The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

I think there's a common view point on Jake (RTJ).

He's an entertaining, passionate runner, engaging and obviously "good guy". The training does look like it won't be optimal, and they'll be over trianing negatives, but Jakes significantly quicker than us, so we're hesitate judging/who are we to judge him. I also hope he proves doubters like me wrong. Genuinely would like him to succeed.

FWIW, I've done big mileage (230k+pw) & lots of (weekly) racing. Some good results, race wins/vests/PBs ect but followed (longer term) by burnout/injury/loss of joy of running. Anecdotally I think it can really work for one or two trianing cycles, but eventually causes regression.

I recently ran a 10k PB off my lowest weekly mileage since I started running seriously.

Anyways I do genuinely hope Jake is a genetic freak who can reap rewards from it, and not fall apart like me.

It’s not a bit or a gimmick. It’s for real, he’s trying to adopt the Japanese philosophy of training

Is Jimmy Runs update?

About a month ago he came up with some extremely ambitious plan of cutting his marathon time from the 2:57 to 2:34 in one cycle, mostly based on aggressive weight loss. Ofc the response was ... mixed.

He posted a pretty cool video a few weeks ago meeting with a sports dietician.

But hasn't posted since, usually he posts much more regularly. And the alarming part is that he hasn't had any activities on Strava in the last 3 weeks.

Did the obviously predictable thing happen so quickly?

Comment on his most recent run (21 Nov) seemed to hint at an injury, so yeah probably too much load too soon and not enough care given to recovery.

Does anyone believe RTJ is getting the minimum 5000 Calories a day to sustain the training? That is a mountain of food. His post Valencia reaction stream was like a video made for doctors to diagnose RED-S. Like the guy. Just so sad to see all these YouTubers get high mileage mania and not take care of themselves.

Coming back to this comment as I thought about it during a threshold session today

I’ll be the first to say I’m not an expert by any means but I do understand basic training principles. He’s so married to his “Kofuzi” 6x6 workout that he probably doesn’t realize he’s not maximizing the amount of stimulus that he’s intending in a threshold session. At 6 min intervals and hands on his knees after every one, these are pretty much a VO2 max workout for him. He’d be better off by doing the standard 2x15 or 2x20 if he’s really working to clear lactate. But he doesn’t get it

W Mills runs a 17:52 parkrun to close in on J Mills and D Mills in the Crown my run race to sub-17.

I feel like this guy has the most natural talent of the three brothers, probably because he's the youngest.

Deep down I know this post is true but the toxic competitive runner side of me feels different

He has the best "Mills kick" of the three, and has shown he can prolong it to the extent that he's probably a bit of a sandbagger, so has more upside than the other two and can Ingebrigtsen his way to younger-sibling superiority. Which can only help the channel.

You don't measure the Mills Brothers by pace, or 5k time, but by death cough intensity.

Having raced and trained with jake for a while before he went to america - i can confirm that before he used to hit anywhere near that milage he was just a good club runner - running say 16 min for 5k and 26:30 for 5 mile. I think what happened is he went to america, ran more miles than ever, got in shape and realised that was his way forward… and he has continued to do that and run way better than i think he probably thought he was.

I’d be intrigued to see what would happen, if he just sat at say 100 miles a week, but i don’t honestly think it would change much.

There are things to criticize Jake for, but I don't think fueling is one of them. In nearly every video he shows off the cheap food and unlimited free rice bowls he puts down at restaurants.

You need more than empty carbs to actually recover and rebuild

I left a note on his post Valencia re hormonal/endocrinal system, and the fact that it won't sustain a peak level for more than a few weeks, and when you pass outside that window, you can go from flying to dead flat in a week or two.

You're right though, that there is a bigger health picture to consider. I think I did damage to my system through overtraining (in my case intensity rather than volume) and ended up with all sorts of symptoms which (40+ years ago) doctors couldn't solve - a lot was like psuedo colds, sweating and shivering, extreme tiredness, but nothing on blood-tests.

Fortunately, I bounced back, and am still running competitively in my mid-60s, but if I don't get enough sleep, the same things comes back - weakness, inability to regulate temperature, and so on.

We do see some ultra- runners that have burned out and never been able to comeback.

I hope Jake bounces back, makes some adjustments - he's probably got all the gains he can get from that massive mileage approach - and runs the 2:12 that his half marathon shows is possible.

I think though, that Jake can continue to run quite fast (as in Tokyo) while already in state where he's not able to think clearly (and so far gone that he doesn't remember the event afterwards), so I think he's running half unconscious by the time it would be apparent that "success" has gone.

To a degree he reminds me of the British Cyclist, Tom Simpson, who could push himself to extreme degrees and in one event recalled things going to black and white and going in and out of focus (sadly, he died on the Tour de France, a result a combination of dehydration, amphetamines and brandy, the latter taken in an attempt to settle an upset stomach).

There are definitely few that can push as hard as Jake, but I think you can only do the so many times before you do some serious damage.

jake in his latest strava entry said he picked up an illness in valencia. maybe that's simply what his dad meant, but worded it weird

Kofuzi looks completely out of shape. If he is going to be competitive again at his age, he needs to stop scarfing down pizzas. I think he has lost his love for the marathon and is simply running to keep content going before irrelevancy hits him.

My take on RTJ and his Valencia video (as a complete amateur and someone who's never run close to 2.14) is that he clearly has some positive characteristics that lend themselves to marathon running but he needs an experienced arm round his shoulders to give him permission on when to push and when to hold back. Harness that mentality and only deploy it on those race days where it looks like it might payoff, rather than in every race regardless of outcome.

"empty carbs" WTF do you think carb drink mix and gels are?