojos, sub elites, Ryan Vail) whining about competitor group

Dude,

Great work ethic. Really great.. But it's impractical solution in 2013. Athletics has moved way past the athlete/working man.

Baseball players used to work in the offseason...until what the late 70's? Not an efficient production model anymore...

But CG makes money off the sport... they just don't put money back into the sport anymore. I could list a lot of groups involved in the sport that have a great facade but don't really put $$$ into the game.

But if I do that I will be vilified again and I don't need the aggravation.. soooo. I will say you can't depend on those who didn't grow up in the sport to support the sport. I don't trust the jogging industry and the social running group that has taken over the sport.

I could see this coming 13 years ago but EVERYONE was so excited about the 25,000 slobs running through the streets of whatever city we lost site of what this sport really needed.

I know many of the guys at CG. They are really dedicated to the sport on a personal level. They really are. But the Gordon Gekko crowd is in control and I don't know how this will end. I can see this happening with LA Marathon and many others as well....

Deeeer op how is it good to take away money from pro runners to line the race organisers pockets.

NONE OF YOU GET IT.

This isn't about whether Joe Runner can train full time or not.

This is about one of the giants in the industry - a company that could have put elite running on a pedestal - instead they went in the opposite direction. Competitor could have taken the nameless athlete and given them a name, they have massive races and an endurance publishing company, Ryan Vail could be much more.

Sure there is a disconnect between the elites and the masses. This is a huge problem, one that isn't easily fixed, but Competitor never really tried. Elite racing tried, but once they were Competitor they stopped. I know that a giant chunk of every Rock n' Roll race will never run another race again, but there is still a sizable population of runners at these races simply trying to run faster than they did last week, and the few that are truly world class have something to offer those that are halfway passionate about the sport.

I don't care if Ryan Vail is sleeping 20 hours a day or building skyscrapers with his bare hands. I just want to see him and guys like him racing at the biggest races in the biggest markets. Competitor can make that happen, but for now they are focusing their money on making the medals a little bit shinier and their dryfit shirts more dryfit. Or something like that.

Let a Pro be a Pro wrote:

Attitudes expressed by the OP are the exact reason the sport of running is treated the way it is. Would you tell an NFL player he needs to add an additional 20-30 hours of work per week since all he's really doing during the day leading up to a game is going to a short practice and watching some film? No, not at all.

No, I wouldn't tell an NFL player he needs to get another job, because his optimal performance has been deemed valuable enough by a million-dollar entity to warrant significant compensation. He contributes to the profitability of the organization.

Competitor has just decided that your optimal performance is not worth their money. So grow up and find another job, just like the rest of the world does when their "skills" are deemed not worthy of compensation.

Your pursuit of individual athletic goals are SOLELY AN INDIVIDUAL pursuit. Do you contribute to the profitability of a company or the betterment of society? If so, how? Explain to me why anyone should give you funds so you can live a narcissistic lifestyle to facilitate your performance in events that no one is willing to spend money to watch or follow. Please.

sdrt wrote:

I don't care if Ryan Vail is sleeping 20 hours a day or building skyscrapers with his bare hands. I just want to see him and guys like him racing at the biggest races in the biggest markets. Competitor can make that happen, but for now they are focusing their money on making the medals a little bit shinier and their dryfit shirts more dryfit. Or something like that.

Competitor can make that happen? Well so can any other runner. An entry fee is only about $100. You don't need appearance money to race.

I disagree with the recurring posts from different users that pro runners should spend their down time focused on running. From personal experience, this hasn't worked for me. My last year of eligibility, I only had a few courses and more or less lived the athlete-student fantasy. My performances sucked. For me, like many others, it's hard to spend all day thinking about an upcoming easy run and then actually run it easy. Jobs can be a good way to keep us balanced and give perspective that each session doesn't need to be superhuman to make progress.

Even with elites, I get the sense that the best ones are able to relax when they're not training and focus on other things. I doubt that Mo Farah or Usain Bolt spend as much time concerned with recent DL results as I do.

Working full time presents lots of challenges. This year, I have to miss cross nationals for an event my organization's working with. On days where I have to stay late, I get panicky about how this will affect my next training session. Weekdays I don't do much except work and train.

These challenges can't distract from the fact that what I'm doing is a privilege. I get to invest my free time competing at something I love and try not to complain about the difficulties it presents. Yes, it's unfortunate that other sub-elites are losing money but at the end of the day, they chose to be runners just like I do. The challenges are just challenges and shouldn't stop anyone from doing what they love.

obviously the entry fee isn't the only cost and but thats neither here nor there.

My point was that Competitor with their publishing properties and their marketing dollars have the opportunity to create some of the biggest stages in the world for athletes to compete and they could singlehandedly bring the sport to a new level and they have chosen not to.

I'm not saying that it was their responsibility to do so, but I'm not happy with their decision. I have no problem with Letsrun and others bringing this to light instead of letting Competitor's decision to defund their elite program hide in silence.

sdrt wrote:

obviously the entry fee isn't the only cost and but thats neither here nor there.

My point was that Competitor with their publishing properties and their marketing dollars have the opportunity to create some of the biggest stages in the world for athletes to compete and they could singlehandedly bring the sport to a new level and they have chosen not to.

I'm not saying that it was their responsibility to do so, but I'm not happy with their decision. I have no problem with Letsrun and others bringing this to light instead of letting Competitor's decision to defund their elite program hide in silence.

The funding is still there. It's less, but it's still there. What can competitor do that the athletes themselves can't do? A round trip ticket and an entry fee costs less than $1000. Athletes don't care enough about their own success to raise that tiny amount of money by themselves?

Hats to be shed wrote:

Lost Credibility wrote:

"DEAR" Moron...

Newbie!

I've been posting here since 2000 and I also think it's stupid.

ojhhkj wrote:

The funding is still there. It's less, but it's still there. What can competitor do that the athletes themselves can't do? A round trip ticket and an entry fee costs less than $1000. Athletes don't care enough about their own success to raise that tiny amount of money by themselves?

why chose a race that no other elites will be at. Thats what most of the competitor races are now. What would happen if every elite just picked a destination maraton at random. Hall can do Big Sur, Ryan Vail can run Twin Cities, Abdi can run Miami, Meb can run Maui, etc. Should Lebron James play a game of pickup basketball and film it? Its basketball right, if he's so good, he doesn't need the NBA right?

Virginia Runner wrote:

ojhhkj wrote:

The funding is still there. It's less, but it's still there. What can competitor do that the athletes themselves can't do? A round trip ticket and an entry fee costs less than $1000. Athletes don't care enough about their own success to raise that tiny amount of money by themselves?

why chose a race that no other elites will be at. Thats what most of the competitor races are now. What would happen if every elite just picked a destination maraton at random. Hall can do Big Sur, Ryan Vail can run Twin Cities, Abdi can run Miami, Meb can run Maui, etc. Should Lebron James play a game of pickup basketball and film it? Its basketball right, if he's so good, he doesn't need the NBA right?

All of your proposed scenarios are fine and I don't see how they help your point. Actually, it's more or less what happens already. There is not really a road racing circuit that everyone sticks to. Everyone just does whatever race they want to.

You're right. Lebron doesn't need the NBA. He only plays in the NBA when he wants to win an NBA title. For that he would have to be in the NBA.

This doesn't really compare to running though. That'd be like saying half marathoners don't need the world half marathon race. They would only need it when they wanted that world half champ title. But this is already what happens in running. There are plenty of opportunities for half marathoners outside of the world half marathon race. Off the top of my head, I'd be willing to bet that many of the best half marathoners don't even bother showing up for that race. So your Lebron point is actually not in support of the point that you're trying to make.

Furthermore, I didn't say that all of the elites would be scattered and each absolutely avoiding each other. There are plenty of races that are based on tradition and that don't need to offer appearance fees because everyone wants to do those races anyway. In America, Boston and NY are standard marathons. Look how many show up with no appearance fee offered at all.

But even if such traditional races did not exist, is it so impossible that the elites would agree to meet up and race each other? It doesn't take that much effort to reach out to another runner. There's social media or meeting them at other races or speaking through your sponsor. If they were really keen on competing with the best, then they would look for each other. If not, then they wouldn't. Some people do turn down appearance money.

Get a clue... the mass of runners could care less if 15 or 20 elite runners get paid to run these races because they paid their entry fee, lodging and travel. They are out there because want to see if their training they managed to squeeze in during their 40 hour work week paid off.

Bottom line if you enjoy running, that should be enough. If you want a big pay day, then play the lotto or switch to the NBA/NFL/MLB.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Deeeer op how is it good to take away money from pro runners to line the race organisers pockets.

deeeer coach it is the organizer's money and he's making it with or without the pro runners that a tiny minority of human beings have heard of.

at the bottom of this, i hate competitor group and big business as much as any of you, but what really bothers me is a cheapening of the sport. it's about love not money, and that's how i lived my life, it's how plenty of sub elite and hobbyjoggers and even elites (ever herd of jordan ha- i mean leo manzano?) live their lives, and that's what's best about our sport, it's purity and it's simplicity, i know it is the most beautiful and fundamental human pursuit, and so do most runners - we don't to become the NFL to validate that.

johnnylangenwanker wrote:

at the bottom of this, i hate competitor group and big business as much as any of you, but what really bothers me is a cheapening of the sport. it's about love not money, and that's how i lived my life, it's how plenty of sub elite and hobbyjoggers and even elites (ever herd of jordan ha- i mean leo manzano?) live their lives, and that's what's best about our sport, it's purity and it's simplicity, i know it is the most beautiful and fundamental human pursuit, and so do most runners - we don't to become the NFL to validate that.

If that's what is best about our sport then why do you hate Competitor? And what does big business have to do with anything? What does big business even mean?

first of all no one is forcing leo to wear a nike jersey, or a usa jersey, for that matter.

it's this sense that incredibly talented runners who are running great times and doing great things are somehow persecuted because they aren't millionaires, is what really bothers me.

you should not value what you do by the number on the paycheck you receive.

nor do, i would wager, about 90% to 99% of distance runners need to have running be their only focus in life to do their best in their events.

your argument in comparison to other sports is very invalid because ball sports don't require the consistency of daily training like distance running, and distance runners can thrive just fine while working full time, (and they have!) - meaning NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, etc, most certainly could thrive if they worked other jobs as well (they all have off about half the year as it is, mind you).

to say that this viewpoint is even the tiniest bit responsible for the widespread popularity of our sport is absolutely absurd and backward.

our sport is not popular because it is incredibly difficult and it requires mental stamina and patience that the major sports do not.

i think you misunderstand my point and my intention.

ojhhkj wrote:

If that's what is best about our sport then why do you hate Competitor? And what does big business have to do with anything? What does big business even mean?

everything about institutionalized self-interest is loathsome and there is nothing to respect there. i hate competitor group because in an ideal world everyone would be more interested in running because i think that would make the world a better place. they are not interested in what happens to people or to the world or to anyone, but only what happens to their bottom line. "what does big business have to do with anything?" what do you mean? this was a business decision...

Let a Pro be a Pro wrote:

Would you tell an NFL player he needs to add an additional 20-30 hours of work per week since all he's really doing during the day leading up to a game is going to a short practice and watching some film? No, not at all.

Wrong. All sports should be amateur, and yes, even the NFL player should be doing a real job, period. Giving a grown man some money to throw a ball around in front of some people is just pathetic. Money that is going into NFL players' earnings should instead be going into biomedical research and healthcare and in that way organisations such as the NFL would actually be improving society, thereby making themselves much more popular with the paying public. Plus the games would become far more entertaining as opposed to putting up with watching a bunch of steroid-infused behemoths falling over each other every second of play.

The original and correct concept of sports was for them to be pastimes as their activity is simply not important enough to warrant being paid a wage for doing them. Professionalising sports has turned them into a PED-infested cesspool of corruption. It has also turned a lot of athletes into a bunch of immature crybabies who would otherwise be pretty decent citizens. None of these things are a decent example for kids to follow today.

The whole industry of sports needs to be cleaned up from top to bottom and amateurism is the way to go as opposed to sending billions of dollars on useless and corrupt PED-testing procedures. Guys like Kawauchi and Jonny Langenwanker are the best model for distance running to follow if you do not want serious participation to die out completely in developed nations within the next 50 years. They are a sending out the message of: "be a fully independent man, get a real job to support yourself, and run hard in your spare time for the sheer joy of disciplining and bettering yourself". That message is far more likely to generate media interest in distance running and to inspire more Joe Publics out there to lace'em up and get out there training hard.

johnnylangenwanker wrote:

your argument in comparison to other sports is very invalid because ball sports don't require the consistency of daily training like distance running, and distance runners can thrive just fine while working full time, (and they have!) - meaning NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, etc, most certainly could thrive if they worked other jobs as well (they all have off about half the year as it is, mind you)

.

Distance runners have half the year off as well. What are you talking about? The Diamond League is only some months long. Marathoners tend to only do 1-2 marathons per year.

And ball sports don't require daily practice like running? I've heard it all now. Being a ball sport makes daily practice even more necessary.