Is this how Matt Choi actually makes his living, or is Run Influencer a secondary income for him?
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Personally, I want to hear something from Casey Neistat on this whole things. On Choi's social media he show's Casey presenting him his medal. As a tangential running influencer himself, it would be nice to see Casey stick up for the OG running community instead of pander to influencer culture. Casey even posted a few days before saying that he would not be waving to increase his efficiency. He has also historically gotten his footage from good samaritans and fans on the course.
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Trump Vance #1 wrote:
Choi is just too lazy and vain. Not a fan of Kofuzi but at least he doesn't interfere with other runners.
I honestly can't understand why big races let these guys in at all anyways. Like they're they're to *influence* people. I hardly think any NYRR race or WMM needs anyone to influence runners to join.
And yet they get comped with free entry (sometimes), free rooms, and more
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Old Shoe wrote:
Trump Vance #1 wrote:
Choi is just too lazy and vain. Not a fan of Kofuzi but at least he doesn't interfere with other runners.
I honestly can't understand why big races let these guys in at all anyways. Like they're they're to *influence* people. I hardly think any NYRR race or WMM needs anyone to influence runners to join.
And yet they get comped with free entry (sometimes), free rooms, and more
because they post about it on social media and drum up support the marathon marketing team could only dream of
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Side note
Neistat's pacing was like a gd metronome on Sunday
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Josh-Runna wrote:
Hi everyone,
Josh here - COO at Runna. Wanted to provide a quick update below.
Thanks all of your messages and emails. I want to be clear that this was not something that we at Runna knew was going to happen, or support as a company, and we have decided to terminate our relationship with Matt effective immediately.
As some of you have highlighted Ben (co-founder) had agreed to run alongside Matt to the finish, pacing him to a sub-3, and we had licensed photographers stationed throughout the course, so we (and Ben in particular) were particularly upset and taken by surprise that his production crew joined on the course. Ben assumed that they had been given official media licences given they were on the course and wearing high vis.
Our ethos and entire mission is about inspiring and supporting runners around the world on and off the race course, and so we are deeply uncomfortable with what happened on Sunday.
We’ve also since found out that Matt has done this before which was not something that we knew about and which was an oversight on our part - we are going to improve our ambassador screening processes as a result.
We expect all of our ambassadors and entire community to adhere to race safety rules and respect the safety of other athletes. Running should be for everyone. We will ensure nothing like this happens again, and thank you for your patience. We really value you sharing your feedback.
I also understand this has taken a while to respond on our part - we wrapped up our pop-up in NYC yesterday, had a full day of podcast recording and then flew back last night meanwhile the team in the UK were offline.
Happy to respond to questions in this thread - we don't have a fancy PR department it's just me! But I will share the above response with the team so that we can be replying to concerned runners and Runnas on Instagram etc too.
It's actually hilarious how quickly you caved to the demands of snowflakes and turned on your own athletes LOL
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You snowflakes are so soft, it's actually hilarious. Half the people complaining weren't even running in the race.
The other half is too unathletic to avoid getting hit by the bikes while jogging?
You realize in grand tours, cyclists are able to compete while being surrounded on both sides by spectators and riding 45+ kph:
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Choi has an apology video up
Coming after the sponsors has had an effect it sounds like
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Wonder will he hand back the medal?
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Hopefully he means it.
His brother calling us dipsh1ts earlier in this thread was funny.
I wonder how they feel in private.
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Actually, I was in the race. And since you asked - I have a real job, real obligations, kids, I'm old, and basically 2 hours of time to myself a day (between 5-7 AM). And I absolutely SCORCHED this tool.
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Gotta give him credit for owning it.
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Under the Influencer wrote:
Gotta give him credit for owning it.
No, it's not enough.
Does anyone have the contact info of the Marathon Majors? We need to get him banned from all the majors immediately, LRC.
Matt Choi must be stopped at all costs.
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theyre not sending their best wrote:
Under the Influencer wrote:
Gotta give him credit for owning it.
No, it's not enough.
Does anyone have the contact info of the Marathon Majors? We need to get him banned from all the majors immediately, LRC.
Matt Choi must be stopped at all costs.
not that deep
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No remorse in those eyes and he is clearly reading from a script. He is only trying to stem the financial bleeding at this point.
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Dude I'm 55 and started running 3 years ago
And I think I could take his Half time at Brooklyn 2024 (he got a 1:25) in 2025
That's what I'm aiming for. The time, not beating him.
I have friends my age that run faster than himWhich is just a little "huh" when I see his times and all the effort that goes into it
I know a guy his age that was out drinking on Saturday night in NYC and ran a 2:57
I like the guy. I like his energy. I am well-disposed to anyone encouraging more people to run.
But his talents are in marketing and charisma. He's not a running hero.77 -
NAUSUX wrote:
theyre not sending their best wrote:
No, it's not enough.
Does anyone have the contact info of the Marathon Majors? We need to get him banned from all the majors immediately, LRC.
Matt Choi must be stopped at all costs.
not that deep
speak for yourself. Matt Choi could've killed me on the course this past weekend.
his bike was within arms length from me at multiple points when I was running and I was scared for my life.
this behavior is unacceptable and his apology is weak. i agree, we need to cancel him from the rest of the Majors
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Sean Brody wrote:
Choi has an apology video up
Coming after the sponsors has had an effect it sounds like
Apologizing is so empty when this is the second time he's done this at NYRR event and gotten criticism for it. Why not stop after the Brooklyn Half last year? And he bandied Houston Marathon last year, and barely apologized for that. I hope his sponsors drop him.
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Yes, I fully agree that Matt messed up, but the apology and acceptance of the lifetime ban from NYRR events seemed reasonable. We all make mistakes, but not all of us own up to them.
Wouldn't it be nice if actual athletes could learn from this internet influencer? For example, let's compare his apology to that of Shelby Houlihan for all the athletes she cheated out of accolades - oh wait, Shelby never apologized...
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laughs in cycling wrote:
You snowflakes are so soft, it's actually hilarious. Half the people complaining weren't even running in the race.
The other half is too unathletic to avoid getting hit by the bikes while jogging?
You realize in grand tours, cyclists are able to compete while being surrounded on both sides by spectators and riding 45+ kph:
I ran in the race had a higher ag placing then Choi and have ridden over 3k miles on Citibikes in NYC.
Tour cyclists are skinny little men with 12 inch arms.
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