The Spring Saga And its Consequences

Reddit again coming through with user ‘Simco_’ posting the full timeline of events in the ongoing Spring Energy saga.

I’ll add a couple more:

• Koop posted another lengthy video on May 29 to Instagram that got deleted before I could watch it.
• The Feed has since pulled Awesome Sauce from their product catalogue.

There’s a lot at play here, but it comes down to accountability. Spring put a number on their product that just wasn’t real. They lied about their product. That’s the end of it. The New York Times finds a million words to avoid using the L word when businesses or other people in power lie, but in the end that’s what it is. Now athletes, coaches, runners, buyers of $4 gels, including me, feel duped and upset. They blame their poor performances on the product are asking for refunds and are wondering about class action lawsuits. Where this will ultimate lead to I don’t want to speculate. It sucks. Trust is eroded, unfair competitive advantage was gained in the market place, people were taken for a ride.

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But there’s another conversation happening. That one that goes beyond some people being upset at Spring’s misleading claims. Jason Koop has used this blow up to continue his ongoing cyberbullying against Megan and David Roche and Sage Canaday. Remember we didn’t need Koop’s lab results that “he paid so graciously out of his own pocket”. Sport Hunger had done some testing and there is an ongoing GoFundMe campaign to get a larger variety of products tested. When you watch the full video that Koop posted on his Instagram account you get a sense that the reason why he jumped on this is not because “he wanted to get to the bottom of this Awesome Sauce issue” but because the results could further his vendetta and campaigns against other ultra running coaches. I’ve heard about this ongoing issue for a while now and have choses to stay out of it. I’m not here to understand why there’s so much animosity or who deserves what in this fight, but what I do wonder about the tone and necessity of the attacks.

(…insert something here about freedom of speech but not of consequences…)

In the past my focus and posting policy here on ECC has been to comment only on ‘company policies and/or decision’ not on individuals. But I wonder if this self-restraint is misplaced in a case like this.

Ethan Newberry posts on a IG story:

“Always on team support and uplift vs shame & bully (unless it’s UTMB, cause fuck them)…”

So maybe it’s time for me to recognize that these folks aren’t just individuals, but are brands and businesses in themselves and maybe it’s time I comment on these statements and actions after all.

We talk a lot about trail culture and how special our sport is, but this here on display feels like personal attacks that create an unsafe atmosphere? Online, in the comment sections of the respective social media posts the war is already raging. Yes, we’re supposedly dealing with adults here (at least if we count their age and not their behavior). Everyone here is a grown-up and can block, delete, hide and manage their social profiles. But, inevitably this spills out into the real world, doesn’t it? These folks find themselves at the same events and races, supporting their athletes and working side by side each other. Are we okay with this sort of bullying in our sport?

The question I am asking myself is not where the line is to be drawn, but who gets to draw it.

Are there any adults in the room that will speak up and “call a spade a spade”?