Drew Hunter is supremely talented despite what Tinman says

What interview are you talking about? What plan? If you are going to take shots at Tinman, at least provide some context.

Northwest wrote:

I read the interview with Hunter's coach, Tinman. Interesting for sure and perhaps a decent training idea and plan. I do not think though that Tinman has stumbled upon the Holy Grail here. There is no way that there are 15 other kids in the US as talented. That is a bit of hubris on the part of Tinman. Hunter's parents were stellar runners. His dad ran 13:36! Good training to be sure, but Tinman is working with a kid who has all the goods.

Good point... Mother is a ranked masters runner your not "taking shots" at Tinman just acknowledging his background. Tinman you do great work with a great talent!

tooshortguy wrote:

What interview are you talking about? What plan? If you are going to take shots at Tinman, at least provide some context.

The interview on the top of the Letsrun news. Also there has been at least one thread made about it. Tinman does say there are about 15 (I don't remember exact wording) kids that could do what hunter does if they trained correctly. I agree that this is untrue, My guess is there are closer to 5

... ... .. wrote:

The interview on the top of the Letsrun news. Also there has been at least one thread made about it. Tinman does say there are about 15 (I don't remember exact wording) kids that could do what hunter does if they trained correctly. I agree that this is untrue, My guess is there are closer to 5

I'd say there are at least 15, probably more who are as talented as Hunter. It's always been that way. If track and field was a hugely popular money sport like basketball, football, or soccer (wordwide) I can guarantee you'd be seeing a lot more 4:00/8:40 type high school runners every year.

One of the best high school runners I've ever seen was on my high school team. His name is George Brooks. The only reason why he ran for us in high school is because we drove to his house at 5:30 in the morning to bring him to workouts. We had another guy that had 4:05/8:50 written all over him. He ran cross country to get ready for basketball and baseball. He had nowhere near the talent at those sports as he had in distance running.

Correct answer.

I don't know why people deny their own natural talent. Maybe they just don't want to accept the responsibility, or accept that they are only as good as their fitness?

It's in his interest to downplay Hunter's talent. Hunter's parents were both very accomplished runners, and the kid ran like 8:53 as a sophomore... That is MASSIVE TALENT.

In a high school gym class with no warm up, high top sneakers and full sweats, I ran around our 440 yard dirt track in 55 seconds. The instructor said that I should be running the 440 in track that spring.

I was a sophomore and I didn't want to run that far. The 100 yard dash and 220 was more my comfort level. So I ignored his sage advice.

I went on to become a slightly better than mediocre sprinter 10.2, 22.9 instead of the 440-880 runner I should have been.

As a 15 year old kid, I just didn't see my potential.

I think it's definitely a mix of great talent AND excellent training. It's also being born with the right biomechanics to avoid frequent injuries. I don't know what Hunter's VO2 max is, but it's probably extraordinary. You can raise that a bit with training, but you're born with most of it. As the saying goes, choose your parents well.

It would be very interesting to see what would happen with the top 20 U.S. high school runners if they were ALL coached by Tinman. I believe there are at least 5-10 of them who could match Hunter.

When I was a high school runner, I believed that being the best was simply a matter of training harder than anyone else and being lucky to avoid injury. That's simply not true, and one of my biggest regrets is that I never had the proper training/coaching to reach my full potential. What could I have done with higher mileage and no more than 20% high quality training? Top runners like Hunter and Fisher not only have great potential, but also the training/coaching to maximize it. They are so fortunate.

Every hs is filled with potential sub 50 quarter milers, sub 4:15 milers, sub 15 second 110 hurdlers who never run track who never go out for any team.

I wonder if Tin man is making his comment based on Hunter's raw speed, turnover and ability to change gears.

It's all about fulfilling potential or not.

There are definitely way more than 15 kids in the US with Hunters talent. However, I do not think there are 15 kids who actually run in HS with the same talent as him.

Shawn H wrote:

I think it's definitely a mix of great talent AND excellent training. It's also being born with the right biomechanics to avoid frequent injuries. I don't know what Hunter's VO2 max is, but it's probably extraordinary. You can raise that a bit with training, but you're born with most of it. As the saying goes, choose your parents well.

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That saying is as foolish as your understanding of vo2max.

Sounds like he's blowing his own horn.

Couple things: I believe tinman was talking about what should be the "norm" in high school running. Based on the size of the talent pool in the US compared to other countries, and the relative advantages an American child has over foreign athletes, we should probably have a handful of sub-4 milers and sub-8:40 2 milers each year. Likewise, rather than a couple dozen sub-9 2-milers, we should probably have 50-100. That's not so far fetched.

As for Hunter's talent, I mean his times at 400/800 are right in line if not slower than most of the 4:00-4:05 guys of the past few years, he just appears to be better trained. The guys who running 47 splits on relays or 1:48 800s are the truly "gifted" athletes.

I guess no one understands modesty and humility any longer.

15 kids that can go that fast? I have no idea what the number is, but out of the millions of kids sure there could be that many it is just that some are playing other sports and some got burned out on sports before they were 13 or never played or just chose to do something else.

I have read many articles on Hunter and have to laugh when they say that his parents never encouraged him to run. And that he never had early training. Yeah right, and I have a bridge to sell you. This kid is gifted no doubt and absolutely blessed with great genes. And I can almost guarantee that, though he was never "formally" trained, his parents had him outside when he was a small boy encouraging activities that would surely benefit his future running career.There is no way parents who ran at their level could help themselves. And oh yeah, it paid off.

The thought that the numbers are higher and all of those potentially great guys are doing other sports is horesh*t..

Other sports require running too and you can't hide natural speed and endurance.

iifii wrote:

Shawn H wrote:

I think it's definitely a mix of great talent AND excellent training. It's also being born with the right biomechanics to avoid frequent injuries. I don't know what Hunter's VO2 max is, but it's probably extraordinary. You can raise that a bit with training, but you're born with most of it. As the saying goes, choose your parents well.

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That saying is as foolish as your understanding of vo2max.

They breed racing dogs and horses and it works for people too.

It is no coincidence that these were the same coaches of Alan Webb when he started track. The training seems to be very different, an effect of Tinman's advice, no doubt (we see in what Webb did with Raszko, who took over from the Hunters what their coaching was probably like pre-Tinman, namely, a lot of speed and drills), but their good judgment is the common denominator. Talent level is essentially guess-work but I am quite convinced that every high school in the country has several sub 4:20 talents and many of them with proper coaching would be running what are now elite level national times. Look at Kenya and Ethiopia where many of the best high school age runners actually go into the distances and train very hard in large groups with people who know how to train and you see many every year probably at Hunter's level or even substantially beyond.