A Serious Runner Reacts to Influencers Getting Marathon Race Bibs 

"You actually have to go on the journey" had me rolling. Excellent video

This Serious Runner video bordered on being a little too serious 😂

I agree, but at the same time this gives me another excuse to explain to others why I didn’t make the 2024 cutoff! Can’t blame it on my fitness or all those international runners-it’s all those influences. 😂

I was so annoyed at NYC marathon as I was put in wave 4. And pasted tons of influencers they were placed in wave 1 because of their status running 4+ hour marathon with minimal traffic while I had to stop and dodge tons of people from wave 1-3 to run a 3:31. If they want to give a bib away, fine. But putting them in wave 1 so that they can become obstacles with selfie sticks for people trying to run PRs is BS

It took Kofuzi a long time to BQ and even longer to finally run Boston. Why should it be different for other influencers?

Wow! Those are some serious points 👍🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Fighting the Influencer Industrial Complex makes you an Olympian in my book 😅

I've run Boston (6) times but at age 76, the qualifying time is out of my reach. And that is OK. But I thought this video was very well put and the BAA should watch it!!! Thanks for the document!

I was struggling through a tough week, and then Stephen posted. I feel better ⭐️ almost as great as seeing him on the Staten Island 2023 half.

B.A.A. proudly giving side-eye to this vlog. *single clap*

best video yet 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Kipchoge would never take a shortcut, so why would you?

I am a runner who is serious about getting better/faster. Thank you for making this video. I don't know if I'll ever get to run in Boston, but I do know I want to earn my spot if I do, and I would want others to have done the same.

Very serious! Nice job echoing how all of us serious runners feel about qualifying for Boston.

What about an Olympic Trials charity bib?

this video is gold.., you are so good at taking the stuffiness out of some runners. to say that this will make a few runners "feel a certain way" or attacked.. oh well, its all in fun, great stuff

I totally agree with you. Great content btw😂

Ah, but who’s going to lead those pre-race “shake out” runs? (What is a “shake out” run anyway?? A strava term to let people know why your pace is so slow?)

Thank you for the new term getting BAA'ed 😂 I will undoubtedly need this in the coming years.

Wait: I'm confused - should I not start a youtube running channel instead of dieting, training, and spending thousands of dollars on carbon-plated shoes?

Thanks for the vid sir! Chasing the unicorn 🦄 myself, and the work is real. Hoping for that epic payoff soon!

it's a serious topic handled well but for those given the bib who did not meet the qualifying metrics this is unacceptable. BQ has been a goal of mine for awhile and after many setbacks i'm still on a long journey towards it but would hate to be bucked because of someone else who didn't put in the long runs or speed workouts i did to make it.

As runner #24,000, I am royally piss

Love the term BAA'd. I'm 69 years old, hit my BQ in my first marathon (NYC 1995 at age 41) and have run it 15 times, including a 4th place age group finish at 61. I've never had a problem qualifying and probably never will (just beat my 2025 qualifying time by 52 minutes a couple of weeks ago), but I'll never run Boston again. I'm annoyed that Boston essentially wants to have its cake and eat it too. By setting their qualifying times where they currently are, they guarantee that they'll have a large enough pool of runners to fill the race. They can then just choose a "buffer" time to cull the pool down to the number of runners they need to fill the field. If they were to lower the qualifying times by, say, 10 minutes, they might not have enough runners to fill the field, putting less money into their pockets. It seems to me that if you meet the qualifying standard, you should be able to run the race, not wait months to find out you needed to run 2 minutes or 2 seconds faster. One solution to the problem would be to simply let everyone who meets the standard run the race and increase the field size to accommodate the increase in runners. Another would be to first allow all qualified runners in and then fill the rest of the field with charity runners (influencers should have to qualify or raise money). To make up for the loss of charity runners, they could increase the fundraising requirements and increase everyone's entry fee so that the charities won't be punished. Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to just lower the qualifying times. I'm all for training harder and smarter to gain an entry to Boston, but I'm completely against the uncertainty built into the current system.

We're all Katherine Switzer.

Some hard hitting truth bombs which no doubt can be corporate justified in some way to give away their bibs? I have qualified many times on pure merit and don’t give a sh*t how many freebies are given to those who stop running after all the freebies stop 🤣🤣🤣

Great take! Seriously.

Not going to lie, running influencers in races are super annoying. I had one guy cut me off with his insta 360 stick stretched half way across the course once

Darn right! I focus on the shorter distances myself, but when my speed is gone and I want to make a go for marathons again, I'd hate to have a slot taken by an influencer who has never run a marathon before.

I BQd last year and ran it this year plus collected my 6th star in Boston. My epicness is truly epic…😂 plus I hit the merch section hard…so my family will never forget..hell, I even bought the beer glass.

Amen! Subscribed

100% agreed with you! THanks

Agreed. Do the work. Don’t take shortcuts. Took me 3 tries to earn that BQ, and I wouldn’t have appreciated it if it had come so easily.

3:47 …and then there are “influencers” who might also be doping

"I may be practically a pro, but..." 😂😂 If anyone ever said this in seriousness, they'd deserve a Serious roasting! 😂😂

Stephen vs the BAA is running's coke vs pepsi

Sometimes I feel bad for runners huffing and puffing their way through a course trying to find that extra motivation but having some influencer blabber on to their camera in front of them. Some people are already struggling, no need to make them even more self conscious by capturing that on camera

Commenters, please don’t disappoint me!

Wow. You really meant it this time. #serious

Here! Here!! I’m still waiting for the diatribe video on Shoetubers swearing they’re impartial even though deep down, they don’t want to get kicked off the shoe company gravy train.

Practically a pro at gate keeping!

Funny AF as always 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 yup… can’t put a price on epicness😂😂😂😂

I’m also working my butt off to BQ with time to spare (to survive any potential cutoffs) and seeing some 4h marathoner casually running the Boston marathon because they got a huge following really is a slap in the face. It’s giving Titanic class division vibes. They reward clout, not performance and that is never ok.

A mission for all BM runners : if you see an influencer … destroy their GoPros!!! Except for Serious Runner ( B.A.A. will handle that ) and Kofuzi …. That guy really runs !

Amen!

Indeed.

I approve this message

👏🏽

Very good and I would generally agree, but I wonder what you would think about influencer (popular RU-vid Channel) who could probably qualify if they tried (think Lucy Charles-Barclay for example or well, Kristian Blumenfeldt, etc.) but who may have too much of competition calendar in their own field (Triathlon, XC-ski, Biathlon, etc.). They would be taking a slot away, but Blumenfeldts fastest (paced) marathon was 2:30:50 (at the end of an Iron Man, of course) which is almost 30 minutes faster than BQ for his age.

This has been a thing in Boston for yeaaars though, there’s always been celebrities running it. Not that an influencer is a celebrity ( only in their mind ) but runner 24000 will always be BAA’d 😅 The weird thing to me with their desire to add influencer is that Boston specifically needs less attention if anything… there’s already too many real qualifiers every year as it is.

What's about the number of influencers running there? Personally, I do prefer much smaller races. Where influencers aren't a thing anyway.

Eh, the number of company-sponsored bibs is a totally separate, tiny pool compared to the usual qualifier field. If Adidas has 20 bibs they can give out to influencers, who cares? The real blame should be placed on BAA for not taking the permitting steps to increase the size of the race anyways.

I know of runners who got Boston bibs through Adidas,so theres that. Im not mad at it,if Adidas were to throw a bib my way,I'd be toeing the line

Let’s keep some things sacred. I got a BQ time by 2:30 this year and totally will be BAA’d. I just need to train better. Perhaps cut out alcohol…but probably not that.

I will always be pissed about that woman from The Running Channel getting a bib totally without merit and then spending half the time walking and crying on the course. Really pissed off for Runner #24,000.

OK, let’s get some names out in the comments section. Let’s expose them.

Next those be invited to Olympic 😂😂😂lol

Going forward we will be closely monitoring SRs activities.. BAA Headquarters 🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛

I think Sean Strickland should be given a bib so he can deal with the influencers.

ouch , throwing down some truth bombs ...to be fair we are all on our own journy so part of me says stay in your lane JBS .. on the other hand my current BQ from NY is only 7 minutes .. I dont trust the cut off so working my arse off to take another 10 minutes off that time in London to be sure I am in Boston for 2025.. Meritocracy is like fern gully a nice fantasy would be cool if it existed. (I need to say that influencers might have done more to spread the love of running to the gen pop (including me ..not so serious) more then pro events and the Olympics as they are more approchable and more like 'everyman'. I would be more pissed if they got their golden ticket and then DNF now that would be flipping the bird to those who have missed the cut .. if you are lucky enough to get a Golden ticket then you better bloody well crawl on your hands and knees to cross that finish or be taken away by ambulance.

You're really close to being cancelled and/or tossed out a window, Stephen. Be careful.

I would like more info on this. Like who are these so called peole so i don't follow them.

Clearly you do not understand the benefits of giving an influencer a bib. There is the marketing the influencer gets for themselves being able to post training and then race footage and then multiple recaps. There is also the economic benefit to the host city because they will bring an entourage for their road marathon (filmer, back up filmer, editor, chef, masseuse, etc.) not to mention hiring a bike for the filmer so they can get in the way of *cough* normal runners while filming the influencer… Some people just don’t get it…

Maybe don't screen shot people like Ben Felton, who run marathons in around 2:25. Clearly he's serious enough and met the time comfortably.

Was this suppose to be ironic?

Unironically 100% agree. Ban charity runners too.

More recreational runnera are doping than pros lol..

Wait until you find out you can run Boston by buying a bib through a tourist agent... 😬

not a bib.

Allowing charity runners at Boston totally defeats the purpose of the race

Yes, influencers should get free pass bibs, they make part of the Sponsored running budget, apart from infliences races also have assigne number of bibs for fund raisers, just vcause I raised 2000$ for a race i can have a free entry too, doenst take away from the pros and everyone else who works to qualify

Was this supposed to be satire? If so, it wasn't funny. Yes, the BAA is a ruthless organization out to make max profit. Yes, they are so cheap the age group awards are trash And yes, they would take 24,000 influencers over 24000 fast runners every day of the week. Ran Boston in 2018. It was nice but for the price, not worth doing again any time soon.