A recurring topic on the running podcasts I listen to is how much professional athletes share (or don’t!) about their training, injuries, diets, etc. on social media.
I’m a nosy fan girl, so I love it when they share more!
A lot of the professional athletes I’ve heard interviewed promote sharing, for relatability with other professionals, and their fans. I’ve heard Colleen Quigley (Bowerman Track Club (BTC) steeple chaser, recent 2019 USATF Indoor Championships Mile Winner) talk about it a lot. When she was injured in 2018, she frequently posted about the “mermaiding” (swimming) she was doing while she recovered. Some athletes disappear from social media when they are injured, then come back and casually mention the injury. Not Quigley, or most of the BTC Babes. They appear open about it, like with Emily Infeld’s recent hip surgery. Both Quigley and Infeld have said it’s important to share injuries and recovery so athletes (professional and not) know they aren’t alone, because injuries can feel so isolating. I’ve also seen recent shares of athlete’s diets and their views on race weight, things we never used to have insight on! Woo hoo internets!
I liked Stephanie Bruce‘s (Northern Arizona Elite, marathoner, 2018 US 10k Championships winner) analogy from the most recent Morning Shakeout podcast. She said you wouldn’t go to a movie and only watch the last 10-15 minutes and be satisfied with the ending. You’d want to see the buildup to it. So she shares to tell a story (the good and bad parts) and build a relationship with her fans. That’s a savvy business decision – it’s smart to engage fans frequently so they’re rooting for you, and not asking “who’s that?” on race day!
Then we have the other side of the spectrum. Ultramarathoner Scott Jurek is more old school, and said to share some, but not too much. Basically, I interpreted, so your competitors show up next to you with some mystery as to how your training has been going. Ha. And he also said (a good point), to not be on your phone so damn much.
I see his point as well. To a point. Ultramarathoning is a bit different than the distances the other athletes I mentioned are running. In road and track races, the athletes line up knowing what to expect from one another based on previous times and what the course is like. Ultramarathoing is a crazy world where anything can happen, so those stats don’t mean as much. So sure, have a bit more mystery on the line. Ha.
It’s fun to listen to these interviews and hear professional athletes sharing their opinion about it. It does let me be a bigger fan when I see more about what they are doing! I feel that way with friends too – I’m more invested when I can follow their training. I am excited for them either way, but there’s something about seeing the work and struggle that makes you root for someone even more.
Interesting – I can see both sides of sharing. The competitor needs to come to the starting line ready to psych out their opponents, but it’s also gratifying to see that even these runners struggle like mortals.
Yeah, they are caught between sharing too much to their competitors and enough for their fans to keep them interested and relatable!
I think if I were an elite, I’d be a lot more hesitant to share many details about my training for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I wouldn’t want my competitors knowing too much about my race prep, and I don’t know that I’d want the media knowing too much about it either. Like, if you were training for a big race and got injured mid-cycle, you know the media would keep bringing it up during pre-race press conferences. I think that would mess with my head, having to keep rehash what I hurt, how I hurt it, and how I recovered from it. For another thing, I think I’d be concerned that my non-competitors (i.e.: normal runners) would get too many ideas from my training and try to emulate it themselves, which is almost always a bad idea. But who knows! I obviously have no problem sharing the ins and outs of my training right now (though I also obviously have no competitors, I’m not too worried about anyone interviewing me prior to a race, and I don’t think someone copying my training to a T would put them at the same risk of injury/burnout as someone copying an elite’s training to a T, haha), so maybe I would be more inclined to share! As an observer, I do enjoy getting some details about elites’ trainings/triumphs/struggles. It really does drive home that at the end of the day, we’re all trying to do the same thing here: run a certain distance to the best of our ability (even if their best is A LOT faster than my best!), and that’s one of the things I really like about running.
I wonder if it would mess with an elite’s head as much as ours, to hear their injuries discussed, you know? I do notice they don’t often share their specific training, which I would love to hear about it because I bet it’s so crazy! Bruce was talking about mile repeats at HM pace at altitude (so it feels more like 10K pace) with only a minute recovery between! Can you imagine?! YUCK!
And yes – we are trying to do our best and that is one of the ways we can relate to them! 🙂
I noticed that of the examples you highlighted, the women were on the side of sharing and the man was the one to keep his cards close. Granted, that’s only a handful of examples, but I wonder if women elites feel pressured to be more “human” in their online presence whereas men are afforded the luxury of having some mystery in the name of competitive advantage. There’s the whole idea that women must choose between being seen as “competent” or “likable” (not both, ugh), and this feels a little bit like an extension of that. I can totally see a woman being seen as “frosty” or “notoriously private” for not disclosing details of injuries and training but not necessarily the same thing for a man.
Ahh, please don’t read in to my examples too much in that I mostly follow female athletes and listen to female interviews, so my examples are distorted! I do imagine there being pressure for women athletes to be more likable (but at the same time, to be more tough and not cry much etc) but gosh I hope they don’t get the frosty bitch stigma when they decide to be private. One of my fave athletes, Amy Cragg, RARELY shares anything and I just chalk it up to being to being private and that’s okay too (although I’d LOVE to follow her training cause she’s a BAMF).
It would be interesting to hear the professional view on men vs women in this sport, with topics like this, and also pay and sponsorships. I imagine they have the same pay gap and issues the rest of the country has. Although, women are killing it right now in the US in running, not so much the men (no offense) so I wonder if that’s playing in to it.