The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

Whiny Kelati wrote:

The thing is Truett Hanes' behavior with this downhill stuff is contagious. YouTuber Griff Duncan refuses to acknowledge that his 3:05 marathon as massively downhill, even implicitly. He has that time listed as the basis for his paces on Strava. Bro, your PR is not 3:05. That's what you can run a marathon in DOWNHILL. Grinds my gears so much.

Griff-ter was also one of the clowns crapping on Jeremy Miller for merely pointing out that St. George was downhill in a top comment. These hybrid guys do stick together, I guess.

This YouTuber Griff Duncan. Is so annoying man. Defends Truett and just blasts Jeremy Miller for his comment. Like dude you failed to mention too how downhill your marathon PR was, what a joke. And I agree, he now bases his workouts and runs off a downhill pace.

Looks like today he flopped a HM. DNF. Will of course blame it on the weather. More cringe is that he’s wearing the Bandit racing vest.

lol broberg wrote:

xel wrote:

Re: Floberg. Just checked his Strava for any updates. He says he's not racing NYC all-out and that the Chicago race video is gonna be the best one he's ever made so he's taking his time. Ok.

Overly dramtic slowmos to terrible autotune music will get dialled up to eleven. May the Lord have mercy on our souls. Gonna go do a quick church clap. Maybe my prayers will be heard.

Half hour of smelling his own farts

Seth and bloberg are doing an epic collab. Seth will talk about how he just missed first at pikes, and blo will talk about how he just missed 2:30. Their wives will commiserate about their absent husbands while they raise broods of kids

If you want a more complete list of his results check his Po10

Track in a uk college is very different to track at a us college. It's more of a very good social life with a bit of training thrown in.

I think he's clean.

He is a bus driver and they have to undergo regular drug tests.

sorry guys. wrote:

Sebastian Newbold Coe wrote:

I used to be a big fan of him as he seemed a real "everyman" runner, father and hard worker.

I am also of the opinion he is on PEDs. He runs stupidly fast every day it seems. His "easy" pace, warm ups and floats now appear to be sub 3 pace and he never runs anything that looks truly easy. He has 3 super hard workouts a week as well. Will this translate to a fast marathon? I have my doubts, even with the potential PEDs

I think he's clean.

He is a bus driver and they have to undergo regular drug tests.

For things that would be illegal to use for sports performance if you were a professional athlete under the jurisdiction of anti doping agencies?

trees hugger wrote:

sorry guys. wrote:

I think he's clean.

He is a bus driver and they have to undergo regular drug tests.

For things that would be illegal to use for sports performance if you were a professional athlete under the jurisdiction of anti doping agencies?

No,but they test for all drugs,doubt he'd be willing to take a chance incase they flagged up.

S. Canaday wrote:

like Jake was running 4:06-4:07 for 1500m and 32-min for 10km and 15:50s for 5km in college only a few years ago?! That would be a heck of a progression

Link:savannah.scadathletics.com/news/2022/5...

Jake gives a lot of podcast interviews where he has explained his athletics/running history and I will try to summarize:

He was a good teen runner in the UK but was diagnosed with a heart condition and gave up running. He started doing MMA. He eventually picked running back up and ran while a Birmingham University which is where his the 15:50 5k is from. He ran there for the social aspects. His 5k was good enough to get a for a Masters Degree at SCAD (an NAIA School). He won the NAIA Marathon championship. He was still doing MMA this whole time. He got his Masters and moved back to the UK. He injured his hip, had surgery, and could not run for an extended period. Instead, he rode an exercise bike for several hours a day. At some point in his journey, he listened to the audiobook of “Way of the Runner” by Adharanand Finn. He decided that he wanted to move to Japan and go all-in on running. He was accepted into an all-expenses paid fellowship-type program for Westerners to learn Japanese. He was able to start running again. He moved to Japan two years ago. The program finished a year ago which is about when he started RTJ. He has worked up to 280k a week. His training is inspired by the training of the Soh brothers from the 70s/80s and Cam Levins.

He has lost 40 pounds of muscle from his SCAD/MMA days. Until recently, he has not tried to PR at shorter distances because he wanted to say that he was the slowest 5k/10k runner ever to get a professional contract. He was recently signed by Brooks. He now speaks “baby” Japanese.

This has most likely been mentioned before, but it’s always important to remember that most of the “running influencers” we watch are more focused on the influencer side of things.

This is why so many of them appear annoying and elementary to the Letsrun crowd who are typically serious or used-to-be serious runners.

There is a running boom currently but we must remember that it is mainly happening amongst the hobbyjoggers.

A running influencer’s target demographic, whether we like it or not, is someone who runs something like 25 minutes in the 5k. From a strictly influencer perspective, this is who the videos are directed towards.

I will even go so far as to say the influencers SHOULD direct their content towards hobbyjoggers. Their content is paying their bills, not running.

This is why we like Clayton Young style videos: they are more focused on the running than the content.

This why we like RTJ, a combination of good running and content. But as he has repeatedly said in his own videos, the running comes first.

So next time you watch Floberg run in slow-mo as he pukes after a rep, remember his goal is to entertain hobbyjoggers. Running is simply the means to his end.

wow, I do remember this guy. exactly as you described it. he worked pretty hard and missed a few of his goals (in an unfortunate manner) and i hadn't seen him in a while.

he does look VERY much leaner than the last time. maybe it's a weight loss making a difference too? but it is really kinda odd that he deleted all of his older videos.

Griff Duncan went out at 6:50 or 7:00 pace in the Naperville Half with next to no evidence in his training that he's capable of doing that for more than a couple miles. He's been complaining for weeks about how his Coros heart rate malfunctions -- and he has waged war with Coros customer support over it while publicly blasting them -- but he refuses to wear the actual heart rate strap from Garmin he has or to simply buy a new watch.

This has been an endless source of complaints from him. Bro, at a certain point running is about feel. Or fix your data, it's not that deep. I feel bad for his family coming out and watching him at his half marathon and then he just quits halfway through because he doesn't like his pace. This dude is such a crybaby, doesn't respect running, doesn't understand running, and he's just annoying/obnoxious in the most stereotypical hybrid bro way possible.

Similar to you, I watched some of his videos 1 year+ ago and then he popped back into my feed in the last month. Maybe he is taking PEDs, although I suspect he genetically puts on muscle easily since his at home gym set-up was extremely basic, plus he has that short bulky look. The extreme weight loss made me wonder if he is on Ozempic (or similar). Not sure how easily you can get it in the UK, but the degree of weight loss, coupled with his very sedentary job (bus driver), it would make sense. Then again, could be just diet and exercise.

I lol wrote:

lol broberg wrote:

Overly dramtic slowmos to terrible autotune music will get dialled up to eleven. May the Lord have mercy on our souls. Gonna go do a quick church clap. Maybe my prayers will be heard.

Half hour of smelling his own farts

Lol if you think he'll be done in 30 minutes.

sorry guys. wrote:

trees hugger wrote:

For things that would be illegal to use for sports performance if you were a professional athlete under the jurisdiction of anti doping agencies?

No,but they test for all drugs,doubt he'd be willing to take a chance incase they flagged up.

It amazes me how naive people are about PEDs. First, many YouTubers, recreational fitness bros, and sad old men trying to boost their already inflated egos are taking things like Growth Hormone, EPO, and Testosterone, or derivatives like Deca. Second, Testosterone—the base for almost everything—is actually very cheap; a low-level cycle costs about the same as a gym membership. Third, in the UK, these substances are readily available and legal to possess, you can literally buy them online.
None of this is to say it’s safe or ethical to take them—nothing annoys me more than people on the gear showboating their enhanced physiques and making others think it was all earned through hard work alone!
These substances are naturally produced by the body, so you can’t just test for their presence. Detecting exogenous use requires expensive lab methods like mass spectrometry.
In contrast, typical company drug tests use urine or saliva to detect drug metabolites, cannabis, cocaine, opioids. They don’t, and realistically can’t, test hormone levels.

Bonker321 wrote:

Bester battered sirpoc.

This forums 9/11

I actually thought it would be way worse. I was in the front starting pen with Bester looking incredibly serious and sirpoc laughing and joking with his mates. Bester looked really focused and the rumour was he was targeting maybe even a 50 something. I asked sirpoc what he was aiming for and he laughed and said 'finish in one piece or stop at 10k and go to a pub on the seafront' but that anything under 53 would probably be about par for him at the moment.

I mentioned LRC and his main goal was Jiggymeister from the original thread to do a good run.

You have to hand it to Bester, he looked focused, serious and in great shape yesterday and really has started to perform lately. Shame he comes across as really a bit of a d**k, even in real life he just doesn't give off good vibes. So hard to explain.

I was in a group with sirpoc for a while, he eventually dropped about 8-9 of us and I think from 11k, and ran off in another gear and pretty much solo to the finish, unless he picked anyone up on route.

First time I have done the GSR in all my years running. It's a great event and can confirm sirpoc is genuinely as top a guy as you can imagine he is.

Bester again avoids his family the whole weekend - after his swingers week in France, he was shilling energy gels to punters at Battersea Park jogfest allday on Sat followed by hiding in Portsmouth at yet another race on Sun.

Has he been kicked out? Shocking behaviour once again from the self proclaimed family man, does the kids recognise him as hes never around

I've spoken to Bester at a Battersea event. The guy is just weird. I do think maybe it's a cultural thing a bit, him being South African and just not quite having the same Brit sense of humour!

Well done on him finally running well. He's now running at the level he should be, or maybe even above, given the hours he has put in and the shocking at times performances of before. But, fair is fair and you have to say that was a hell of a performance by Nick.

Although, he will have been taking selfies with all the hobby joggers who run 2 hours a week and thinking he's a god.

Really pleased to see sirpoc84 is again as approachable and likeable as other people have reported before. I imagine sort of as one of the previous posters suggested, he's more the runners runner. In fact it always seems he has no interest in any of this.

Think there is hope for Floberg here in the future. Nick Bester used to get quite a bit of flak here too but he's the absolute darling of the thread now.

What a man.