Exactly...he does not have outstanding talent and was never meant to be top-flight. This is a guy who has gotten the most out of what he was given, so he's been successful in that regard. He also looks like he's laboring when running. Anyone who looks like that was never meant for greatness.
Exactly...he does not have outstanding talent and was never meant to be top-flight. This is a guy who has gotten the most out of what he was given, so he's been successful in that regard. He also looks like he's laboring when running. Anyone who looks like that was never meant for greatness.
Agreed, partly, about (Hunter) appearing laboured, but so does Adel Mechaal, the Spanish star.
I always thought his upper body looked rigid, almost like he is trying to row or muscle his way through a race. He doesn't spring off the ground as much, even winning this 1500 he almost looks like a marathoner during his kick
Drew Hunter looks good in his first race back after the 2022 USATF Outdoor Championships.Website: http://flosports.link/3p20lTjSubscribe: http://flosports.li...
DISCLAIMER: I am just another idiot on Letsrun, not a coach or physiologist or whatever
It also seems to me that his body changed from when he ran sub-4/sub-8 3k in HS. He was longer and lankier then, and has put on some muscle since. This happens to more male phenoms than people would guess and, given that he's mentioned issues with RED-S, honestly good for him. Overall health (bone, endocrine, etc) is more important than running fast for a short period of time, the key is to find something sustainable
I'd say he's had an underwhelming career for what his trajectory looked like in 2015-16, but overall fine-to-good for his genetic abilities
In retrospect it would have been interesting to see if a college coach, or anyone working with him in person (wasn't Tinman mostly remote?), could have critiqued his mechanics. No way Nico Young runs as fast as he does now if he still strains like he did in high school. Drew also might have been (could still be?) a candidate for Valby-esque (or Morgan Pearson) cross-training supplementation
As for labouring hard when running, Nico Young is another notorious example, yet he manages to het faster. I think he puts in more effort into training and is more injury resistant than Drew Hunter.
Pretty sure running is not a high priority for him considering he has a baby girl. Running will always take a backseat to being a parent. He's probably living his best life now.
Pretty sure running is not a high priority for him considering he has a baby girl. Running will always take a backseat to being a parent. He's probably living his best life now.
Hs athlete that had a lot of talent - then trained like professional - didn’t develope racing strategies - won a lot becaus “trained like a professional” and then went pro - now doesn’t win because now everyone is training like a professional and he just isn’t that good - and doesn’t know how to step it up because believes his training that got him to win at hs in the best
I agree with what you said.
I applaud him for posting his training publically but if you look at it his training is very easy. Right now he is running the most miles he has ever run in his life at 90+ mpw so I am hopeful he might make a breakthrough.
For years his training was more or less 70-80mpw, a ton of 5min pace threshold stuff, and some 200s a little faster than mile pace.
With his natural talent that gets you pretty good, but not great. He is missing the hard work needed to get to the next level.
I was never suprised when he always got dusted on the last lap. Tinman and his mom never did the hardcore speed work and intensity required to be a monster when it came down to it.
If he could handle the intensity getting to the next level takes.... that is a whole another story.
As I posted a couple years ago, Drew's BIGGEST mistake was not joining an elite training group (not Tingirls). He surrounded himself with a bunch of Fan-Boys and his mom. He was fat with money from adidas, a big fish in a small pond and tried to make Tingirls an elite club with his mommy as a coach...Seriously?
A guy with that much talent, a solid training group, and a good coach would've made every USA team under the sun. I'm glad he's a good guy, unfortunately he failed as a pro given his talent.
Who was the adidas jacka** that signed him to a 10 year deal? IDIOT!!!
I listened to a great podcast (I can't remember where) with Drew Hunter and he sounded pretty happy with how life turned out. Sure, a little bittersweet, but given his lack of improvement (at Tinman) and then injuries, he did what he could do.
Not everyone is going to be a Narve Nordas type and suddenly improve to 3:29 in the 1500. FWIW, I think he was totally clean, unlike some of the elites on the scene.
But to be fair, how many of the HS kids from that era are running faster today than they did back then? Or running at all?
Drew Hunter? He ran a 5:54 PR in 2022 and 3:55 last year.
Matt Maton? He busted out a 3:58 but that was in 2017.
Michael Slagowski? He ran a 4:10 mile... in 2018.
Reed Brown? He ran a 4:08 mile last year during indoor; that was it.
Grant Fisher? He just ran 8:03 for TWO miles! AR holder in the 5000m and 2M.
You know there is about a 1 in 5 chance elite athletes will continue to improve at the same rate after college... Fisher is the one. The others should not be blamed for the being one of the other four. And of the other four, Drew Hunter is far and away the most successful.
He's a generational high school talent that just doesn't have the talent to compete on a pro level these days, especially in this current era of an American resurgence in genuine world-class distance prospects like Yared, Hobbs, and Hocker. These guys are thinking about how to beat guys like Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigsten for real. Drew Hunter simply isn't capable of being on that level. If you're not in that mind set and realm of possibility, there's no way you have a shot at making an Olympic or Worlds team.
Exactly...he does not have outstanding talent and was never meant to be top-flight. This is a guy who has gotten the most out of what he was given, so he's been successful in that regard. He also looks like he's laboring when running. Anyone who looks like that was never meant for greatness.
Lol’d @ “he does not have outstanding talent.” He is one of the top .01% to ever live at what he does.
i am sure he wishes he had a bit more success but the guy above is right — he still improved after HS, may still PR, got 3rd at USAs in the 5k, right? (but no WC team due to the standard?)
seems to have a really nice outlook on life, gets to do what he loves for a living, has a great family life it appears, gets to hang out with all his best friends, and seems to get along with all the runners from the other Boulder group. We should probably just shut this thread down.
if someone offered me a 10yr contract to do my best at what I loved and it ended up my ceiling was 5th-ish in the country but I had all the above benefits, sounds like a dream come true.
I had the pleasure to train as a youth athlete under Andrew's father Marc when Marc was transitioning away from his own journey as a pro athlete. I got to know Marc as a very decent man and I have no doubt his son will have grown up knowing what is most important in life and to have a balanced attitude toward athletic pursuits. I had a very different world from from Marc in certain ways. Marc is a Christian and rather conservative, and I am an atheist socialist, but nevertheless Marc and I managed to develop a super nice dialog about life, running, and balance. I cherish that time as a kid. From what I can see in the press and social media, Andrew has his father's affable nature and essential goodness. I wish him the best.
He was Nico Young before Nico Young. Love the guy and wish him only the best.
Discus
He got 8th last year at outdoor nationals. That's about right. He was about the 8th-best American 1500m runner last year. With Nuguse, Kessler, and Hocker--all more talented and younger--just entering into their primes, it's hard to imagine a scenario where he makes a world team at this point. There's a tier below the top tier, with Teare, Wynne, and the top UW guys (Houser, Waskom, Greene) that all have a better dark-horse chance of stealing a spot if one of the studs slips up or gets hurt. Sahlman, Basten, and Gary Martin all have faster mile PRs than he does right now, and are all five-plus years younger. If you were ranking the prospects of US milers/1500 guys over the next 5-10 years, he wouldn't rank in the top 10, and probably not the top 20.
Hunter seems like a smart and thoughtful guy. But his injury history makes it hard for him to take the big training risks that might vault him into that top group, or even into the group behind the top group. I'm very rarely inclined to play the "he's done" game, but the odds are very strongly stacked against him making Olympic or world teams at this stage. Probably his best chance would be if all the big players skipped an indoor nationals, and even then, he'd be a long shot.
He struck while the iron was hot, and he earned himself a 10-year run as a pro, which will be over in a few years. That 10-year deal worked out better for him than it did for Adidas.
In the grand scheme of things, 20-30th in the country is really good. If he were an equivalently good NFL receiver nobody would consider him a failure, even if he didn't quite live up to his high school hype.
The fact that Hunter is a "failure" speaks more to how few people can make it in running than it is indicative of him doing anything wrong
I always thought his upper body looked rigid, almost like he is trying to row or muscle his way through a race. He doesn't spring off the ground as much, even winning this 1500 he almost looks like a marathoner during his kick
DISCLAIMER: I am just another idiot on Letsrun, not a coach or physiologist or whatever
It also seems to me that his body changed from when he ran sub-4/sub-8 3k in HS. He was longer and lankier then, and has put on some muscle since. This happens to more male phenoms than people would guess and, given that he's mentioned issues with RED-S, honestly good for him. Overall health (bone, endocrine, etc) is more important than running fast for a short period of time, the key is to find something sustainable
I'd say he's had an underwhelming career for what his trajectory looked like in 2015-16, but overall fine-to-good for his genetic abilities
In retrospect it would have been interesting to see if a college coach, or anyone working with him in person (wasn't Tinman mostly remote?), could have critiqued his mechanics. No way Nico Young runs as fast as he does now if he still strains like he did in high school. Drew also might have been (could still be?) a candidate for Valby-esque (or Morgan Pearson) cross-training supplementation
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