My thoughts on making running more popular with the general population; the thing that helped me become more invested in the professional running scene was running myself on a regular basis, understanding the numbers and having the realization that the people running at a professional level are just regular people with training and determination. For the first two points, parkruns and club runs are the perfect place to find regular people who love running and are passionate about it but don't pay any attention to the professional scene, how can those people be reached? On the third point, rather than just focusing on times, humanizing those racing could help people become more invested, take Gen's journey as an example of how seeing the mundane, day to day stuff helped many people buy in and follow her story.
Great comment Cam. The more professional runners break down those barriers and normalise their lives, the more relatable they become and the greater following they receive. Reaching those who don't pay attention to the professional scene is the tricky problem to solve, but giving people the opportunity to believe in something bigger than themselves or just one person (like a team... it's worked for religion too) seems to help with other sports so hopefully the current groups and teams over the world can continue to grow their profiles (give us some NN merch to get around Kipchoge a bit more maybe!). And yep, that's the aim of things like TBL and the podcast, to hopefully give people more reasons to buy in and follow each athletes story.
My thoughts on making running more popular with the general population; the thing that helped me become more invested in the professional running scene was running myself on a regular basis, understanding the numbers and having the realization that the people running at a professional level are just regular people with training and determination. For the first two points, parkruns and club runs are the perfect place to find regular people who love running and are passionate about it but don't pay any attention to the professional scene, how can those people be reached? On the third point, rather than just focusing on times, humanizing those racing could help people become more invested, take Gen's journey as an example of how seeing the mundane, day to day stuff helped many people buy in and follow her story.
Great comment Cam. The more professional runners break down those barriers and normalise their lives, the more relatable they become and the greater following they receive. Reaching those who don't pay attention to the professional scene is the tricky problem to solve, but giving people the opportunity to believe in something bigger than themselves or just one person (like a team... it's worked for religion too) seems to help with other sports so hopefully the current groups and teams over the world can continue to grow their profiles (give us some NN merch to get around Kipchoge a bit more maybe!). And yep, that's the aim of things like TBL and the podcast, to hopefully give people more reasons to buy in and follow each athletes story.