Is the distance runner lifestyle as portrayed on Youtube by TAS, SJD, etc. kind of self-indulgent?

I don’t know about “psychologically projecting,” I think you’re jealous. I’m jealous too!

It’s definitely not a life of “hard work” compared with somebody in heavy construction or any number of other fields.

The sleeping/lying round is part of the recovery process.

When you do it for a living, you live it all day.

Posting here as jamin certainly is.

jamin wrote:

Sleep in, eat breakfast and drink coffee, stretch, warmup, go for a run somewhere good for running, cooldown, stretch, eat a recovery meal ...

I feel like there's a paradox such that it's "hard work" and luxury lifestyle. Because 95% of the time spent is relaxation/indulgence (most consider daily/easy runs relaxing) and the other 5% is the bouts of workout efforts a couple times a week and make you feel really good afterwards (so the net effect is feeling good).

(And yes, I realize myself and those who agree with me here are pyschologically projecting a bit.)

I believe SJD wakes up crazy early.

Kinda depends. The more world class programs put in a lot more work than just what the youtubers do. Don’t confuse them for what real pro groups who put in 110+ mile weeks, lifting, physio, rolling, massages, etc.

The youtubers definitely are living a luxury lifestyle where they don’t really have to work super hard because they make money doing their videos. I’m definitely jealous of their lifestyle.

Psychological marketing; removing 98% of reality.

When Americans think of soldiers they think of Saving Private Ryan. Yeah ..... That is not ordinary life of a soldier, by any means.

SJD doesn’t sleep in and he helps his wife with their kids. We only see a snippet of his day in his vlog, which includes a crazy time of editing his daily vlog, planning his vlog and his normal main income paying job. He probably wishes he was a professional runner and living the runner’s life in Ethiopia like in “Out of Thin Air”. For as much as he runs, Seth probably doesn’t recover enough! He works too hard IMHO!

What is TAS, SJT?

He doesn’t have a normal day job. His job is his vlog

malmo wrote:

What is TAS, SJT?

The Athlete Special

Seth James DeMoore

two among many running Youtubers

Yes, it is self-indulgent.

And to those who are doing it....good on you! ?

Of course its self indulgent. Although pro runners often have more work than just the training part with social media and brand outreach. Trust fundies are most self indulgent.

Neither group is as self indulgent than people who live entirely off welfare, spending their lives doing as they wish. There have been some letsrun threads about that lifestyle.

I'm starting to do it lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmWPSBEYMto

jamin wrote:

Sleep in, eat breakfast and drink coffee, stretch, warmup, go for a run somewhere good for running, cooldown, stretch, eat a recovery meal ...

I feel like there's a paradox such that it's "hard work" and luxury lifestyle. Because 95% of the time spent is relaxation/indulgence (most consider daily/easy runs relaxing) and the other 5% is the bouts of workout efforts a couple times a week and make you feel really good afterwards (so the net effect is feeling good).

(And yes, I realize myself and those who agree with me here are pyschologically projecting a bit.)

Yes. Runners are selfish by nature. No one NEEDS to run much less race anymore. It's all ego driven. You COULD spend this extra time helping the disadvantaged, poor, and other minorities.

distance running is a very selfish thing to do, especially when you do it for more than basic health and fitness

posting all sorts of information about yourself on social media is selfish. especially when these are long edited videos.

combine the two and it is really selfish, like kardashian

they justify it because they make money off it.

Maybe not the world's oldest profession and yet certainly not the polar opposite... if you have the personality for it and can't/won't develop other talents to more meaningful ends, then who can argue? It's clowning with different makeup, you do you.

Is posting multiple threads a week self indulgent?

jamin wrote:

Sleep in, eat breakfast and drink coffee, stretch, warmup, go for a run somewhere good for running, cooldown, stretch, eat a recovery meal ...

I feel like there's a paradox such that it's "hard work" and luxury lifestyle. Because 95% of the time spent is relaxation/indulgence (most consider daily/easy runs relaxing) and the other 5% is the bouts of workout efforts a couple times a week and make you feel really good afterwards (so the net effect is feeling good).

(And yes, I realize myself and those who agree with me here are pyschologically projecting a bit.)

You're painting a very rosy picture here.

Brendan Foster described the life of a distance runner as "Wake up tired. Go to bed exhausted."

If in a week you run hard for 2 hours, easy for another 10 hours or so and various other exercises for another chunk of time (another 10 hours? More?), a lot of that time is spent feeling tired, worrying about niggles, or hitting splits etc.

It's not just: "Get up leisurely, run, runner's high, relax"

Definitely spoiled. Acting like a 70 mile week is a big deal, doing runs at 10:30 am. There's countless sub elites working 40-60 hours a week and putting in 100+ MPW and don't plaster it on youtube. Hell even elites like Hehir have kids and full time professional responsibilities on top of running. Look at the GBTC back in the 70s. These guys were much tougher than the gen Zs on youtube