Why Walmsley is popular. Get over it.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Just for fun, number of results found for a search on Google:

Stephen Curry 85,800,000

Lance Armstrong 25,500,000

Laird Hamilton 8,620,000

Eliud Kipchoge 4,830,000

Mikaela Shiffrin 3,880,000

Galen Rupp 1,630,000

Jim Walmsley 1,060,000

Jakob Ingebrigtsen 410,000

Meb Keflezighi 295,000

(Mebrahtom Keflezighi 316,000)

Matthew Centrowitz 115,000

Scott Fauble 68,400

This doesn't work for people who have common names like Ryan Hall (649 million, but the first page has only one mention of the runner on it).

If you just search "Meb" like most people would for him, you get 43Mil results. All the front page is our Meb. I doubt there are many people out there typing out "keflezighi"

On Google, if you scroll past the second page of results, it starts being dominated by acronyms that MEB could stand for. Try searching for "Meb" on Bing, which isn't as optimized towards what people are searching for, and only a very small percentage of the results are about him. I think the 316,000 number is fairly accurate, because if there is going to be a story or short piece written about him, it will have his last name too. It would only come up short in picking out all the LR board hits. I've already pointed the limitation with Ryan Hall. "Hall" can refer to any number of things not related to a name (hallway, etc.), beside Ryan Hall the MMA fighter.

Search for Desi Linden (1,030,000, about the same as Walmsley), and even on the tenth page, everything is about her.

I wonder if "Ryan Hall runner" getting 12 million hits is an accurate reflection of his name recognition. I feel out of everyone normal people may know him because there are a lot of Christian normies.

I think Shalane and maybe Desi beat out Rupp in name recognition. But overall I agree with the poster why says no one knows anybody.

Darn straight. We need more Walmsley threads.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Yeahdsfsdfdsfs wrote:

Then comes along confident Walmsley, whom is an entertainer, that is not afraid to put himself out there.

Your failure to know when to use the subject pronoun “who” rather than the object pronoun “whom” makes your entire argument invalid.

I was going to say the same thing, but you beat I to it.

+1

Drunk Walmsley interview is what made me start paying attention. Hilarious

David Goggins - 3,120,000 hits. Ipso facto, David Goggins is the world's best ultrarunner.

Did you even read the comment I replied to, idiot? Nothing about 'saving running' was even mentioned.

seems all he does is jog for a longer period of time than most of the posters on this site

Dromano19 wrote:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=52n2ZFoQzNE

Drunk Walmsley interview is what made me start paying attention. Hilarious

And Bryon Powell needs a haircut.

FFF is right. The only people who know who Fauble is outside of LR is his family, his training partners, his friends, and his former teammates. That's about it. No one cares about 2:09 guy. You idiots need to get that through your heads. The reason the people that love Walmsley love him is because he is vulnerable and turned his previous personal challenges into an engine and used it to become a fierce competitor setting record after record after record. The reason the people who don't like him don't like him is because they can't stand a guy they seem "slow" in their sport getting so much hype. Walmsley is a world class top 2 runner in his sport and is slower in a marathon than, say, Scott Fauble, who is not even remotely close to being a world class athlete in his sport. You think a 2:09 is world class for a marathon? It's not. And just because you think its fast doesn't make it so. It's now 2 miles slower than Kipchoge. Even a 2:06 isn't close and this kills the haters. Galen Rupp is not a household name in the U.S. Maybe 1 in 100 random people have even heard the name even after the NOP garbage. No one care about distance running except maybe Kipchoge. Usain Bolt is the only runner the world hands down knows, even Kipchoge is a far cry from that. The worst part is all of the Walmsley hate comes from people who aren't successful in any running sub sport. No ultra runner is going to dislike him and no one actually fast will either, because they respect his training and his performance. The people who hate are the 2:42 guys who have somehow convinced themselves they can run because they spend every minute of their hobby jogging lives thinking about running and their friends think they are actually fast. They get pissed because this ultra runner they think is slow shows up and runs the 1:03 half they could never dream of in the middle of a training week and makes it look easy. I don't think you understand how devastating it would be for him to finish in the top 10 against guys who have spent their whole lives training for the road marathon, while he trained for like 3 months for it. It's just sad to watch people hate on a hard working, honest guy. I guess if I was left wanting I would too.

Exactly.

AP5000 wrote:

I don't think you understand how devastating it would be for him to finish in the top 10 against guys who have spent their whole lives training for the road marathon, while he trained for like 3 months for it. It's just sad to watch people hate on a hard working, honest guy. I guess if I was left wanting I would too.

At this point Walmsley has not finished in the top 10. It's all it the heads of the Walmsley fanboys. It's all a big fantasy.

I think Jim's best bet is to go out at 2:09 pace and hope Faubs and Ward go with him and they falter late in the race.

A couple fixes:

1) 2:09 is not two miles behind the WR

2) That 2:06 guy got an Olympic medal in the event

3) There would be nothing "devastating" with Walmsley finishing top 10 - he should

4) Google results aside, guys like Fauble and Ward get $30k just to show up to a marathon major. How much does Western States pay Jim to come race?

Dang, bro. What a lengthy paragraph. You seem pretty invested in this guy, eh?

AP5000 wrote:

Walmsley is a world class top 2 runner in his sport and is slower in a marathon than, say, Scott Fauble, who is not even remotely close to being a world class athlete in his sport.

You can't compare success across sports when one is running against a tiny talent pool. In my mind, neither are world class. Elite in their own ways, but certainly not world class.

AP5000 wrote:

They get pissed because this ultra runner they think is slow shows up and runs the 1:03 half they could never dream of in the middle of a training week and makes it look easy.

Makes it look easy = getting crushed by no name, not elite american runners?

He obviously puts more time into running than any of the people he lost to... who's the real try-hard here?

I personally like a lot of professional runners that I would say I follow more closely than others, Jim Walmsley falling into that bucket. Most of the others I find interesting for my own reasons, some have written good books, some have great life stories, some are funny like Fauble, some are just really good at what they do so it's inspiring to see. I'm in the boat of "I like running" for the most part, so anyone who is contributing something is alright in my book. I don't follow ultra running outside of Walmsley and his buddies, likely due to the fact that I don't partake or run trails or anything but if I ever see a cool story in that realm I definitely don't get as angry as everyone does about the excitement surrounding Walmsley. None of what I am typing matters, but I felt like chiming in.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM wrote:

I think Jim's best bet is to go out at 2:09 pace and hope Faubs and Ward go with him and they falter late in the race.

Faubs and Ward have enough marathon experience to not pay much attention to Walmsley, so attempts at go-for-broke plan by Walmsley will likely be successful in him blowing up. He actually has a chance to make a statement, if he runs within himself to get the best out of himself on that day.

He should probably be keying off of Fauble (or similar) until the real race starts.

Fair enough.