The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

Also, Michael Ottesen who has been popping up in my feed recently? The guy is married with a kid, works full time and yet still grinds out hundred mile weeks. Definitely puts in a bit more effort than certain other Youtubers

I like the guy. Seems like a chill dude. His series on getting to $10k from prize money is pretty good.

Agreed I think his content is great and he comes across as a genuine individual.

As a dad, running 100pmw weeks I prefer the YouTubers who do it with a real job as well.

I know this makes me sound grumpy but some of the big timers (even professionals) who don't have kids complaining at how they don't have time or energy for 100 miles a week grates.

The videos of "How I ran 100 miles a week" or "The biggest week of my life at 170k" do make me roll my eyes from some of fully time YTs/influences without kids.

I'll stop ranting and being grumpy now...

Posts like yours are really annoying. I think the only way you'll understand how annoying you come across is if you imagine saying exactly what you just said and then somebody chimes in.... "As a dad?!?!?!?!? I'm a mom and dads have it easy. Mom's are the ones who have to blah, blah, blah, blah around their running where dads only blah, blah, blah."

Yeah, you're annoying like that.

As moms are (statistically and culturally) more like to be primary care giver I actually agree with some of the sentiment of your post.

Edit: I wrote some waffle but it was patronising so deleted it. To be positive, people running well and juggling family life is more inspirational to me then someone running identically as well and not having that commitment, but both are admirable.

You quite clearly missed the point. I'm not surprised. So, why don't you clear up your opinion and just write a hierarchy about who is allowed to complain/comment about hard training. Moms > Dads > etc.

I love when people complain that others complaints aren't warranted. So keep explaining about who's more "admirable" in their training for a.... hobby!

Fair comment.

I suppose I should first removing the log from my own eyes, before criticising the splinter in someone else's.

I wonder when EddBudd will run his first marathon. He has plenty of opinions on which shoes work for marathons, but he’s never actually run one. Oh, wait, he did try once, but he tripped over a pine cone halfway through.

Which ones are those? The few I've watched don't seem to have jobs (other than their YT channel).

I had taken a vacation from ShoeTuber reviews. But I'm back and catching up on the Matt Choi fiasco. My favorite piece on the whole subject is this Believe in the Run rant defending Choi. It basically confirms that the Shoetubers all religiously read this thread. They're all at the Running Event now, which has basically morphed into a ShoeTuber convention. I'm sure that'll provide an off season of quality content!

I’ve been getting so excited for your next roundup

He dropped a new “In My Opinion” podcast today and directly “called out” the brojos in it.

Fox detailed an alleged exchange involving his lawyer and Rojo in which he claims Rojo refused to take down the “slanderous” posts from earlier this year because Rojo thought he was a “terrible person”. Really came off as perpetual victim mentality. He also claims that LetsRun as a company has it out for him because they benefit from less competition in the greater running media ecosystem (He definitely thinks sweat elite is much bigger than it actually is lol)

Honestly though, the other stuff he yapped about I thought was decently interesting. But maybe that’s just cause I find the Aussie accent pleasing to listen to. But boy does he have a grandiose view of him self.

The real shame is that from a training perspective, he is clearly more knowledgeable than most of the shoetubers kicking about (a genuine coaching history - not just an 'instagram coach' who started running 6 months before their first post - and he has spent time around world class coaches picking their brains). His videos up until around early 2023 featured genuine world-class athletes with candid interviews that allowed viewers behind the curtain as to the athletes training methods/sessions. Even his first one or two sub-2.20 series were interesting.

Everything since then has been a shambles: podcast series and co-hosts changing seemingly every month; lack of videos with athletes (the green card issue explains this to a point, but why can't he film groups/athletes in the US?); boring rambles on supposed victimisation; coaches changing ever 3 months etc. I do wonder if the Youtube channel will ever get back to what it was, or if he's just burnt too many bridges with training groups in the US and Europe. Again, a real shame as I enjoy the youtube content when it's put out - it just seems all the baggage that comes with Fox is leading to a slow decline.

I think that the frequent allegations about his personal conduct, the anti-semitic meltdown he recently had plus the fact that he openly admitted to having ChatGPT respond to his coaching clients means that any athlete with concerns for reputational damage will steer clear, why would you want to be associated with any of that when there are a tonne of other options? e.g. Josh Kerr went with 'TRACK: All Access' and Jakob went with 'Flotrack' when releasing well-filmed workouts on youtube.

Part of it is that one of his first-line moves when people wise up to him is to start threatening their spouses and families. I lived through it. Have kept all the threats as insurance.

I believe that is the answer to all the points you made above.

The guy is seemingly incapable of being a remotely decent human.

Random fact:

According to the World Athletics Scoring Tables, Matt Fox's 800m best of 1:48.36 is considered to be an achievement equal to a 2:15:23 marathon.

Just to be clear, that does not imply that any 1:48.36 800m athlete can run a 2:15:23 marathon, even with appropriate training. However, those performances are considered to be equivalent by the WA Scoring Tables.