Do good runners... not follow the sport?

IDK about elites. But among subelites - guys fast enough to qualify for the marathon trials - it varies. Some read and even post on letsrun a little bit. Others completely ignore this site other than the front page. Of course my sample size for this group is pretty small - like 5 I think. Its the same with guys a bit slower (high 2 teens to 230).

Letsrun, and following the sport in general, is mostly for us true elites, working full time jobs and pounding the pavement!

Hoping to gallowalk our way from Hopkinton to Boston in less than 6 hours while raising money for charity - we're the true heroes!

I ran on a nationally ranked D1 women’s team—none of my teammates followed the sport. They didn’t know top pros or even top collegiate runners. They might know someone who raced at their level at the conference meet, but that was it. They weren’t interested in any training theory. They didn’t read Once a Runner. Most of them didn’t even like running that much and quit after college. It was just something they were good at. I was a track nerd and thought that the girls in my high school didn’t follow the sport because they weren’t very good. I was shocked to get to college and find the women were even less interested in track—they were just more talented and more disciplined. The men’s team was only slightly more engaged, but many of them were not at all fans of the sport.

I think the ones who run professionally know the sport, but not most college runners. I spent a good chunk of time running post collegiately and we would regularly be talking about the running scene and who ran fast where and keeping up with it. But to the first point, no you probably aren't going to know who won a world title 10 years before you were born unless they were the current world record holder. People win races every year, so why would someone see who won certain races before they were even alive? Especially if they're not relevant by having a record.

Who won the 1956 5000 meters? I couldn't tell ya. And for Americans, unless they were winning medals why would someone know who was the top American 1500m runner in 1968 unless they were alive?

In my experience, sometimes keeping it simple is the best way to go. Getting too caught up in the sport and comparing yourselves to others can get in your head leading to overthinking and hurting your performances. I think studying the greats, watching past races, reading old training logs can be a good thing. But constantly browsing tfrrs, strava, athletic .net can lead to more negatives than positives. Comparison is the thief of joy... Work thru YOUR progressions, enjoy YOUR journey and go COMPETE when you race.

Of course I'm not talking about memorizing the winners of every WC or knowing who the top runners were 30 years back. I mean races like the Olympics or runners like Jakob Ingebritsen. Rudisha 800m, that sort of thing. Or knowing won the most recent NCAA 5k. And I'm not talking about elites or pros being on LetsRun either. I would hope most of them are not. I'm talking about updates you would get from Citius Mag, Runnerspace or Flotrack on Instagram, a platform most use.

Are you referring to just distance running or are there college baseball players that have heard of Mike Trout?

ha that was almost exactly the story for multiple people I knew on our pretty mid at the time D1 team. Got their scholarship, did the thing for four years, and got out. I distinctly remember one saying something like "I'm looking forward to never doing [workout thing] ever again" the last week of the spring season during their senior year.

Some of them kept running for fitness and going to the occasional 5k just to participate, but none of them (to my knowledge) made an effort to remain competitive.

You are right, I meant distance running. I did not specify, I'm sorry.

Also to be clear, what prompted this was Sam Ruthe saying on a podcast that he hadn't watched Jakob's or Cam Myer's past age group world records (despite breaking some himself). I also remember Nathan Green saying he wasn't all too familiar with some of the top pros at the moment, last year before he went pro himself. I am not criticizing these runners at all, I was just surprised, that's all.

I was obsessed with the sport and still am but I can’t name all of the historical Olympic Gold medalists. There is plenty of room in someone’s brain to be both a fan of the sport and being able to focus on running. When I played baseball, my brain was chock full of baseball trivia, but I don’t think that’s why I sucked and had to switch to distance running.

It’s a hard sport to follow. Gault couldn’t even get an answer from most pros on when their next race is.

Compared that to LeBron and Mahomes where I already know every game they’ll play through next year.

Western elite runners almost never know the names of African runners. They might know a real big dog like Cheptegei or Kipyegon but mostly, they just refer to "the Ethiopians" or "the Kenyans" as if they're indistinguishable

In order to mask your craft passion is required. Which means following

My college teammates were huge track nerds. Could rattle off times/stats of all the top collegiate and pro US athletes.

The doping landscape really turned me off to following the pro ranks, though. Kiprop, Rupp, Shelby, Mo, yada yada yada. Just seemed like you had to dope to compete, and I couldn't care less if X athlete ran Y time.

Good runners are busy being good runners.

You have to really focus on one thing to be really good at it.

To be an elite runner you need to focus on your running.

There are three ways to be involved with running:

1) Participate as a runner. Train, race, run in fun runs, group runs, workouts, etc.

2) Follow running as a fan of the sport. Learn about current and past runners. Attend running competitions. Watch running on TV and the web.

3) Promote running. Be a coach, race director or race volunteer, be actively involved with a running club organize group runs/workouts, be a race official.

Very few people are involved in all three of these aspects of running, and if they are their involvement is any of the three is not at a high elite level.

Sometimes elite runners will transition to being elite promoters or fans, but rarely at the same time they are elite runners.

I think it is pretty common among elite athletes across all sports. It is not odd that NFL players or MLB players don't know extensive history of their sport.

They are so focused on what they are doing, and how they are training, they don't have times to care about anything else but the next race, or game, or tournament or whatever.

I find the replies from the ex-D1 runners here the most interesting. I had no idea that athletes could be so checked out of a sport they dedicate so much time to, to the point where you wouldn't recognize names like Graham Blanks or Parker Valby. Makes me realize how taxing the NCAA is: you sacrifice a normal college experience because your sport got you a discount on tuition, and you go out hating it. Too bad.

Also: if (former) good runners don't support or follow running to the extent that I previously assumed, then I guess washed up hobby joggers like me are where most the money and viewership in the track world comes from! lol