The Athlete Special titled his last video “The Last Ride”…he’s 23

Connecticut is Soft wrote:

Meanwhile, Robert Brandt is 25, works full time while training and racing as a real, professional runner.

Because he doesn’t want to be a 30 year old “chasing the dream” he knows that it’s now or never. Run fast, or get a real job. Only on LetsRun would you have people cry about someone not wanting to be a professional hobby jogger.

I think he's just enjoying one last, serious effort at posting some fast times before he reprioritizes and gets a joe job like the rest of us. Yes, there's some Peter Pan stuff happening here, but it's not surprising to see this from someone who I'm assuming has never held a steady hourly job before? Not his fault that his background led him to a cush social and sports centric lifestyle.

I like his group of friends more than the Beasts, they all seem like a fun, active, and positive post college crowd. Hopefully Spencer will take his buddy Will up on some activities like rock climbing, the running only life becomes a real bore after awhile, I speak from experience.

Spencer is soft, but Connecticut is bad-ass.

Danae Rivers - NCAA champ 800m

Henry Wynne - NCAA champ 1500m

Michaela Meyer - NCAA champ 800m

Donn Cabral - 3xNCAA champ, 2x Olympian, 2x8th in the Olympics

Cas Loxsom - NCAA runner up, World Youth runner up, USATF runner up, American record in the 600

Alex Ostberg - NCAA runner up DMR, 5th in 3k, 3:59 mile, 7:49 3k and 13:42 5k, 3x All American in Cross

Connecticut is Soft wrote:

Meanwhile, Robert Brandt is 25, works full time while training and racing as a real, professional runner.

$$$-wise, Brandt's PRs < Brown's Youtube subscriber count.

Brandt's unnecessary and self-inflicted social media hypocrisy is annoying and off-putting. No reason to think he's a nice guy or worth cheering for.

Brandt's full time office job got him a stress fracture and his UA running shoes are going to give him another one next Spring.

Southwestern CT near where Spencer Brown is from is soft. Very wealthy area, mostly white rich people. A lot of finance and business people who own mansions and commute in to Manhattan.

Much of the rest of CT is not soft--it's either rural or sketchy (Hartford, Willimantic, Bridgeport, Waterbury, even New Haven is rough [Gun Wavin' New Haven]).

nutmeg state of mind wrote:

Spencer is soft, but Connecticut is bad-ass.

Danae Rivers - NCAA champ 800m

Henry Wynne - NCAA champ 1500m

Michaela Meyer - NCAA champ 800m

Donn Cabral - 3xNCAA champ, 2x Olympian, 2x8th in the Olympics

Cas Loxsom - NCAA runner up, World Youth runner up, USATF runner up, American record in the 600

Alex Ostberg - NCAA runner up DMR, 5th in 3k, 3:59 mile, 7:49 3k and 13:42 5k, 3x All American in Cross

Kevin King- 7x NCAA All American, 3000m NCAA champ, DMR NCAA champ, 6x Big East champ

Does anyone think Spencer is cool? I mean, I kinda like his tubes but he is kinda cringey too. And far from the cool runner, his clothes, style and even running form is not something I would idolize. Has he ever been fast or was the pro-life due to youtube popularity?

Even the rest of brooks seem like nerds (except the olympic runner - british?). They are nerds compared to BTC, tinmom etc.

I miss the insights into the Brooks Beasts 😔

theRanMan wrote:

Does anyone think Spencer is cool? I mean, I kinda like his tubes but he is kinda cringey too. And far from the cool runner, his clothes, style and even running form is not something I would idolize. Has he ever been fast or was the pro-life due to youtube popularity?

Even the rest of brooks seem like nerds (except the olympic runner - british?). They are nerds compared to BTC, tinmom etc.

“Nerds”

Are you in 8th grade?

Well, at least he is realistic and not Jamin, who is on 83rd "comeback".

Does anyone really think that Spencer has the talent to be a highly compensated professional runner? Will he be making multiple Olympic and international championships squads? Is he getting invited to Diamond League events?

Kudos to the young man for having a realistic mindset. His Georgetown degree will get him places professionally and financially that running will not. There is no honor in being an aging hobby jogger chasing an impossible dream or sacrificing your career development and social life to dominate the local scene. Don't let your ego make you a punchline on Let's Run.

Free Britney wrote:

Much of the rest of CT is not soft--it's either rural or sketchy (Hartford, Willimantic, Bridgeport, Waterbury, even New Haven is rough [Gun Wavin' New Haven]).

You only mentioned cities. Most suburbs of Connecticut are also pretty cushy.

Imimpresssed wrote:

theRanMan wrote:

Does anyone think Spencer is cool? I mean, I kinda like his tubes but he is kinda cringey too. And far from the cool runner, his clothes, style and even running form is not something I would idolize. Has he ever been fast or was the pro-life due to youtube popularity?

Even the rest of brooks seem like nerds (except the olympic runner - british?). They are nerds compared to BTC, tinmom etc.

“Nerds”

Are you in 8th grade?

Sure lol. imimpressed by your lashing out at me like you are in 6th grade.

According to his IAAF profile, he is actually 24.

In any case "TAS" is a guy who ran 3.39 at 21, and has had 2 challenging years since, he is hardly on his own in that regard. Personally I feel he is on a better track being coached by his dad, and if he can return to that 3.39 shape or improve, he can certainly be competitive at lower level European meets.

He seems to be a likeable guy, unfortunately the set up post-collegiately for guys at his level in the USA isn't ideal.

In the UK, he would have access to BMC meets as well as plenty of continental races, within a short commute. Plenty of lads at his level continue their careers post-collegiately without his level of scrutiny (admittedly that is self-sought).

Classic letsrun. Some dude makes a video and people come to rip the guy.

Who gives a crap. Let the guy live his life and go run your miles.

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

A lot of top runners have full-time jobs and still compete at the highest level they've ever competed. Just not the 'top of the top' because if you're an olympian you're probably making enough money that you don't have to work a regular job. I'm pretty sure Jared Ward is working as a professor in some capacity. Annie Frisbie works full time and just placed 7th at the New York Marathon. Martin Hehir is an anesthesiologist. Tons of people who are roughly 20th-30th in the United States at their event work full time jobs, you just don't know them because they're not winning the races, but they do the same training as the people slightly ahead of them.

My point is you can work a job and still train, it's just if you really want to be competitive that bad. It's easy to train for a 2-3 hours per day when you have the entire day to do it when you don't work a job. But when you're working for 8+ hours in a day and you only have about 6 hours of 'free time' it becomes more difficult to push yourself to use up a lot of that 'free time' to train at a high level.

champagnepapitherealone wrote:

Because he doesn’t want to be a 30 year old “chasing the dream” he knows that it’s now or never. Run fast, or get a real job. Only on LetsRun would you have people cry about someone not wanting to be a professional hobby jogger.

But he didn't even really try that hard. This guy made videos and called himself Special for reasons unknown.

I hope for the best for him and I think he's on the right track. What I cringe at is that he thinks 12 miles is actually a "long" run and 70 MPW is a lot...he doesn't have a full time job, he could easily handle 100 MPW. I'm not sure why his training is so light for someone who is running full time.