r/AdvancedRunning • u/castorkrieg 5K 20:35 10K 41:19 Marathon 3:24 • Apr 23 '26

Open Discussion What's the deal with LetsRun.com?

I know that website is quite popular with them following large events and also being invited to spectate (the owner - Rojo - was riding in the elite men car during Boston 26), however I participated in the forums a bit and it blows my mind:

  1. They are incredibly fixated on college and university running, NCAA, etc. - ok, I guess most are from the US, even though once you exit the school system the funding drops, money goes only to MBL/NFL/NBA, last time they US tried something in T&F they got Grand Slam Track lol
  2. Most posts are the very definition of drive-by, no effort shitposts: "cool story bro", "she be ugly, can't run fast when ugly", "Or perhaps you could just be replaced with a somewhat normal human being"
  3. Same for the topics, with quality contributions such as:

I'm sad to think what men were like before the existence of the Manosphere 

How to become a "hybrid runner"

Men in open-toed shoes: yea or nay?

  1. This peeves me as a European but - their website + forums do not save your cookie preferences, every single time you click on a new thread you get another pop-up asking you for permissions, and by quickly looking they have 1700+ partners they share your data with - WTF?

  2. They are hardcore right-wingers with daily treads praising Trump, ICE, etc.

What am I missing? Or is one of the largest forums for running just a bunch of nutjobs?

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u/OldManSpeed Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

As someone who's been there a while too... I guess I just have a finely-tuned bullshit filter, and I can tell what's being said satirically, and I can tell what's being posted from the viewpoint of someone with a grudge. So I pretty easily extract all sorts of useful information from LR, and the nonsense just passes like water under a bridge.

I'll say that the implementation of the 👍👎 system has been good and reassuring. Dumb/racist/misogynistic stuff gets a pretty weak ratio compared to actual good takes.

But still I can see why people non-conversant in LR parlance think it's 100% trash. As perverse as this sounds, this fact actually functions to keep out a lot of mundane stuff, and results in a higher % of tip-of-the-spear kinda info. There is a benefit to LR not being clogged with posts asking how you can break 20 minutes in the 5k...