The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

I think it’s a refreshing decision from Fenton. Why knock out another average marathon like every other shoetuber when your hearts not in it. He’s doing what excites him, so fair play to him.

Ben is a bit in the road. A cyclist might call that taking the lane, but really he's just avoiding the dodgy grit at the edge

For the driver to think that's a good spot to give Ben a wide berth and head around a corner on the wrong side of the road when he has no idea has cars coming the other way, is a massive error.

Verdict - driver is 100% a plonker. But so is Ben, to a degree.

What time did Cole Gibbo run at the Paddock Wood Half Marathon today?

64:45 approx and won by about 2 min.

64:43

He'll be lucky to break 2:30. He's cooked. I predict he gives up on marathons after London, perhaps a move to ultra's as he said he wants to do comrades again. Or he'll go full shoetuber and churn out more Japanese u turn videos and "I ran from last spot to first" at your local parkrun

Lol, the car also had a safe-ish distance untill Fenton descided to try to cut the corner.

i think the point is Fenton is mediocer at marathons and getting spanked by the other youtubers. prefers to target the shorter distances so he can pretend hes a big dog. doesnt look good on his channel when hes 10+mins behind another 5 ppl doing the same race. hes panicking that hes no longer relevant - he went out of fashion years ago in my watch list

I respect him for following his passion. However, in one breath he's saying he wants to progress into the elites; in the other, he's focusing on running a 64 ish half and scraping a sub 30 min 10k. Perhaps, he viewers will think 64 is not that far away from sub 60.

He's talking about trying for 64:30 at Berlin Half and ticking off sub 30 10k

Those times last year would have ranked him 33rd/129th in UK last year. Is that elite? Probably not quite, but the half marathon time would be getting him pretty close.

The weirdest thing is wrapping your head around the idea that Hugo Fry is already way clear of that, currently sitting 10th for HM this year and while his current time of 63:30 could drift to around 20th by the end of the year, with his progression so far it feels like he could run 62:xx in the next 9 months.

can someone explain how someone so cluesless can run 63:30? the guy has no idea what hes doing, seems constantly off his head/lost and scatter guns races/sessions without any thought of what hes doing

is he sponsored or getting an income from somewhere? very strange guy, would not be surprised if hes got ADHD and taking some supplements to control this

I don't think he's saying he is literally going to be internationally competetive but his times might get close to being competitive in the UK. E.g he qualifies for elite entry to the UK 10k champs etc. If sub 60 is the benchmark of elite for HM then there are no elite men in the UK which seems to make it a pointless definition here for funding, entry, rankings etc.

What I find amazing is that people like Fenton and Cole are walking around like the top dogs with people falling at their feet saying "OMG so fast" and they lap it up but theyre literally 35th in UK or something. Not even the world. the UK! This is not Sub elite! It is also ran material.

Imagine the 35th ranked British tennis player or the 35th ranked British Pickleball player walking around acting like Fenton, going on a "training camp" to Spain and taking themselves as seriously as Cole or Bester. They'd (rightly) be laughed off the internet, yet for some reason a bunch of also ran runners seem to be getting a lot of attention.

Like some guy above said, the amount of people in "Fordy Runs" shirts at local events is incredibly high.

Parasocial relationships are a thing. People idolize those they see on their screens. It's been that way in the TV-era, and it's now that way in the internet-VOD-era as well.

Doesn't matter how fast you are or how you compare to actual elites in your sport. Can you be seen on a screen in living rooms regularly? People will idolize you.

To be fair, the 35th best English footballer is probably someone like Jack Grealish and he is world famous, worth millions and has lots of sponsors. Yes it helps that he’s a lot more handsome than Fenton but still, there’s hope for him yet. His calves are probably nearly as defined.

If he wants to progress, he needs to do the following:

- Get a cooler haircut

- Go to Turkey for some new teeth

- Date a string of Love Island contestants

- After a key race get absolutely battered and create some funny content

Job done.

I don't think his training is as wildly odd as his instgram persona tbf. He's said before he's running 100+ miles a week extremely consistently and I think he's recently taken on a coach and deal with Precision for fuelling etc but the eating a packet of rice thing seems to tickle a lot of folks on instagram so why not.

Guy is obviously a very good runner and while his content isn't to my taste, he's easily one of the top end running youtubers / instagrammers these days in pure running terms.

I agree with you in spirit but the depth of running is much deeper than other sports. Everybody knows if they’re a good runner or not from grade school, I’d wager 80% of the population has never played tennis.

although I guess if you account for all different distance running events that 35th probably turns into a 200th or worse..

The 35th ranked UK tennis player appears to be a full time pro on Scotlands national performance programme and the ITF tour, I wouldn't be that surprised if he did go on training camps in Spain tbf...

I know the definitions are pretty vague and I agree Fenton comes across delusional at times, but say the top 10 ish nationally are 'elite' then its not that outlandish to say something like 11-50 is sub-elite.

Jimmy Whelan's next "races" according to his strava:
Barcelona Marathon Pacing (2:05 group)
Berlin Half (60:30?)
Paris Marathon Pacing (2:06-7 group)