Spencer Brown: In a Dark Place?

Georgetown kids are soft. Never met a tough one since Lukezic.

Dude is struggling a lot with the much higher mileage and aerobic quality. And he should be getting last place in every workout. He is a 3:40 guy training with a bunch of sub 3:35 guys. I know he had COVID in the fall and might still be recovering but yeah he hasn't looked great either.

Nothing's wrong with him, he's just a runner of SIGNIFICANTLY lower ability than the rest of his training group.

Kerr and Ribich are better runners than he is, so he should be finishing behind them. If you look at the beginning of the video, he was on the low end of the paces, but he hit them for the most part. Seems like he's doing a lot more work than at Georgetown.

We'll have to see how he performs in races later this year to judge how the Beasts experiment is going. It appears like the training is a bit too much right now though.

he’s training with Beasts. he looks like he’s is better shape than he was in college when he ran 3:39. he’s training with elite runners. and also the part when you said “the girl ran faster than he did” i’m sorry she was doing an anaerobic session with a lot more rest while he was doing an aerobic session with less rest.

Mamba Vs wrote:

he’s training with Beasts. he looks like he’s is better shape than he was in college when he ran 3:39. he’s training with elite runners. and also the part when you said “the girl ran faster than he did” i’m sorry she was doing an anaerobic session with a lot more rest while he was doing an aerobic session with less rest.

i’m sure she was***

Go back and look at any of his old videos. I doubt you will find him ever running better in the past.

A previous poster was spot on when identifying that he is training with guys that are faster than him and most likely have a bigger base. There's nothing surprising about him finishing in the back of that training group.

That being said, I don't think he's much of a workout warrior. Wouldn't most of us prefer to race better than we train?

My hope is that he continues to mature as a runner - getting more out of each session and able to perform at or near his best in every race. It seems to me he is on that path, even if his progress might seem less than optimal to someone following him online.

Only commenting to get this trending. I love this YouTuber. First time I've ever been remotely interested in the Beasts and that's saying something because Allie is one of my favorite runners. Her channel is taking off too. Great content of a recent 400 workout here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_pavfxt6Es

Also interesting that Bowerman is following a very similar format in the Instagram stories. They still don't give away workouts like this though. I've loved getting the insight into the Beast's training.

Sham 69 wrote:

It seems that he's now a shadow of his former self... He gets last place in every rep and even cuts the workout short. It's not that he isn't trying either. He's so gassed that he has to sit on the track so that he can catch his breath. At 11:09 you see a girl complete a 200 even faster than he did. Despite all of that, he describes the workout as, "a solid session" at 11:40. I think something may be wrong with Spencer...

https://youtu.be/QEX2I27ZPQE

I was just about to put this up myself, even the girl running 27 for the 200 too, notice the look as she goes by. I had it all punched it to put up, but was like, nahhhh let's give him a brake. He wouldn't be running with them if it wasn't for the channel.

Mamba Vs wrote:

he’s training with Beasts. he looks like he’s is better shape than he was in college when he ran 3:39. he’s training with elite runners. and also the part when you said “the girl ran faster than he did” i’m sorry she was doing an anaerobic session with a lot more rest while he was doing an aerobic session with less rest.

She not only is running faster, she keeps going. Spencer is toast. He had to pull out the session.

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Nothing's wrong with him, he's just a runner of SIGNIFICANTLY lower ability than the rest of his training group.

This. People don't understand how marketing/brand management works in the 2020s, they think for some reason we are still in the 1980s.

These days influencers provide companies with A LOT of value. TAS didn't get recruited because Brooks Beasts believe he is Olympic material, or because of his superior running skills, but because of the publicity he generates for the brand and all their runners. They were fully aware he isn't going to qualify for the Olympics or become one of the best runners on the team when they recruited him. But they still made the right choice and it was a win-win situation for both.

Many people on LRC are extremely simple-minded and only look at race times and workout performances. You don't need to study marketing to understand why Brooks Beasts accepted TAS and what benefits it has for the parties involved, pro-team and athlete/influencer.

The only real issue here is he pulls out of the session. He’s obviously the worst on the team and he isn’t getting paid real money by them so him being there to produce media for them isn’t an issue. If I was obviously the worst in a group, I would make sure to NEVER pull out of a session because they would be taking a chance on me. That’s the only issue with his training as far as I can see.

He had Covid. Covid can have long term effects. He's done.

If the whole COVID causing lasting lung damage theory is true, then he may never be the same.

gubyenletsrun wrote:

Also interesting that Bowerman is following a very similar format in the Instagram stories. They still don't give away workouts like this though. I've loved getting the insight into the Beast's training.

They did actually explicitly say the other day on instagram. 2x300, 6 x 150 (I think), 2 x 300. All fast and hard. I'd love to see some workout videos from the group though.

The following is all hearsay from a friend who says they were at the track hoping to work out so feel free to take some grains of salt with this: but they said was interesting because it actually it looked like Sinclaire Johnson and GDS were comfortably beating Houlihan and Schweizer in that workout, and that GDS would finish reps ahead of Houlihan even when she started the rep behind her. I found that interesting given I think there was a recent thread where people were talking about how GDS needed to do more speed work??

Anyway, might be biased to swallow the grains of salt, but it makes me excited to see Sinclaire Johnson race. Might not be as fit/aerobically strong as some of the other big guns in the 1500 like Purrier or Shelby, but if there's a slower, more tactical race (Trials perhaps...) I think she could surprise people.

It's also worth noting that all the other guys on the team are 2-4 years out of college, so he's basically a freshman on a team with almost all upper class man. It's pretty impressive that he's hanging with guys 2+ years older than him while adjusting to a higher workload.

PaperAthletes wrote:

The only real issue here is he pulls out of the session. He’s obviously the worst on the team and he isn’t getting paid real money by them so him being there to produce media for them isn’t an issue. If I was obviously the worst in a group, I would make sure to NEVER pull out of a session because they would be taking a chance on me. That’s the only issue with his training as far as I can see.

Did you watch the video? ONE REP (a 600m) got shortened to a 400m, and was run at the prescribed 400m pace. He then ran the next rep, another 400m, right on schedule. He finished the reps, hitting all his correct paces. That's not getting pulled.

Henry Wynne didn't even get all the way up the "ladder" before switching to 400s. Is he also garbage?

Sham 69 goat troll. I guess this is one of the downsides of posting everything on YT. Running geniuses like sham69 get on lets run to critique every aspect of your build and training without doing real comparisons to your college splits, mileage, and altitude.

Also, Nia Akins is easily top 3-5 in the US at 800 and it looks like they train her at 400-800. It's not crazy that her splits are faster than Spencer's at the end of a workout.