Parker Max, dedicated YouTuber and runner, wakes up at 6 am. He rolls over and looks out his window. It’s pitch black. He walks into his kitchen and spreads peanut butter over a 100 percent whole wheat honey bagel. After eating, he leaves his house to go on his daily run.

Max runs all year round, no matter the conditions. In 100-degree heat waves, or in the polar vortex, Max runs. Max loves to run; he runs to stay healthy and he runs because he loves the sport. Over the offseason, Max was running and hurt his IT band, which cut down on his offseason running by over 100 miles compared to the year before, but upped his time to work on his YouTube Channel.

“Missing out on miles means missing out on getting better,” Max said. “When I decided that I needed to take time off from running, I was devastated.”

Max had to take two weeks off in the tail end of the summer.

“My injury forced me to work harder than ever just to get back to normal,” he said.

Even with his off-season scare, Max still had big goals for himself for the season.

“Max is one of those kids that always wants to be doing more and more and wants to be good and from where I see it, he is not going to fall short of his goals,” cross-country coach Jay Welp said.

Some of Max’s goals have to do with other activities, like his devotedness to Business Professionals of America (BPA) Club, and his love of messing around with his camera.

Lately Max has been combining these two hobbies together.

“I have a new series coming out…a Business Professionals of America (BPA) docuseries that will walk my viewers through BPA Club [and] help [them] get to know the members and get the City High experience,” Max said.

On Max’s YouTube channel, which has over 200 subscribers, he mainly posts vlogs and short films with the main topic usually related to running. Max himself describes his YouTube channel as similar to Zach Levet’s. Levet is a 19-year-old running and vlogging youtuber.

“(I’ve) been subscribed to him since he had under 500 subscribers,” Max said. “When I’m editing a video I like to think back to Zach Levet’s videos and try to incorporate elements of his videos that will inspire my viewers like Zach’s do to me.” 

Max is sometimes faced with the struggle of choosing between videos that get more views or the videos he likes to make.

“I enjoy filming short films the most, but my vlogs get me the most views so I have to make the choice between the views or what I like,” he said.

So far this year, Max has put out many videos on his YouTube channel, including his BPA docuseries and his district cross-country meet coverage, which was the last meet in which he competed this year.

Welp was positive about Max’s cross-country season overall..

“Even though Max had an early season injury and was fighting an uphill battle, he still came out with a very successful year all around.”