The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

dopers wrote:

Man__Moth wrote:

Can you fill us in on what's occupying so much time if you don't have a family to support and you're not working full time?

There's 110 waking hours in a week (give or take), and I'm guessing based on your ability, you're spending no more than 10 hours running. So, what are you doing with the other 100 hours that's making training so hard to fit in?

In general, I don't think the issue is people deprioritizing anything particularly important. Some people are just better at being organised, not procrastinating or wasting time on their phones.

I think we might be talking past each other a bit. It’s not just about “fitting in 10 hours of running.” At a certain level, the stress isn’t just the time on your feet. It’s the recovery, sleep, food timing, mobility, managing niggles, staying off your feet when you can, and just the general fatigue that carries over into the rest of your life. The workouts might be 8–10 hours. The lifestyle impact is more than that.
Also, I probably shouldn’t have used my own time as if it’s objectively “fast.” It’s fast FOR ME. It took me a long time to grind down to low-36s, and I’m not some high-talent guy cruising off 50 mpw. I’ve had to squeeze a lot out of what I’ve got. So when we’re talking about women running 2:40, that’s on a completely different level from me.
If it’s taken this much structure and intent for me to get to ~36 for 10K, I have a hard time believing someone running 2:40 with a full-time job and family isn’t making trade-offs somewhere. Maybe they’re extremely organized. Maybe they’re genetically gifted. Probably both. But there’s still a cost, even if it’s not obvious from the outside.
I know it's not impossible. But it isn't the norm either, and it’s not some productivity hacks. High performance almost always means something else is getting less time, less energy, or less attention, at least for a period of time. I will end with this:
Being organized doesn’t run 2:40. Plenty of organized people never sniff that. At some point you have to prioritize training, and prioritizing something by definition means other things move down the list. You don’t get that level of performance by just “using your time better.”

Kipchode wrote:

Jake's made one huge change recently that I think is probably causing his current (and likely ongoing) cycle of injuries.

I've commented before about what makes Jake different from the Fentons, Besters and other clueless runfluencers is that he actually understands his training philosophy, why he's running high milage and why that works for him, rather than aimlessly stabbing himself with a lactate meter and hoping for the best. He also implemented this approach by building volume first, using sensible load managment, before implementing any intensity. Balancing volume vs intensity well for the last couple of years has meant he's been able to get the most out of himself and make some big improvements. The main reason he's been able to sustain that milage for so long is that his workout paces are fairly controlled, roughly around his 10k pace at most, compared with people like Fenton and Cole who've ended up with 'stressys' trying to balance high milage with hero workouts that look great on socials.

So whats changed? Well, Jake has been desperate to link up with an elite team for some time, which I completely get, solo training is tough! And the difficulty for him is that he's just below the level required for most of the pro teams, and he's said himself that he's a lot quicker than the amatuer clubs/teams, so it's difficult to find people wanting to hit the same sort of training paces. He's jumped in with some pro teams in the past, for a week or so, every now and again (likely a great training stimulus when done occationally) but not for a prolonged period. Recently he's been spending week after week training with the NDSoft team, and on the Runners.FM podcast said he's having to work super hard just to hang on during workouts, consistantly running paces faster than he's ever done before (hitting the 2:40s when his previous workouts would be 3s). This all means that his volume vs intensity balance has been shaken right up, and with the increased intensity of his workouts he should really consider his high volume approach, otherwise he will just be injured all the time.

If he's going to train with this team going forward, which he obviously wants to, he should only do his mental 280k weeks during base building, before any intensity is added, and max out at 200k (at the very most) when running workouts with that team.

Flops Again wrote:

dopers wrote:

I think we might be talking past each other a bit. It’s not just about “fitting in 10 hours of running.” At a certain level, the stress isn’t just the time on your feet. It’s the recovery, sleep, food timing, mobility, managing niggles, staying off your feet when you can, and just the general fatigue that carries over into the rest of your life. The workouts might be 8–10 hours. The lifestyle impact is more than that.
Also, I probably shouldn’t have used my own time as if it’s objectively “fast.” It’s fast FOR ME. It took me a long time to grind down to low-36s, and I’m not some high-talent guy cruising off 50 mpw. I’ve had to squeeze a lot out of what I’ve got. So when we’re talking about women running 2:40, that’s on a completely different level from me.
If it’s taken this much structure and intent for me to get to ~36 for 10K, I have a hard time believing someone running 2:40 with a full-time job and family isn’t making trade-offs somewhere. Maybe they’re extremely organized. Maybe they’re genetically gifted. Probably both. But there’s still a cost, even if it’s not obvious from the outside.
I know it's not impossible. But it isn't the norm either, and it’s not some productivity hacks. High performance almost always means something else is getting less time, less energy, or less attention, at least for a period of time. I will end with this:
Being organized doesn’t run 2:40. Plenty of organized people never sniff that. At some point you have to prioritize training, and prioritizing something by definition means other things move down the list. You don’t get that level of performance by just “using your time better.”

I will let you into a secret, mate - You're probably training sub-optimally. Dont feel ashamed. Many are. I bet you're running your easy runs too hard (by "feel" probably) and then running super hard workouts. Then on race day you're thinking "Why aren't I getting the results my training says I should get?"

The fact you fall back on the "maybe theyre genetically gifted" says it all. Mate, slow down. Stop with the hero workouts and the "Strava Easy" efforts. Slow it all down and you will move forward. Check out NSM or Hadd or some other method that will see your plateux period end/

tosh wrote:

S. Canaday wrote:

I think part of the appeal is "the storyline"....people want to see if he'll "crash and burn" or "make this big goal". He's entertaining and has a unique story/angle and films his own stuff so I respect that.

It's maybe kinda parallel to the rise in popularity and "clickbait" that a guy like Truett Hanes has (although Hanes was already a nepo baby). The audience is intrigued and curious because of his big goal (sub 2:16:00) and want to believe in the journey so that they can dream of making the same kinds of improvements themselves. Now the Hanes audience is a bunch of hyrox and "hybrid athlete" types that don't realize how big a chasm it is to go from 2:29 to 2:16 is....but RTJ still has a pretty audacious goal of going 2:14 to sub 2:10 (it's way more possible though...and us more serious runners know that!). Maybe it's like the Allie O goal of making the Olympics in the steeple, or placing well in the Golden Trail series (and now Half Marathon PRs)?

If there's anything I've learned with social media (esp running Youtube) it's that the storyline is key. I'm just trying to stay relevant and "adapt with the times" (I'm old and slow now so that's not going well), but some of the best traction in content I got was my OTQ series: (I missed the 2016 trials by 12 seconds and the 2020 trials by 52 seconds). But you have to keep in mind this was way after I'd already started Youtube and already run 2:16:52 and run in a couple Olympic Trials (also keep in mind this was before "supershoes"!). And there were certainly way less Americans running 2:16 or faster back then.

That Hugo guy made some very massive gains very quickly. I was shocked. It's interesting.... (side note imo SIS beta fuel is waaay better than Precision gels)....

I wouldn't compare RJT to him, but I do respect the "smart training" for "progression optimization". I first hand saw guys like Brian Sell run 160-miles a week. The thing with "high mileage, moderately hard training" is that if will either: 1. Hurt you, 2. Over-train you and/or 3. Make you super strong and fast....but only for a very limited time. Personally I ran way better off of 120-mile weeks than I did off of 140-mile weeks. The other thing of course is to mix in 5k-10km races and season focus (or at least a half marathon PR training focus) between marathons within the year imo.

I'd do a training consultation with RJT!

i really don't think he'd be interested in listening to a letsrun keyboard warrior. some people of here may know who you are, but i have never heard of you

boys trip to spain wrote:

EliteIsGrowing wrote:

FOD has captioned his new video as ‘I spent 5 days with elite runners’

Didnt he just go for a jog with Fenton and his coach? Not sure they can really be classed as elite.

The click bait titles from YouTubers is getting more and more misleading

Yeah wanted to discuss this, especially as Andy might still lurk on here...

Do Fenton and Victor hold hands whilst they go to the toilet?

In all seriousness though - besides the clickbait - Andy you've mentioned about doing Abingdon because taking an overseas trip isn't compatible with having a family... But you've been away with the dogs of war on a training camp for a week? You can clearly run a good marathon if you go to a half decent race - surely you'd be better served running Valencia or Seville than hanging off the back of Fenton for a week... rather like the famous clip actually, you really could've leaned into that and set this thread alight!

boys trip to spain wrote:

EliteIsGrowing wrote:

FOD has captioned his new video as ‘I spent 5 days with elite runners’

Didnt he just go for a jog with Fenton and his coach? Not sure they can really be classed as elite.

The click bait titles from YouTubers is getting more and more misleading

Yeah wanted to discuss this, especially as Andy might still lurk on here...

Do Fenton and Victor hold hands whilst they go to the toilet?

In all seriousness though - besides the clickbait - Andy you've mentioned about doing Abingdon because taking an overseas trip isn't compatible with having a family... But you've been away with the dogs of war on a training camp for a week? You can clearly run a good marathon if you go to a half decent race - surely you'd be better served running Valencia or Seville than hanging off the back of Fenton for a week... rather like the famous clip actually, you really could've leaned into that and set this thread alight!

byebye wrote:

boys trip to spain wrote:

Yeah wanted to discuss this, especially as Andy might still lurk on here...

Do Fenton and Victor hold hands whilst they go to the toilet?

In all seriousness though - besides the clickbait - Andy you've mentioned about doing Abingdon because taking an overseas trip isn't compatible with having a family... But you've been away with the dogs of war on a training camp for a week? You can clearly run a good marathon if you go to a half decent race - surely you'd be better served running Valencia or Seville than hanging off the back of Fenton for a week... rather like the famous clip actually, you really could've leaned into that and set this thread alight!

half terms times? making a holiday out of it? valencia is a great city break for a couple, sounds like a nightmare with small kids and with AL you have to pick and choose when you have kids because of childcare. He said in his video it was a crazy coincidence ben happened to be in the same town as him, not like hes booked there to go join them on purpose

byebye wrote:

boys trip to spain wrote:

Yeah wanted to discuss this, especially as Andy might still lurk on here...

Do Fenton and Victor hold hands whilst they go to the toilet?

In all seriousness though - besides the clickbait - Andy you've mentioned about doing Abingdon because taking an overseas trip isn't compatible with having a family... But you've been away with the dogs of war on a training camp for a week? You can clearly run a good marathon if you go to a half decent race - surely you'd be better served running Valencia or Seville than hanging off the back of Fenton for a week... rather like the famous clip actually, you really could've leaned into that and set this thread alight!

half terms times? making a holiday out of it? valencia is a great city break for a couple, sounds like a nightmare with small kids and with AL you have to pick and choose when you have kids because of childcare. He said in his video it was a crazy coincidence ben happened to be in the same town as him, not like hes booked there to go join them on purpose

FOD Runner wrote:

Please do... I am OK with being ripped apart. I will try and answer everything:

I have said on a couple of occasions on this thread that the only part of making YouTube videos I dont like is the need to market yourself with thumbnails and titles... otherwise its great fun. Sadly marketing is part of the game and the game has changed since I started making videos over 10 years ago

I used "5 days" because I ran with them on Friday... didnt run (but saw them to chat too) on Saturday, spent some time with them post race Sunday, ran with them Monday and ran with them Tuesday. What you have to remember is I am someone who loves learning and so if I get a chance to even spend 15 minutes with someone in the upper echelons of the sport in terms of performances, I will pick their brains and pester them to ask anything I can, like fueling, recovery, pacing, how they approach training etc.

And yes, half term times indeed... we are looking at going back to Spain in October during the half term... my holidays / training has to fit around that, I dont have the luxury that lots of people do where I can go whenever I want, however I wouldnt have it any other way because I can get my kids out on experiences that they normally wouldn't have.

Hopefully that addresses everything... what people have to remember is that YouTube is entertainment... what you see on camera isnt always what people are like in "training mode"... and I am sure most of you have experienced running with much faster people than your own ability level... it's something I would jump at the chance to do at any given opportunity.

Otherwise, please do treat me the same... just because I show my face here, doesnt mean I should be immune to criticism