In agreement wrote:
"I also agree with the posters that claim you've used this message board to destroy the sport all for your financial gain. A kid must think it's impossible to win a medal or run fast time unless they cheat. If they do make it, all they have to look forward to is your website tearing them down to pieces. Well done."
-This was very well stated. I would agree, as would others in the running community I'm involved in. Has been the topic of discussion on more than one long run.
This is also false. First of all, what would you have them do: hide the filthy nature of track and field (and elite sports in general) so as not to corrupt tender young minds? In my opinion, it's better to arm young people with as much knowledge as possible as they try to navigate through the running world. And whatever you think of the site's founders on a personal level, you have to admit that the general message received by any regular reader is very much ANTI-DOPING.
And second, since LetsRun.com became well-known in the running community, it would be hard to argue that they've had a negative effect on young runners. The last 10-15 years has been a great era for the US in distance running, which has roughly coincided with the emergence of the so-called destructive LRC message boards. If the effects have been so negative, how come the US all-time lists have been re-written in events like the 5000 and 10000, and internationally competitive runners like Webb, Ritz, Solinsky, Rupp, Flanagan, Linden, Tegenkamp, Jager, and True have emerged? I give the credit to the runners themselves, not to the internet or a specific website, but it should be noted that it would be much easier to support an argument that LetsRun has helped up-and-coming US elite runners rather than hindered them.