Why Does Kilian Jornet Have 3 x IG Followers than Jakob Ingebrigtsen?

Hobbyjoggers believe that running further is more impressive. I’ve heard multiple people say a sub 4 hour marathon is more impressive than a sub 4 mile.

Track is dead to the general public and has only significant fractions of real fans among really competitive runners. Hobby joggers don’t even care about track and field. The average LetsRunner is the fanbase for Jakob, not the average reddit runner.

Kilian has appeal to an entirely different and much larger demographic and industry — the outdoors world. Skiers, climbers, backpackers, hikers, adventurers, cyclists, etc. The wide and diverse demographic that reads the Outside magazine’s now huge and conglomerate of diverse outdoor sports sites or everyone who shops at REI would know who is. Looking at shared instagram followers with me for example, six pro cyclists and even a climber that I follow also follow Kilian, but they don’t follow Jakob.

Maybe Jakob should fake summit everest 3 times!

Jakobs insta is boring.

Killian’s is cool.

It’s as simple as this. It’s not because hobby joggers think running 100 miles is more impressive. Most ultra runners instagrams are just straight up ads for their sponsors. Kilian has really cool quality posts, some of his videos have been on joe Rogan, etc. Only serious runners are going to get stoked on seeing Jacob doing intervals around a track

why do you care about 'followers'. very sad reflection of society.

Actually in some way that's true. With enough talent, one can run a sub-4 mile without much work, but for a marathon, it requires at least some training to even finish, let alone running a certain time.

Kilian is clearly the more accomplished runner and the people of IG favor substance over style. Olympic qualifying will soon be determined by the # of IG followers.

Um, is this something that actually comes up in conversation? I don’t think I’ve ever heard people opine about the relative impressiveness of those two feats

People don't appreciate Jakobs speed suit

Track and Field is alive and well. It needs better sponsors and promoters. We shouldn't have to scramble to view live racing events. T&F isn't promoted well because they want loyal fans to pay for the live viewing. Instead of paying for promotion to grow the sport. We enjoy watching amazing accomplishments on the track including marathon racing on the roads. Instead drama sells. Before the sponsors pay for promotion of the sport. We'll get to view the free promotion of drama by someone that hasn't shown amazing feats on the track. SCR drama sells without breaking records. But if someone states they're going to try and break a record. The sponsors will sell us the privilege to view it. Track and Field is poorly promoted because they want to make money over growing the sport. They should grow the sport first and then start the pay per view. Instead we have pay per view and questions "how can we grow the sport?".

Trail running lends itself well to a platform that is primarily about taking nice pictures.

I dont bite on this attempt to set them up at each other as athletes. Massive fan of both, but Kilian had been worth following if he was a no-name in running as well. Amazing photos.

This has either got to be a troll or you just proved the OP’s point. A talented person can run a sub-5:00 mile without much work, and the most talented can even run 4:30. But nobody on planet earth is running a sub-4:00 mile without talent + hard work. It’s a good example of the dunning-krueger effect, where hobbyjoggers who have never run that fast cannot appreciate how exponentially harder 3:59 is from 4:30 or even 4:10.

Probably 90-95% of the guys who have run sub-4:00 mile could walk out their door with no additional training and run a sub-4:00 marathon if they wanted to. But going the other way, only a fraction of a fraction of a percent of sub-4:00 marathoners could go sub-4:00 in a mile even if they trained their entire life for. So which is more impressive?

I don't buy this at all. As a weekend warrior who runs far it's never really impressed anyone. Most people think a 5K is some sort of a marathon. They can't fathom the difference between 26.2 miles and 100 miles and don't care to. People just follow Kilian because it's good insta content. Cool videos of places people want to travel to, neat photos, etc. It's not because they think he's a superior athlete than Jakob.

I have conversations with coworkers when they find out I ran 3:53 for 1500 in college that inevitably go like this:

"Wow that's like a sub-4 mile". "Actually it's like a 4:09 mile". "Well it's still so close. If you had just gone out a little faster or kicked a little harder or done one thing different in training you could have done it. I improved by over a minute in my Turkey Trot last year by doing a few speed workouts".

They don't comprehend how as you start reaching that level, another 10 seconds might as well be an eternity. Then I explain how it's a 4% difference, and 1% is the difference between LeBron James and the benchwarmer you've never heard of.

I'd say a sub-5 mile and a sub-3 marathon are in the neighborhood of talent/training required. sub-4 for a mile and a marathon aren't even in the same universe!

Gaining a social media following doesn't come from being the best at your job. It comes from regularly posting content that interests people.

Who is this Jacob Inga Punga something?