The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

Bowden did a 15.32 5000pb at Watford last weekend so she's running very well in spite of most people with sense and adulthood increasingly disliking her

I can’t make it through any of her videos because of her internet persona. Really tedious shtick and she peppers in ads. These shoetubers deserve more criticism for peddling their Chinese watches just because they received them for free.

It's time to catch up with our favorite running YouTubers!

Kofuzi is giving a speech on being Asian, and in his video appears to blame the dislike of Matt Choi by many on anti-Asian bias. I personally don't buy that, as I think people would be mad at whomever impeded them with a phalanx of bikes in a marathon they trained months for (Phily Bowden was also called out for doing the same).

Speaking of Philly Bowden, she's run 10k and 5k PRs and made long videos about each. I think she just ran a 3k PR, so we get to look forward to another video.

The Believe in the Run crew is podcasting, where they celebrated Meghan's Baltimore 10 miler victory and then Robbie and Thomas discussed why racing buns are called buns for what seemed like 10 minutes. It was as cringey as you'd think it'd be.

Sage Canaday is getting ready for the Mt. Washington road race, and analyzing other runners from. You can win Hoka gear if you come the closest to his actual time.

Allie Ostrander won the Portland Track Festival. And seems to have a realistic, if outside, chance of making the 3k Steeple team for the Olympics. She posted a video about her race.

Spencer Brown is continuing his dominance of the Seattle Park Run circuit. He broke the Perrigo Park Run course record! Then he cheered on Allie in Portland as she won her race (and brought her toenail clippers).

And last but not least, the Greatest of All Time, Still the Original Running YouTuber, is vacationing with his family, swimming and playing top golf. It's good to see Seth doing well!

Caitlyn Miller moved from Florida to Golden, Colorado yesterday. Traded the heat/humidity for altitude/mountains. Very nice (and expensive) apartment. Is certainly making money as an Instagram "influencer." Couldn't figure out how to open her POD.

I’ve never posted on any of these threads, but I cannot avoid commenting on the FOD Runner’s latest video on double threshold. Andy is very obviously over cooking it - his YouTuber friend the Welsh runner measured his lactate at the end of the session and the reading was 7.5!?!
Mate you probably missed the whole point about these sessions, which is to keep below the lactate threshold. This is full on anaerobic/lactate accumulation territory.
i like the guy and would love to see him succeed, but he is obviously overcooking it. No wonder that both he and his pal Matt the Welsh runner rock their workouts but then miss their goals by miles in races…

yeah all his videos for a while now have been over analysing training data points endlessly, under performing in races*, getting false confidence from dodgy-GPS training sessions and missing the point of his training

It's been a real car-wreck to watch and that "threshold" session was a prime example. Dude has lost himself in just playing up for the cameras/fans constantly now

*yes he ran a 5K PB recently but his 5K PB was something like 2s quicker than the half way split of his 10K PB

Nonono, its called double threshold sessions because you are supposed to measure values at or above double your lactic threshold.

But to be serious, it is called a threshold session if you just measure your lactate.

What baffles me is that these people plan the session, do the session and then later view the recording of their session and still don't pick up on them over cooking it. Later they can conclude that "it is not for everyone" etc.

I like the guy too, but he really lost me on yesterday's video. He's still going on about how he's just now getting over the virus he got in February. Come on brother, think about what you're saying. If that's really true, you need to ask yourself why your immune system is struggling that bad.

She’s beloved on this board for some reason, but she’s another Chinese watch shill, amongst other things, including her own second-rate apparel brand. Just the other day she had a instagram story about how NOTHING even compares to Coros. She’s just as bad as the others, albeit faster.

An*

On a recent BITR podcast the team was addressing what appears to be a bit of a backlash against influencers who don't disclose their endorsement deals with brands. While reiterating that their reviews aren't biased or affected in any way by their corporate sponsorships (which they hardly ever disclose), Thomas said that they have turned down opportunities to review products that they don't like or believe in... including a product from a company that was willing to pay BITR $20k to review/promote.

My first thought was that amount was astonishing to me... that a company would pay a single influencer group $20k for a bit of online promotion. Given these guys generate a lot of product-based posts, it now seems realistic that they could actually carve out a living from running-based influencer work. My second thought was that these folks hardly ever disclose when they are getting free product or how they are compensated for their numerous junkets. That they seemed offended that viewers would call them out for potential bias given all their promotional work is totally hilarious.

Megan Murray from BITR ran a 5k in Baltimore this weekend and finished 6, a minute and 40 sec slower than first place

Caitlyn Miller has blatant paid ad stories for protein powder and gels/bars today. I won’t take any of these runfluencers advice on anything because they can’t be objective when their pockets are being lined like this.

It's time to catch up with our favorite running ShoeTubers on a busy week!

Thomas and Ronnie from the Believe in the Run crew were at Broken Arrow, courtesy of Solomon. Coming soon: great reviews of Solomon shoes! Meaghan meanwhile was back in Baltimore running a 5k in the heat.

Kofuzi is in Eugene watching the trials, but we don't know if a shoe company paid for the trip. It may have been Adidas, given his recent review of the Adizero SL 2 or maybe it was Brooks because he posted an update on the Brooks Ghost Max, which he says stinks but is otherwise a great shoe, recently and Brooks is doing a ton of activation.

The Greatest of All Time, still the original running YouTuber, is running a sub 5 birthday mile (I really want to see a collaboration between him and Sage Canaday, I think a mile race between the two would be a good race) and running to 14,000 feet to recruit blood cells and find beauty. He's also excited about turning 40 next year and entering Master's races.

Spencer Brown is running around Eugene cheering on his girlfriend, Allie Ostrander.

And Allie Ostrander is seeded 5th by qualifying time in the Olympic Trials 3000m Steeplechase Final!

That's all the time we have for running YouTubers this week.

Ding ding ding about 5ish months by the look of things

Recruiting red blood cells! LOL. Never change, Seth.

I haven't watched a single kofuzi video in a long time. I lost interest in the sellout.

Just seen a Bowden 16 min YouTube about periods and tbf she does a v decent job in the 14 mins available. Two caveats are that she loses one minute pre and post the content with a vulgar shameless plug for her new merch, spoken in cloying stage whisper. And of course the content flows from her own position to the general issue.

It's annoying that her initials are so bankable for a merch pedlar. Of course all the content is widely available in better depth and via less self absorbed channels.

"the question isn't why/how has this happened, but instead why are we getting yet another video from Philly about this. Clearly struggling for content and circling the same video ideas over and over because she knows how trendy it is to be 'vulnerable' now for influencers & sure enough the comment section has gobbled it up, but missing the point of what she's said and more focused on talking about themselves. When she's not racing (well) and not with a team the ideas suffer. Will be interested to see if she actually releases the video of her terrible 3000m she just did this weekend.

I would point out the video is intentionally clickbaity, it's not that she hasn't had her period due to health reasons (like in the past from overtraining/ED's/RED-S etc), but because she's been choosing to stay on the same contraception which stops her from having one.

1) that's a very common side effect
2) that's intentionally misleading the audience with the title
3) it's a terrible idea and often leads to bone stress injuries; you're supposed to come off that contraception periodically (pardon the pun) to allow for a period and allow your hormones to balance properly otherwise it directly impacts bone density

I say this as someone who lived with 2 female athletes who between them had 3x stress-fractures, so I'm not just theorising here"