The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

This must be a concern for Cole. He seems to have some sort of ongoing issue but has decided to keep running through it.

I suppose when you have to run to pay bills you're a bit stuck

Already did that at the parkrun in South Africa where he ‘fell’. Queue the quick edit and the comment about how ‘nobody likes to see a fall’.

Phily is back with another clickbait video. Time for another reset apparently.

She ends with the phrase ‘trials and tribulations’ of marathon running - thinly veiled dig at the thread.

tbf earlier in the video her bf said a sarcastic comment about "the LetsRun threads are true" (11:50), so it's obvious they read this.

Pretty clear where her head and priorities are at though. She's having a serious chat with her Coach about her recent bad race and upcoming plans (ofc sat infront of the camera and husband to film it all) and gets distracted thinking about the youtube video gesturing to husband "there's a sound bite right there" after something the Coach says (13:15).

It's just the same stuff over and over from Philly, so shoutout to one of the top commenters on the video: "Very click bait-y titles the past couple months..!" which got a lot of likes

I watched about 45 seconds and then turned it off to watch a football game I didn't care about. It's not even worth hate watching her shtick anymore, too tiresome.

1) I’m sure when you click on a video or if you’re on a channels page that you no longer want to see, you can click “block channel” or “hide users content”… or something like this. It’s different on a phone to a desktop but there’s definitely a way, yes

2) yes you can pay for subscribers or views, that is “illegal” or “not approved” and it’s usually obvious based on the subscriber / view count ratio, although not always….

3) yes you can pay to promote a channel, it comes up as “sponsored” if you see it in your feed

What you’re explaining (view count / sub ratio) can sometimes be that videos have gone viral on a channel. Contrary to popular belief, this can be harmful to a channels growth because it draws in a load of new viewers that aren’t regular. Then, when YouTube serves those new viewers their next video which isn’t “viral material” and they don’t click it (and that happens multiple times) YouTube assumes a channels viewers are not interested and therefore stops serving the videos out to as many people. Also - if this has happened and a video has gone viral… look at the content in that video and is it “normal” compared to the rest of that channels content? Or is it wildly different? If it’s different, then it’s drawn in a ton of new people who won’t ever be interested in any of their regular stuff 👍

Hope that makes sense

They all read this thread. The one who has been the most good natured about it is Spencer Brown aka the Athlete Special aka the Local Legend aka the King of Parkrun. One of the first comments on this thread was asking from some anonymous account saying, "Why did you leave out the Athlete Special." Someone who gets it: engagement drives views and this is engagement.

Speaking of which I ran a local race this morning and the start was a disaster because of a couple wannabe Kofuzis running with selfie sticks, bumping into people to get the right angle of the start clock. It was just lame. I'll say it: what Kofuzi does with the selfie sticks is more entitled and obnoxious than Matt Choi and his bike brigade.

or simply a commonly used expression.

Athlete Special knows he is faster and actually has a bit of talent than most on LRC. I’d imagine he genuinely gets a kick out of it because he knows he would smoke most on here.

re: Kofuzi - what can be done to convince race officials to enforce the no self stick rule? Enough is enough with that guy. What happened to the sport we love?

RantoJapan is starting highest mileage block of his life according to Strava. 320K/200mile week without time zone manipulation incoming?

(I'll just preface with a disclaimer: I'm NOT a fan of Spencer) First of all, who names his channel "Athlete Special"?! Just name your channel by your name like a normal person. If you feel like you're elite name it Spencer Brown, most true elites' channels are just their first and last name.

Having "talent" is just genes. You did nothing for it, your parents did it for you. Cultivating it is another thing. I'm sure most people here work more than this guy and get out more from what they have.

Spencer is pampered sheltered suburban kid who will never grow up. Smufring 20min dads, kids and elderly people at parkruns - even your most hated influencers don't do this crap.

End of rant.

Another run and comment "Honestly, feeling really great"

Is Floberg trying to convince himself of his "followers"?

I am looking foward to the video, with a call after the race from his coach saying "that 1:12 is the same as a 1:09 if you were fully tapered"

Get ready for a 100 mile week. Get ready for Floberg to "do a Cole" and sh1t himself during Chicago marathon after going out at 2:25 pace

I noticed the title of the video got updated overnight. Sounds like the YT comment hit a bit of a nerve.

I think this comment has been removed overnight and as someone else mentioned, the vlog title updated.

Cole has responded to several comments on instagram, essentially acknowledging that he’s probably got RED-S - which unfortunately sounds like a stressie waiting to happen. Does anyone know more about his supposed ‘Pro’ adidas contract? From what I can tell, it just looks like a kit deal through Start Fitness, which he already had before London. No hate to the guy, he was right to jump on any opportunities after his London performance, but it has to be done in a way that won’t make him burn out.

Good thing you prefaced with telling us you're not a fan. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

Obviously I have no idea what Cole consumes every day so it could be anything, but as a passive observer, if I was consuming that much dairy (rice pudding) that he keeps talking about having every single day as his current schtick.. whilst doing long daily doubles, I'm sure I would be stopping in every bush along every route I ran down.

It cant be much more complicated than this.

I can't claim to be an "expert" as otherwise I might get more attention here LOL. It looked to me that the channel in question uploaded some non running Shorts which effectively seemed to go "viral" and have to assume generated a lot of new subscribers hoping to see more of the same. However, as Andy said, this can back fire badly as ultimately you want views and watch time not really what I call "bookmark subscribers" who perhaps see one video they like and maybe never watch again.

In general I find if I start watching a genre of video (like say Content Machine comedy shorts) I get presented with a lot more of the same. So that can be a factor.

I guess another factor is that I watch a lot of videos "for research" that I may not necessarily actually like but makes more sense reading this thread :)