The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

Has the channel ever really been anything more than a narcissistic passion project?

Well at least there used to be other runners featured on the channel mixed in with his selfies

Basically to be in this industry ("social media influencer") or Youtuber/Instagram "Coach." You have to have a pretty high degree of narcissism imo (I fully admit to that myself).

What really rubs me the wrong way is when other "Run Influencers" have reached out to me for "collabs" and then they seem to end up being very "one-sided" and not up the terms/agreements that I thought we were agreeing on to be equally mutually beneficial for both parties. I'm talking about multiple people here.

There is a huge sense of self entitlement and narcissism in the industry imo and besides that a lot of "bad running advice/ quick hacks and unrealistic perceptions" that get distorted and amplified on social media through a lot of these "content creators".

A lot of the best content does't get as many views as it's all about "clickbait", flashy graphics and text, capturing the power of the algorithm, celebrating raw materialism and consumerism, and being a "hybrid something" and doing ridiculous challenges...

I'm one to talk though....I just did the "Taco Bell 50km" last month....

But being on Youtube and making running content for the past 15+ years (as well as documenting several of my half dozen sub 2:20 marathon time training blocks and ultra-distance racing etc.) I've seen how it's changed a lot/evolved (some good some bad, but for sure more of a crowded space). Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky though. Adapt or die.

Definitely understand the "adapt or die" mentality... But Sweat Elite until recently had marketed itself as an alternative to the "clickbait" channels. So I find it insincere, this 180 turn to The Matt Fox Show, and now Sweat Elite is just another influencer channel. Which is what they set out to be an alternative to in the beginning

The shoetuber thing is watered down.

What does it take to be a good shoetuber

Fun and good constant content

consistent bad content that gets people to hate watch you

Ari Klau absolutely crying like a school girl:

this site (and thus we) have real power. don't get it twisted. oh and that article was both insufferably whiny and not grounded in reality. typical Robbe.

I missed you!

Ben Parkes long awaited 'Goal Race' in Valencia this weekend. After years of seeing him jogging around 'non goal races' at 20 minutes off his PB, finally it's time to see what he's made of.

If he wants to make a living selling training plans, he needs to show that he can train himself. Sub 2.25 or it's a dismal failure

Notice that in a recent post Anya Culling shared from the Financial Times they have her as a 'Team GB marathoner', I wonder if she told them that or they're made an assumption on her England vest from Copenhagen. Either way, feels like it would rub people who work super hard to earn a legit national vest pretty hard when you get articles about your beauty regime claiming you have one

Can we have a roll call for Shoetubers again Valencia? So far we've got Ben Parkes, anyone else?

What's the collective noun for runfluencers?

I'd agree the space is a lot more crowded but many of these newer channels will simply fizzle out over time, even if they have substantial views over a few months. I think/hope there's only so much time someone can sustain a channel based purely on shoe reviews/consumerism. The only newer channels I come back to regularly as a viewer at the moment are Crown My Run which is purely racing footage of a guy providing a humourous commentary on his and his brother's very frequent races (filmed with insta360s on their hats) and Ryan Thomson who is a top Scottish marathoner filming his workouts and narrating his races. Both of these have cracked the nut of being likeable and providing genuinely interesting content without trying to sell the viewer anything. I don't think you need to adapt your content to match the flash-in-the-pan consumerist running channels, I think you should create more content that showcases your unique insight and experience of the running world. If you uploaded a review of a new Coros watch tomorrow, I'm afraid I wouldn't watch it. If you recorded footage of you jumping into a local parkrun 5k- perhaps with a commentary- I would definitely watch, whether you won the race or not.

Adam Wood is also running Valencia.

Great post as usual, Sage. I think the above is what bothers me the most. It's not just the 100s of pairs of barely shoes behind people in their shoedios, it's all the other garbage they're unboxing and wearing. So much waste.

Every new shoot/visit to a manufacture means wearing the newest version of their shirts/jackets/socks/hat/water bottles/everything. What happens with all this the next day? Garbage? Storage somewhere?

So much unnecessary waste and impact to the environment.

Probably a 'group selfie' of runfluencers. Or a 'nuisance'.

"I was trying to focus on my marathon but a nuisance of runfluencers barreled past me with an entourage of ebikes"

I can only assume you are referencing the selfish stick legend Kofuzi. He was being coached by you for what, a year...now he suddenly makes no mention of you having signed with Runna.

Care to share what happened? We need the details.

And Ben Felton - I'm curious about how he's gong to do with all the injuries he's had recently.