The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

He is a 2:14 runner, lol.

Being able to physically withstand really high mileage week in and week out without (physical) injury is a massive "talent," one that many professional runners lack (even with access to the best recovery products/ massage/ gym equipment, etc.).

Also, of course, his physique totally changed from his MMA fighting days. The body composition change alone is a major factor in lowering his marathon time. he then bundled that with a huge amount of training volume but 2:38 is not a terrible starting place either considering where he was physically at that time based on decent but certainly not great youth/ collegiate running results and after months of injury spent stationary biking.

This is not one of those influencer "I shaved 3 hours off of my marathon" stories and likely indicates a high level of natural talent... I understand that everyone at the elite level has a high level of natural talent but I think Jake sells himself short by not including himself in that group. On the other hand, I think this underdog mentality, warranted or not, provides him the motivation to run 25 miles a day and to chose to remain living in a sweaty shoebox.

***upon second thought, many of mine echo the very sensible quoted post. apologies for redundancy.

Really good post and sharing of your experience. I hope RTJ would listen to stuff like this, but there's almost an arrogance and stubbornness about him now that means he's more likely to double down, than listen to anything reasonable.

someone let me know when the RTJ fanboys bugger off. theres plenty more runners out there than the broken old carthorse

whats happened to Cole Gibbon? Ben Parkes? Welsh Runner and all the other heroes?

we are know where Besters been, fingerblasting fan girls in the bushes at Battersea dogs home ;)

Always so good to wake up and read this thread first thing in the morning lmao 🤣

Worse in what way? He hasn't had a single one week+ injury in two years of training. If anything people like Clayton Young and Conner Mantz who are constantly injured should retire before destroying their bodies for good.

A physical injury might be all that can stop him. He's not injured in the traditional of mechanical sense, but the damage he is doing to himself under the surface is crazy. I'm sure a lot of the older guys here can probably cite examol for themselves or others we have known.

Isn't the time differential with treadmills 3-4sec/mile? And then to account for this you put incline at 2 gradient?

New Floberg video just dropped on his 5K PR: How I'll Break 2:30 This Year.

This should be a good hate watch.

And? If he played golf 20 hours a week and shot an 80 around Augusta you'd be saying he's wasting his time.

People seem to think these YouTubers are supermen because they run very substandard time for the effort they put in.

Mantz, Cairess, Yee would all be running 300k a week if it was needed but it simply isn't. Throwing more mileage in does not always result in faster times

Woof, woof.

Cole's in a mental institution, Parkes has taken up darts and the Welsh Runner is still drying out his Mars bar from last night's jog.

I watched Floberg’s newest video. I think he needed some actual time off and he’s going to get burnt out eventually. But at least this time he’s doing a dedicated speed block and not just 100 miles a week. He says he’s running a spring marathon on a hard course not going for a PR but will be shooting for 2:30 in the next one.

The tough thing about that is that it's hard to know you've messed up until you're really messed up, and while you can get a sense of what 'works' in the shorter term it's hard to say the same in a broader sense until after the fact.

Most of us aren't about to argue with results, and what Jake has achieved both improvement-wise and in absolute terms speak for themselves. But that's still a 'so far'statement, and it feels like a bit of an elephant in the room to ignore all the other runners who could apparently handle massive training loads until they couldn't, or what is starting to look more like a trend in a similar direction. And despite all the 'win or die trying' hype, it's usually less of a glorious flame-out and more a frustrating waste of a dedicated athlete.

IDK man. I don't like being a doomsday advocate, and i'd generally rather focus on the positives. But I don't know if playing with that kind of fire is worth a YouTube storyline, and the seeming reticence to even consider training load as a possible contributing factor isn't something that fills me with confidence.

Cairess/Sesemann run mileage not a million miles away from Jake - approx 230-250km per week. It's quite possible for both sides of argument on Jake's extreme mileage have valid points. I think low iron is likely his issue, which is probably caused by his high mileage, but that can be addressed by infusions/supplementation, without need to necessarily cut mileage. If I was Jake I would probably cut mileage down 10-15%, so similar to higher end pros like Cairess, and see how he responds to that.

all these RTJ mileage haters seem to conveniently forget the GOAT marathoner's training load while pointing to *objectively* slower runners as an example that lower mileage is fine lmfao

olympics.com

Kelvin Kiptum: The remarkable 300km per week training regime of the marathon world record holder

The Kenyan’s coach Gervais Hakizimana reveals what a week in the life of Kiptum looks like - and it’s not for the fainthearted. Read more.

Open link

IMO mileage wasn't the issue for Jake, it was the quantity of all-out or near all-out races in the build up that resulted in him being fried on race day. He went out probably closer to his 10 mile / HM fitness on the day. I know lot's will chime in and say he ran a 63 HM or whatever in the build up and so 2:12 or even 2:10 was doable, but that was weeks ago. He peaked too soon in his build and was overcooked come race day.

Keep the mileage, but reduce the number of big races in the buildup.

'A lot of running purists ask Floberg to take the music out of his videos'

But he just wont do it! Mans so heroic sticking to his principles. Wonder how many he means by 'lots'.

You clearly weren't around for SJD's hay day. I'm pretty sure every person on this site was hate watching his videos. I know I was