What's the actual definition of a PRO RUNNER? Is this guy stretching it?

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YO BRO wrote:

I love a good bashing thread more than anyone.. when it's due. This is ridiculous.

No, a 2:12 guy who is one of the top US marathoners in recent years calling himself a pro is not stretching it.

Can we get back to targeting instagram "pros" running 4 hour marathons?

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YO BRO wrote:

I love a good bashing thread more than anyone.. when it's due. This is ridiculous.

No, a 2:12 guy who is one of the top US marathoners in recent years calling himself a pro is not stretching it.

Can we get back to targeting instagram "pros" running 4 hour marathons?

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Remember this when you talk about someone’s running career. A career is wat you do to make a living over a period of time. Very few runners make a living off of it and even less make a living for an extended period of time.

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honest abe..... wrote:

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YO BRO wrote:

I love a good bashing thread more than anyone.. when it's due. This is ridiculous.

No, a 2:12 guy who is one of the top US marathoners in recent years calling himself a pro is not stretching it.

Can we get back to targeting instagram "pros" running 4 hour marathons?

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Is he making a living with his running income?

Your profession is what you do to make a living, not your hobby. yes, 2:12 is good, but what does that get you?

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Ty is a good guy. He is doing at least things that he loves, his wife, meteorology science, and running. Titles are just spins and it happens in corporate world all the time. I feel Ty has earned a right to call himself a “Professional” runner. Most professional barely make enough to escape poverty, which is part of the problem with the US running as a professional. It is a shame that lowest paid American football teams make more than almost all the US runners combined, and we are going to celebrate the No Fun League tomorrow night. We should have more team running races than just US Club Cross. Please don’t troll good guys like Ty when there are plenty of runnng dopers more deserving of a troll, but that is just my spin.

Tyler pls stop following/unfollowing people.

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back woods wrote:

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Like A Bosshard wrote:
He's clearly a brilliant guy, you don't get degrees from Penn State as well as a PhD in sciences if you're a dummy.

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Penn State is nothing special. Their typical alum learned next to nothing in whatever b.s. degree program.

As a professional scientist I wish it were true that morons, charlatans, thieves, and other lowlifes and fools were unable to get PhDs and become professors, but it ain't.

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There are 2 meanings these days.

The first, more traditional meaning of "pro" would mean you do it "professionally"—as in, that is what you do for one of your primary jobs. I think even someone who runs and has a youtube / social media / sponsorship, and gets enough money to get by, even if they aren't fast, could be considered a "professional runner" under this context.

The more slang version of "pro" means something more along the lines of being very, very good, and isn't necessarily synonymous with getting paid tremendous amounts of money, but has almost entirely everything to do with talent, ability, (speed in this instance, ) and competence. A way to explain how fast a top college athlete is to a younger person would be to say something like "he's a pro".

I thought this was axiomatic, but hey, here you guys are.

Holy Sh%t.
Half the responses in this thread are Tyler. If you're going to talk about yourself under different names, don't make it so obvious.

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Like A Bosshard wrote:

I know it's been debated in other threads on here and other boards before. Maybe we'll never find consensus agreement on "more than X% of your income has to come from running sponsorship, appearance fees, and winnings" or "you have to place in the top Y of your specialty distance at least Z times in your career."

The case in question is that of one Tyler McCandless. He's clearly a brilliant guy, you don't get degrees from Penn State as well as a PhD in sciences if you're a dummy. And sure, right out of college he could have had a Mizuno deal that got him travel and gear plus a modest stipend which represented an outlay of more than 10, 15 or 25% of his annual income. At this point, though, it's a tough sell. He's slipped from Mizuno to Brooks (iD?) to Newton to Altra/Rabbit.
https://www.instagram.com/trackty/
No problem at all with having a gear deal, get whatever you can from the open market and it's good that companies still see value in his performance and image. It's not that anyone's saying "oh he acts like a pro runner" because he has slim sponsorship deals, he goes around telling people that he's a pro runner:
https://youtu.be/r2NTT6wpoFU
He's a damn good runner, better than almost all on this board are or ever were. It seems rather disingenuous, in the way that strippers claim to "only be doing it to pay for law school." Just take his most recent race, a half in Florida where he won by a minute yet while avoiding the competition in Houston on the same weekend. Maybe the Florida race offered a better appearance package than Houston would offer to the runner-up at US marathon champs two years ago. He plays the SM game really well, his loves to talk about himself and his selfies are on point, gotta give him that.

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Clearly this is Tyler writing about himself. Dude you are good you don't need anyone to point it out. As Brooks would say run happy.

Tyler,
Word of advice when you Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde a message board by posting under a bunch of different names it makes you look mentally insane. Easily put it destroys your image. Nobody is going to talk about someones academic level on a post that is geared at running unless it is you talking about your self to get approval.

This is a characteristic of major depression. If this is the case you need to talk to a professional.

You are the first person to call a college runner a pro. That is just incorrect. The use of the word pro in the running community is to signify that the runner is not in college regardless if they are really solely living off of the running income.

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GBohannon wrote:

Is a 2:12:28 marathoner “stretching it” by referring to himself as a pro? No.

Next question.

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There are two criteria to being a pro.

1. Running contributed significantly to your income.
2. Your income is sufficient to support yourself sustainably (without external infusions from family, etc).

For example, the local post-collegiates in my city who run, don't work (or barely work) and get by on their parent's money are not pros, any more so than a Williamsburg trust-bunny with an unhead-of band is a "pro musician."

Local/regional elites who actually make money from running (races and sponsorship) AND fund themselves year-to-year, I would call pros. (I would say this even if they also coach, work in a running shop or have other work contributing to their income.)

So Tyler can call himself a pro.

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Nothing ToJokeAbout wrote:
Tyler,
Word of advice when you Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde a message board by posting under a bunch of different names it makes you look mentally insane.

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No not college wrote:

You are the first person to call a college runner a pro. That is just incorrect. The use of the word pro in the running community is to signify that the runner is not in college regardless if they are really solely living off of the running income.

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This dude is the 5th fastest US male in the last couple years? I think he's legit.

And he ran a 2:12 in what, altras? lol imagine if he ran in 4%. I'd be surprised if he didn't since he's got a very legit shot at making the olympic team.

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psyentist wrote:

This dude is the 5th fastest US male in the last couple years? I think he's legit.

And he ran a 2:12 in what, altras? lol imagine if he ran in 4%. I'd be surprised if he didn't since he's got a very legit shot at making the olympic team.

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