r/ChicagoMarathon • u/Suitable-Buy-4113 • 1d ago
Integrity Over Influence: Are We Holding Fitness Influencers to the Same Standards as Everyday Runners?
A Chicago-based content creator with the Instagram handle @itsjdwill publicly posted on his story just a few weeks before the Chicago Marathon, stating, “I have dinner for anyone that can get me a bib for the Chicago Marathon.”
Apparently, going through the proper channels to secure a bib doesn’t apply when you have influence in the fitness community.
He allegedly went on to secure a bib from a friend, but not only that, PUMA also stepped up and may have asked him to wear their products during the marathon and post pictures before and after for promotional content.
The problem is that no one seems to hold these content creators to any standard. It’s very much like a baby being coddled when they do something wrong.
Bib number #71840 was reportedly registered to another individual.
The Chicago Marathon’s official rules outline the following potential consequences:
Violation
Official consequences
Running with another person’s bib
Removal from the course and possible disqualification from future events
Selling, giving away, or transferring a bib
Disqualification and/or a ban from future events for anyone involved
Finishing under an improperly assigned bib
Disqualification and removal from official results
Now, the questions are: Will these two individuals be held to the appropriate standards, or are we going to turn a blind eye again in this sport for the sake of content and likes?
As far as the brand sponsorship goes, what should happen to them? Did their team do its due diligence?
The problem I believe exists in this sport is that neither the brands nor the individuals seem to face any repercussions because it increasingly feels like a “who you know” business.
So, for everyday runners who can’t run a sub-three-hour marathon or don’t have the influence to raise significant funds for a cause, the opportunity to participate in these races can feel almost impossible.
These are people who train for months, sometimes years, hoping for a chance to stand at the starting line. Yet, when someone with influence appears to bypass the process, we’re supposed to look the other way?
The Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Medal will remain nothing more than a dream for many everyday runners.
And that’s what makes this so disappointing. Running is supposed to be a sport built on hard work, perseverance, fairness, and integrity. Those values shouldn’t disappear just because someone has followers, brand sponsorships, or connections.
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Written by Rich Samaroo
Edited for grammar, clarity, and structure with assistance from ChatGPT (OpenAI).
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u/Donoghus Northside 1d ago
Yeah, screw this guy. As mentioned before, the bib was registered to a woman. Also, he wore the bib on his shorts with his singlet obscuring part of it in every photo & video he posted on his IG. He was strategic about it.
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
Right yeah, the result shown is 4:10:33 for the woman; and I can make out the last 3 on his bib in one of the videos as as 840. If the marathon officially transferred it then they'd have changed the name, but I've never heard of the Chicago Marathon pulling such a stunt.
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u/181stars 20h ago
OP, just email BoA marathon office. Make it fact based & evidence based, that this bib belongs to women category but per pics it's a man, etc. There's still record verification ongoing and their team is typically quick to act. Email office@chicagomarathon.com
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u/Large_Beginning_6329 1d ago
Why did you use chatgpt to write this 😭
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
You have two comments removed in this thread, You have other decent comments in the sub. Maybe stop the Jekyll and Hyde act?
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u/Jake_77 1d ago edited 1d ago
How do we bring this to the attention of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon?
Edit:
Email [office@chicagomarathon.com](mailto:office@chicagomarathon.com)
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
Keep tagging @chimarathon in his ig post and @abbottglobal
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u/caitykuco 18h ago
I would also recommend letting Marathon Investigation know. They will most definitely look into this.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 10h ago
For anyone wondering why I take this so seriously, I’ve run numerous marathons and earned every entry legitimately. I’ve raised thousands for charities and even paid out of my own pocket when I fell short of fundraising goals.
I’m not an influencer, nor do I want to be. I’m just an everyday runner who loves this sport. So seeing people with influence potentially bypass the rules everyone else follows is frustrating.
This isn’t about jealousy or attention. It’s about fairness, integrity, and accountability. Having followers shouldn’t mean having different rules.
Feel free to follow along. I’m not hiding behind an anonymous account.
IG: @richierozay3
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
If anyone wants spam his IG with comments fake bib alert. He blocked me lol.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
His ig handler is @itsjdwill tag @chimarathon and @abbottglobal if you guys are open to it. I just want someone to respond to this matter.
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u/Necessary_Repair_755 1d ago
I will hold a fitness ‘influencer’ (BTW I detest the term influencer) to a standard but my standard is they only get to ‘influence’ if they are credible else I won’t follow them. Matt Choi is a good example of this - when he got caught having a film crew with him on a marathon on electric bikes (against the rules) and got banned I simply stopped following him. Cheats don’t get to occupy any of my attention. These influencers care about one thing above all else and that’s followers and clicks so we just need to be united in turning off their oxygen supply.
Having said all that, of course, I also expect the organisers to hold these rule breakers to account
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 15h ago
Guys two more runner from the Chicago community has been identified can we all please email Chicago marathon officials to take a look at this
@bby_angieee - BIB 57984. sponsored by Adidas
@_melodylee - BIB 73270.
.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 15h ago
Another reditor brought it up
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u/Donoghus Northside 15h ago
What's the background on these? Is there a thread? What's up with these influencers?
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u/LJ50 14h ago
It would be good if the brands could be held to account by the organizers too.
This place could have gone to a charity runner or an unsuccessful ballot entrant if ‘Stephanie’ didn’t want to run it. The brands all sponsor the events and expos and so effectively pay for their places for their influencers - I have no issue with that; but deceitful way this is done (with him obscuring his bib number in all the content) makes a mockery of the lottery system and charity allocations.
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u/bw569 1d ago
If people are making negative on his posts he must be deleting them, every single one of them are positive and cheering him on
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u/Possible-Original 16h ago
He deleted one of my comments just this morning within 2 minutes of posting it. He's an "influencer," so he lives on his phone and the only way the general public will actually see that he cheated his way in is if multiple people brigade his page.
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u/tomato_cultivator88 18h ago
Yeah the looked up his bib # on the chi marathon app and he definitely ran under a different person’s bib
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u/No-Big6651 13h ago
It doesn’t surprise me… people give bibs all the time. You can buy them off people with the right price… it’s not shocking but it’s disrespectful for other runners who got their bib fair and waited a long time to get their place. Especially when you’re an influencer and “entitled” to everything, brands back you up and they have no clue you’re lying about your bib…
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u/hejendo76 11h ago
He had a run club a couple summers ago that went viral. I went to one of them and it was maybe the stupidest thing I’ve ever been to. Think of the Austin fitness bros but Chicago edition. It was chaotic
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u/Donoghus Northside 11h ago
Chicago Run Collective? Yeah, there were multiple threads on them in the RunningInChicago sub. That group sabotaged the Dim Sum race course.
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
That's just bogus.
To a larger point though, how many people actually trust influencers' judgements? I ignore all the short reel format influencer stuff. Some of this is linked to in postings or articles I do read, and then I'll look for real content, like measurements they do or useful photos. Their judgement I always ignore. Same with Amazon "Vine" reviews. For running, they're all versions of "actual running coaches hate this one trick."
PS: Are you (OP) the writer, or are you reposting with the writer's permission?
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
I wrote it and sent to officials of puma, abbot, and Chicago no response. Nothing. So now I am just going to make public thing.
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
You should also message the Marathon Investigations guy, although he is stingy on giving credit.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
I don’t want the credit I just want these I influencer to be band from marathon when they pull stunts like this. Tag the guy
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u/LJ50 13h ago
Looks like this individual has either deleted or hidden their profile. Hopefully the message got to Puma who disapproved - and hopefully they are more careful who they associate with in future.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 10h ago
Which profile there IG
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u/LJ50 10h ago
Yes, his Instagram. I posted a sarcastic comment asking if he really “Did it” (which seems to be their catchphrase) as he’s not on the results. An hour or so later, he’s not searchable.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 10h ago
He blocked you lol
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u/LJ50 10h ago
Devastated 😆
I’m not really a Chicago local, but spent the last five years living in the city two weeks a month and spent countless hours running on the Riverwalk and Lakefront Trail. I’m mostly oblivious to the local clubs, but aside from CARA (who I always found great btw), the one running club I was familiar with was the CRC because I looked one sunny Saturday morning after encountering a large group of utterly obnoxious folks taking up the whole trail and showing no consideration to others whilst appearing mainly to be filming themselves.
Unsurprised now to see below that this individual was one of the organisers of that group. There are some super positive influencers out there - Philly Bowden, Meghan Featherstun, etc. Guys like this one are what turn people right off that “industry”.
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u/FRANKISDANK77 1d ago
Extremely hot take here so don't crucify me lmao but- honestly, I don’t think it’s that deep tbh. It’s possible someone with the authority to get him in arranged the bib, even if it originally belonged to someone else.
And when you’re bringing positive exposure to a brand or the race itself, yeah, I can see someone within the organization not really caring or being willing to make an exception. Whether that’s fair is a separate conversation, but we don’t know what was or was not approved behind the scenes
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
The result shown is 4:10:33 for the woman; and I can make out the last 3 on his bib in one of the videos as as 840. If the marathon officially transferred it then they'd have changed the name, but I've never heard of the Chicago Marathon pulling such a stunt.
Plus I don't know in what way this exposure is positive exposure for the brand. (I know there's a subculture of buying shoes for the looks, but you can get prettier shoes for much less than actual running shoes. Not to make out running shoes like they're magic, but they are specific.)
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
You can just look up the bib and Chicago marathon app and click photos. You can even look at the girls instagram page it’s her name
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u/JSW_TDI 10+ marathons 1d ago
You're confirming that the (male) influencer ran with the woman's bib, correct? 'Cos we don't see her in the marathon photos.
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u/Donoghus Northside 1d ago
Looked up her history on Athlinks. Appears to be a local. Ran Chicago ‘25 in 7:38:39 so this would be an astronomical improvement in worse weather. 1:07:03 Shamrock. 2:13:26 Solder Field 10. Pictures aside, safe to say she didn’t run on Sunday.
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u/Ok_Kaleidoscope_3537 1d ago
I’m more shocked that a running influencer has such a pedestrian time lmao
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u/Donoghus Northside 1d ago
Think he's more of a fitness oriented "influencer" than anything. Looking thru his IG post history, it looks like he had an association with the infamous Chicago Run Collective which local runners might remember a few summers back as being a menace on the Lakefront Trail. Given what's happened here, that totally checks out.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
He may ran slow so they didn’t spoke the numbers too much. Woman qualifying time for Boston is 3:25.
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u/Runstorun 19h ago
You must have missed the story of the influencer who rode an e-bike to barely get a sub5 for Berlin! Relatively big story that was recent. A lot of the influencers in the fitness/run space are that because they are conventionally attractive. It really has nothing to do with their pace. Which is why looking to them for training advice or how to run/race is extra ridiculous.
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u/Suitable-Buy-4113 1d ago
Dude he offer them dinner for clouts chasing. The person bib he took was not an official transfer
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u/sunriseandsets00 1d ago
Crazy these “influencers” won’t use their platforms to raise for charity. It’s that simple. 🤦