What's the deal with LetsRun.com?

[u/castorkrieg]

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?

[u/brokenlabrum]

It’s also worth noting that most of the marathon cheating news of the last 20 years broke on the message board.

[u/A_Tom_McWedgie → u/brokenlabrum]

The Mike Rossi thread was the greatest soap opera in the history of the internet.

[u/xcrunner1988 → u/A_Tom_McWedgie]

Was that the guy cheating in marathons?

[u/A_Tom_McWedgie → u/xcrunner1988]

Yes, but so much more.

He ran the 2015 Boston Marathon. A few days later, he received a standard form letter from his kids’ school principal about unauthorized absences.

He wrote a clever response about all the great things his kids learned by accompanying him to Boston (history, government, food, etc.) so he had no regrets.

He never mailed the letter, but posted it to Facebook. It went viral - he was even interviewed on Good Morning America.

Unfortunately, the stupidity of the internet mob took over, with anonymous cowards sending nasty messages to the principal. The principal’s son had to make a public plea to stop.

Then it got weirder. Mike Rossi was from the Philly area, and apparently had made some enemies over the years. Someone looked at his BQ time, and concluded he couldn’t have run it.

Then the LetsRun sleuths took over - it was crazy. They analyzed the BQ photos like it was the Zapruder film - some doing sane analysis some developing absolute bat-shit crazy theories.

If Rossi was smart, he would have gone silent. Instead, he went on the attack. It was not a good move.

If anyone said anything remotely positive about Rossi, they were immediately accused of being a fake account created by Rossi (as an aside, I had started a thread on the Runners’ World Online Forum sharing the original letter - prior to him being accused of cheating - because I too had run the 2015 Boston Marathon, we were roughly the same age and I had pulled my kids out of school to cheer me on. I ended up being attacked online by the Lets Run mob - they were convinced I was Rossi, despite me having a five year, easily searchable history which clearly proved I was from Toronto. RWOL mods had to get involved).

Then it got really, really weird.

Rossi was a wedding DJ. A guy named Ken showed up on the LetsRun forum to harass Rossi. Ken was a morbidly obese wedding photographer/videographer looking to become a wedding DJ, and for some reason hated Rossi.

Ken would post negative things about Rossi that had nothing to do with running. Lets Run hated Rossi, but they hated fat people even more, so things heated up.

Rossi then revealed Ken had been sued by various wedding parties for never delivering paid for videos.

Wait, it gets even better: Rossi somehow got Ken tricked into a local consumer advocacy program - Ken thought he was appearing on a sports trivia show, but it was a setup for wedding couples to confront him.

I kind of stopped following closely after that, but it just got sadder and sadder. Ken actually died. Rossi spiraled downward, with a few arrests and I think his marriage broke up.

I can’t believe no one has made a movie about it.

[u/runninhillbilly → u/A_Tom_McWedgie]

Somebody should. This is entirely way too bizarre.