The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

"typical middle-age, off the couch hobby jogger" cannot finish a marathon, let alone do it in sub 4 or anything close. you're talking out of your a**, my sweet little hoe

Exactly, the classic kid response I can run quicker, my friends can run quick so everyone can run quicker.

get on YouTube and advertise yourself, or do you have the personality of half a glass of water?

Kofuzi's time at Berlin was nothing earth shattering, but a large percentage of American men his age definitely can't run one mile at Kofuzi's marathon pace "off the couch."

I enjoyed Matt Bs videos from Berlin.

How is Kofuzi able to run 2:55-3:00 but can't break 20 for 5k? 2:55-3:00 puts you around 18:40-18:55-ish?!

I get you but I think the underlying issue is people are trying to be famous to get out of their crappy 9 to 5 jobs and open doors...

It's just something people say, he has an 18mn high 5k PB according to Strava.

Going from a 3:44 on a flat course like CHI to 2:56 in Tokyo? Very impressive.

I find Flobergs Strava info very strange. He has stated on his channel his maximum heart rate is 190 (when he bonked in NY it hit around that) yet he is puking his guts up running at 170 beats.

His hidden gem HM PB, which also included a post race puke, was at 167 heart rate.

Is his heart rate data messed up or is he actually way, way less fit than he should be?

A good article on his backstory.

banditrunning.com

Who is Kofuzi? - Blog | Bandit Running

Explore the world of Kofuzi and his running adventures. Get motivated to hit the pavement.

Open link

Ko grew up in New Jersey and was on his high school’s cross-country team, but only as a means to spend time with his friends. When he moved to the Midwest to attend Washington University in St. Louis, he joined the track team not as a runner, but as a pole vaulter, trying to do as little running as possible. He met the woman who would become his wife in St. Louis, but she was living in Chicago, so he eventually moved there to be with her and go to law school.
In 2010, Ko’s father told him he was planning on running the Baltimore Marathon and Ko invited himself to join him, thinking it wouldn’t be too hard.
“At the time, he was exactly twice my age,” Ko recalls. “I was 30 and he was 60. I basically did a couch to marathon that year and it was absolutely terrible—I was injured pretty much the whole time. My dad beat me by, like, 20 minutes. And I thought, ‘You know what, that’s done and I don’t have to do that anymore.’ And I didn’t run again for six years.”
Ko worked as a consultant doing litigation support, focusing on technology for courtrooms, but needed a creative outlet outside of his day job. He started by blogging on Tumblr, but soon, inspired by the video content put together by the wildly popular vlogger Casey Neistat, decided to become active on YouTube, first making vlogs of his dog, Buddy, and then showing snippets of his family life, usually garnering less than 100 views per video.
In 2016, a friend from law school asked Ko to run a 10-mile Memorial Day race with him at Soldier Field, a stadium near the South Side of Chicago. He spent two months training for the race, documented it, and felt fantastic.
“At this point, people were beginning to use Strava and running on Instagram and tweeting about their running,” Ko says. “A lot of that kind of stuff is interesting to me, and it took me more than 30 years, but running finally clicked for me and it was the first time in my life when I was like, ‘Hey, I actually like the running for the running.’”

LRC is full of survivorship bias. Guys who run 17/36/1:19/2:48 and are like "I'm slow, so if I can do it, anyone can!"

That makes more sense if he's a 18:50 guy.

What's up with Mr. Matt Choi? He's produced very little content lately -- about one video per month for about a year. Is he effectively out of the shoetube game?

Headwind somehow made him nauseous. Dunno

He's always struggled with eating gels and getting nauseous. His first couple marathons he didn't even eat gels, tried doing blocks instead. It didn't go well. He has a nutrition sponsor but he should really try some different gels that are easier on the stomach like SIS go. Or Maurten.

THIS!

I used to enjoy his content. I even went to a shake out run he did. And to be fair he was suitably pleasant. But he's been disappearing up his own posterior in the last year or so. The other day I caught a bit of his livestream on YT. He was drinking out of a fking glass jar (without the screw lid) instead of a glass like a normal person! Its all got a bit too hipster for my liking!

In other shoetuber questions.

Which shoetuber is collecting email addresses and selling hats? I've heard whoever they are might be in trouble legally off the back of it. Also same shoetuber is allegedly only putting a few miles (less than 10 or so!) into shoes before posting reviews on them.

Next up, everyone will latch onto NB to get whatever they can from the NYC Marathon.

Just watched YT of one of the Brits and confirms imo that you can be both a fantastic runner and cringingly narcissistic at the same time.

I distinctly remember a few years I was watching videos about a pair of shoes I was considering. Kofuzi was one of the few guys that popped up who I'd seen videos from before, so I felt I had some sense that he was a known commodity as a reviewer. While the video was starting, I remember he had pinned a comment that was blasting him for his selfie stick intros, using some language that was definitely against the community guidelines. It was very nasty but as I watched the video, there was a completely overindulgent amount of Ko running with his selfie stick, splashing by the lake edge in Chicago, all while the worst royalty free Youtuber music blared. Then it was disclosure time. Then, finally, the review. I won't say I agree with that comment because it was really nasty and an uncalled for attack on Ko, but I totally got the annoyance when you're just trying to find out what some guy thinks about the latest Adidas Boston and you have to sit through some dude making 8 minute pace look like Kipchoge's breaking 2.