The Trials and Tribulations of Running YouTubers

jecht wrote:

ShoeTubersHaveNoEthics wrote:

He seems to be depressed over the presidential election. He put out a video a few days after the election that ended with, "Now more than ever we need empathy." Put that together with his vlog ending in a podcast with Thomas where they were lamenting the cost of the six star bonus medal (and that's what it should be called to point out the ridiculousness of the entire concept), which they put at $30k and how expensive running is in general, and I think maybe it's dawning on Ko that taking endless free trips to Jamaica, the Olympics, Boston, New York, Berlin, London, Budapest, and on and on because you have X amount of followers while people are struggling to pay for rent, food and daycare doesn't exactly send the message he wants it to send (heck Trump almost won Ko's home State of Illinois).

Within 200 miles of Ko's home, you can run an Indoor Track Marathon for a hundred bucks, you could run the Carmel Indiana Marathon for a hundred bucks, you could run the Fort Wayne, Indiana Marathon for $90, you could run the Wisconsin Marathon (Kenosha) for $85 and Ko could probably run that one for free, his 2:56 PR would probably get him entry into the elite field of that race, you could run the Kalamazoo marathon for $95, and you could run the Grand Rapids Marathon for $115 bucks. All of these races could be done for $500 or less. Some could be done as day trips where the only cost is registration and gas to and from the race. Then there's the weekly free 5ks 20 miles from Ko's home base of Crystal Lake and just a few minutes outside of his old stomping grounds of Chicago.

The influencers want you to believe running is expensive because they need people to buy lots of things to fund all their trips around the world, but the reality is it isn't. You can run on an accurately measured 5k course for less than $20 in most places, in a lot of places you can do it for free. You can run Master's and All Comers track meets for $10 or less per event in a lot of places. You can even find free turkey trots or turkey trots where a canned food item is the cost of registration. You don't need to pay $100 for a turkey trot, show up in $250 shoes, custom made Rabbit Kofuzi Run Club singlets and buns costing a couple hundred bucks and Oakley sunglasses to run your 21:30 goal time (sub 7 minute pace is what most regular people consider fast for a 5k). You can also join an actual run club, not the virtual run clubs the influencers all like, that has group runs, workouts and coffees for $40 or less.

It'd be refreshing for an influencer to go against the grain and emphasize that running can be an extremely affordable and fun hobby that builds community. If you're really that concerned about the election results, get people offline and into building real communities like running clubs. And read or re-read "Bowling Alone." Real communities and real connections build real trust, which is the antidote to online disinformation. A running influencers like Kofuzi covering the running community near his town and who is in it and what their stories are might lead to people joining real communities in other towns. But that might eat into the virtual training plan "Winter Grit" and virtual run club merch sales.

Columbus used to have something called the Broke Man's Marathon where it was a loop course and very cheap. Not sure if they still do that. They have Warm Up but that's not too much more.

The last graf is really what some runfluencers should center on. Similar to FIRE (financial independence, retire early) principles, but on the running side--get the most bang for your buck. Great point on the communities.

Did not know Kofuzi did non-running (travel) videos? Is that new?

RunnerRunner425 wrote:

hughmungus wrote:

OTQ is very likely for flo, only ~12 min off now. Given his progress over recent two years, will be easy for him.

2017 he attempts sub 3 on minimal mileage and hits 1:35 for the first half before 2:15 second half

1:35 is a very good half marathon. He isnt some bum off the couch

2019, again with low mileage ran a 3:10 marathon

Fast forward to his "prime" Youtube series about breaking 3 hours and in the build up to Grandmas marathon 2022 when he was "giving it everything he had" he averaged 44 miles a week (including 1 week of 68 miles) and had 2 runs over 17 miles. At the race itself he ran 21 miles at 2:55ish pace before vomiting and finishing in 3:03 - Claims he is "so hungry for sub 3"

He is now "all in" for Chicago and his "hunger" leads him to hit a huge 47 miles per week average, with again, 2 runs over 17 miles (in his 9 week block he runs longer than 10 miles just 12 times and over HM distance just 8) and comes away with 2:57

He now gets "serious with running" and loves the sport as he has finally hit sub 3. He averages 68 miles a week now in the 11 weeks leading to Carmel and hits 2:48

Chicago 2023 he averages 58 miles a week and hits a 2:39

He then gained a coach (who he doesn't listen to) , a tainted sponsorship with BPN and ran an average of 70 miles a week in his main block to reduce PR by under 1 minute at Boston

All those gains from pumping up his mileage are flattenign out but he still expects 10 min PRs at every race. The amount of times he runs his reps too fast (in his Carmel block he ran 7 x 1k at 3:15 to 3:30 a km), the times he runs sick and the issues with his bowels means he is a ticking time bomb