That man child must have whined or sent a litigious letter to letsrun to have all these threads deleted. Even threads on his CIM journey get deleted now. Meanwhile he’s still sitting at 171k subscribers.
Don't understand this either. The last few threads I've seen about him have been legitimate, constructive and civil discussions on his CIM training, nothing about his personal life whatsoever.
It's time for an update on our favorite running YouTubers.
Nick Symmonds is taking a sabbatical. His channel views had declined of late. Hopefully he comes back with a better channel.
Spencer Brown tried to run a turkey trot dressed as a turkey but showed up an hour late. He ran the course anyway in 18:27, beating the 18:45 winning time.
Allie Ostrander is sharing her morning routine, and running until she's lactic after her coffee and various supplements.
Kofuzi watched the New York Marathon and 5k and reviewed the Adidas training shoe. Then he told us what to get runners for the holidays.
Ben is Running is trying to train through a femoral stress fracture.
Philly Bowden is spending a lot of time at altitude in France. She's also telling us we should stretch if we don't want to end up injured. Houston is around the corner for her.
And the original ShoeTuber, Seth, is having a big small business Saturday sale on his gear. CIM is around the corner for him. He's had some quality workouts/time trials. I think he might shock LRC and OTQ.
And that's a wrap with ShoeTube world for 2023. It's gotten kind of predictable and boring. Here's to a more interesting 2024!
If anyone hasn’t listened to Ben is Runnings podcast, ‘Run it Three Ways’ this week, it’s quality listening from about the 52 minute mark.
Callum Elson hammers him for his ludicrous suggestion that three weeks after a stress reaction, he thinks that in a further month or so he will be able to run 20 mile long runs with Seville marathon as a goal. He then goes on to say he’d rather risk getting injured than not trying it. You can sense how Ben doesn’t like being criticised, and embarrassingly changes his responses over the course of the discussion. He finishes by saying maybe he’ll only have a five week training camp. Callum really got under his skin.
I think Ben seems like a sound guy but his approach to this injury is insanity. It was most ironic when he said that the reason he thinks he can come back really quick is because of his training diligence and the way he trains. He totally misses the point that his stupidity in training got him the stress reaction in the first place. When I saw him doing 100 mile weeks when training for a 10k, with no downtime after his previous training block,I knew an injury was around the corner for him.
He also thinks he has the potential to run low 2 h10s for the marathon one day, which you could also tell Callum found crazy.
Ben is deluded.
This was such a great listen.
Jumped from 4min run/1min walk up to a 1hr run, now wants to do 20Milers within the next 3-4 weeks, has stopped calling it a stress fracture to make it sound less serious, and wants a 2:18 at Seville? This is a man with a 2:24 PB and a bone injury, and thats not even acknowledging his "low 2:10's comment"
I did like how Tom called him out on his rushing back to cross training - Ben seems to think 16hrs/week with a ton of elliptical work wont be putting pressure on his injury? It's such a rush back to training (and at altitude where healing will be slower). He even admitted in his recent video that he could still feel his leg on his first run back, so this all makes less sense.
The 'I'd rather get re-injured again than sit around doing nothing' was ridiculous. I get this is his income, but no one told him to quit his job, no one made him do all those HM's that led to the injury, nothing is stopping him having a side job + do youtube, nothing is stopping him make decent content that doesn't focus on him going for a run, no one made him still go to Kenya...
I'm glad Callum is there to call some of this out and has been more active in doing so. Ben is, after all, the guy who seemed OK with the Bangladeshi 13year old continuing with Marathoning. Dude is not in touch with reality.
It's not really his income. His relatives own Pro Direct running and he basically works for them. I'm sure he won't starve.
anybody watch matt rees and FOD runner? used to watch them a lot back in the day.
stopped watching FOD when he started training with this new guy. does relatively low milage but most of it is steady or hard, not sure how you can train like that and not surprising that he isnt making any progress.
feel bad for matt rees though. back in 2020 he looked like he would really get good, he is a full time coach but his content now is made up of trying to run marathons on very low milage and training is all over the place.
anybody watch matt rees and FOD runner? used to watch them a lot back in the day.
stopped watching FOD when he started training with this new guy. does relatively low milage but most of it is steady or hard, not sure how you can train like that and not surprising that he isnt making any progress.
feel bad for matt rees though. back in 2020 he looked like he would really get good, he is a full time coach but his content now is made up of trying to run marathons on very low milage and training is all over the place.
FOD Runner falls into the usual trap of giving people advice when he doesn't understand the sport very well. Has had some improvements in the past year but is currently relying on getting clicks from throwing out huge targets that he can never meet, and cringey ranking/review videos
Matt Rees is a nuisance in races: shouting at himself to try and hype himself up mid-race, screaming and cheering when he runs through finish lines in ~60th etc. Most of his videos are trying to play on some weird emotional plug for sympathy/support and seems to act as if so many of his experiences are somehow specific only to him, as he is the only person to struggle with a session or not hit a race target. Crying at the end of races is becoming almost as commonplace as Ben Parkes, and this is without mentioning the fact he just doesn't upload videos of (non marathon) races he performs poorly in. Just look at his video history, inconsistent as heck.
To an earlier poster's point, I think across them all, the only Running-Youtuber I really enjoy is Callum Elson/The Distance Project's channel and occasionally Cole Running, though he can often really show his age/immaturity
Yeah I get what you mean about Matt Rees. It gets to a point where watching someone set out a goal and fail to hit it by a long way 4 or 5 times in a row gets pretty depressing as content. I understand that motivation can change honestly think he just needs to suck it up, put an actual good year of training together and sort out what he wants to do.
Quite enjoy Ben Felton's videos and Harry Morgan. Harry Morgan obviously is a lot more casual and its not the same type of content, but he gives positive Nick Symmonds-esque vibes. Ben has been getting better and better as a runner, but the stress fracture is a big RIP and trying to run through it is absolutely insane. His emotions are probably getting the better of his common sense there.
Jumped from 4min run/1min walk up to a 1hr run, now wants to do 20Milers within the next 3-4 weeks, has stopped calling it a stress fracture to make it sound less serious, and wants a 2:18 at Seville? This is a man with a 2:24 PB and a bone injury, and thats not even acknowledging his "low 2:10's comment"
I did like how Tom called him out on his rushing back to cross training - Ben seems to think 16hrs/week with a ton of elliptical work wont be putting pressure on his injury? It's such a rush back to training (and at altitude where healing will be slower). He even admitted in his recent video that he could still feel his leg on his first run back, so this all makes less sense.
The 'I'd rather get re-injured again than sit around doing nothing' was ridiculous. I get this is his income, but no one told him to quit his job, no one made him do all those HM's that led to the injury, nothing is stopping him having a side job + do youtube, nothing is stopping him make decent content that doesn't focus on him going for a run, no one made him still go to Kenya...
I'm glad Callum is there to call some of this out and has been more active in doing so. Ben is, after all, the guy who seemed OK with the Bangladeshi 13year old continuing with Marathoning. Dude is not in touch with reality.
It's not really his income. His relatives own Pro Direct running and he basically works for them. I'm sure he won't starve.
stopped watching FOD when he started training with this new guy. does relatively low milage but most of it is steady or hard, not sure how you can train like that and not surprising that he isnt making any progress.
Considering he is running 5 days a week and just 6 runs usually, I find his results good. Of course, his progress is limited with 6 runs per week but what he achieved with this amount of training is respectable, imho.
Does not want to discuss finance but can’t help bringing it up. You would think that someone who clearly has some inheritance/trust fund or who won the lottery or lawsuit would not bring this up. It is impossible to afford his lifestyle on that income. It’s plainly obvious he has money elsewhere so he’s not fooling anyone. And lol your ad money went down because you long ago stopped caring about the content.
It's time for our last update on Shoetube World in 2023. What a year it's been for the Shoetubers. Let's look in the rearview mirror at what's been.
The first suspension of a running YouTuber happened when Allie Ostrander tested positive for a acne medication known to be a masking agent. She served a four month suspension. Now if usatf would only test Nick Bare...
Matt Foxx bonked in marathon after marathon and worked on achieving his own personal six star goal of pissing off/alienating people on all six inhabited continents.
Matt Choi was the first running YouTuber to get DQ'd from a race when he bib muled Houston. He tried to turn lemons into lemonade by running Austin. But he angered other runners when his bicycle camera crew impeded their race.
Seth DeMoor and Nick Symmonds took sabbaticals. DeMoor returned from his to turn in a 2:28 and win the Shoetube division at CIM.
Phily Bowden ran a 2:29 at Copenhagen and finished 3rd. She has made a billion videos about it since. She's shooting for the Olympic standard at Houston.
Ben Felton ran a big PR at Boston then tried to run through a stress fracture. Now he's running park runs dressed as Santa and appears to be feeling better. He ran the Instagram for a bit for Asics at World's.
Kofuzi raced something like 5 marathons in six months, running a big 2:56 PR at Tokoyo before bonking at Boston to a 3:05. He has reviewed many shoes, and jogged the Chicago marathon, since but he hasn't raced a marathon lately. He says he's trying to break 1:25 at the Houston half. He did go to World's on Asics dime and hung out with Ben Felton a lot while there. After the success of that approach, he went to, but did not run in, New York and CIM.
Sage Canaday had a good finish at a utmb trail race and finished in the top 10 at Honolulu, just a few minutes behind Seth's time despite the heat. Now he's apparently coaching Kofuzi.
Ben Parkes ran several marathons around 2:40, dropped out of UTMB and reviewed lots of shoes.
Spencer Brown ran a lot of mile time trials trying to break 4 and ran a lot of 4:07s.
Meaghan Murray ran a 2:47 early in the year but bonked hard at CIM when shooting for an otq.
And there's more but only so much time left in the year and this is all I have time for in the year that was, running YouTuber edition.
This post was edited 52 seconds after it was posted.
Kofuzi putting Asics in two of his top shoe categories for the year. He's looking to get that London trip paid for even though he could afford it himself.
Kofuzi putting Asics in two of his top shoe categories for the year. He's looking to get that London trip paid for even though he could afford it himself.
That's not a fair comment, if he wanted to do that he'd be pitching NB shoes, not Asics. Asics (... and Nike) isn't even allowed to have a stand at the expo in London, because of their contract with the sponsor which is New Balance (if memory serves me right the organiser is, or was, the British UK dealer for NB, but I could well be wrong on that point).
Where can I hire this man to be a part of Masterclass.com?
Seth needs to team up with Bold CEO, Ali on the Run's husband! No snark, seriously. BoldCEO is a worldwide brand and Seth's business could thrive even more.
This post was edited 33 seconds after it was posted.
I used to watch Ryan Trahan when he was in college and posting running videos. Then he posted what I thought was crap, making fun of another YouTuber, so I didn't watch him for a while... then I realized he was becoming mega-popular and started enjoying his (non-running) videos again. The guy is very likeable and relatable.