Tim Rowberry sounds like someone would sound if they were pretending to coach Sifan Hassan (conspiracy theory alert)

I have known Tim since 2009. I competed against him and then competed for him as my coach. Watching him go from athlete to coach has been something fascinating to witness. Seeing how his knowledge of the sport has grown, and what he taught me as an athlete is incredibly valuable. My success in just a few years as a high school coach, including a national champion 800m runner, was greatly due to my experiences as an athlete. But a good portion of the knowledge I acquired to be a coach was from time spent talking to Tim and watching how he conducted workouts and spoke to his athletes while I paced some of the Nike runners. Tim is incredibly intelligent about how the science behind athletics and running, but what makes Tim especially great is not just understanding the mental side of the sport and understanding the mind of each athlete he works with. I believe Tim is a successful coach because he is able to empathize and listen to his athletes and help them feel respected. He values what his athletes say and creates a better environment for the athlete to realize and work towards their full potential.

Anyone can jump to conclusions and make their little conspiracies about X and Y, and honestly conspiracy theories are fun and sometimes worth investigating, but I don't think anyone jumping on Tim has actually done any homework. Go sit and watch him adjusting workouts on the fly when Halima is having a slight calf issue while simultaneously coaching Sifan in a completely different aerobic focused track session. If you want to have fun with conspiracy theories go stick to reddit r/lowstakesconspiracies. Good stuff.

I listened to the podcast and Tim is not holding back information. He is giving liberally in the podcast how he approaches his work as a coach and how he approaches the problem of trying to train someone that wants to run everything and anything from the 1500m to the marathon. Because that spread is so broad it requires constant changes and adaptations to the work load and what specifics should be targeted in training. Nothing about the podcast seemed off. I was ready to indulge in the insanity of this post thinking that perhaps Tim would hold back information about his training as a coach, but even that would be silly because there really are no secrets to running.

Someone at nike legal needs to follow up on this post. You are outright lying, and need to be held accountable. This kind of $h=t need to stop.

Kill? Don’t be ridiculous. A good smack in the mouth? You bet.

It didn't set off any conspiracy sirens with me but the one thing I wanted to ask Jon was "why didn't you ask him anything about Salazar?"

We're all supposed to pretend Alberto doesn't exist. Now maybe before it aired, Jon asked "hey do you know what Alberto is up to these days?"

Alberto was one of the most important people in the sport and now people act like it's weird to ask what he is up to.

Oh go ahead and say he was banned by WADA, he was sanctioned by Safe Sport. Lance Armstrong and Arod were were banned as well. They are involved with their sports.

Mike Tyson was convicted of rape and went to prison and people are still going to watch him tomorrow in a boxing match at the age of 58.

1) I loved the interview. I had never heard him speak at length about Hassan and learned a lot.

2) I thought the doping questions were great. This website is very anti-doping and out audience would expect us to ask the question especially with someone tied to the NOP. Yes the answer doesn't really mean anything but we are getting people on the record. People love to pretend they can read something between the lines. But we ask the question because doping is a big problem in the sport and many people want to know if this is possible. So why not ask the people at the top? We asked Grant Fisher. Spoke to Abdi Nageeye today and didn't ask him, just wonder if we should make it a standard question.

I agree with you but I think people are too hard on "the website." How do you want them to handle this? Ban conjecture? Nobody is going after Tim Rowberry personally, he just seemed a little out of his depth when asked to explain how he became the coach of the women's GOAT.

Regarding Alberto still "secretly coaching," well, that is just silly. He is not the only coach in the world who knows about intervals, high mileage, bi-carb, double threshold, tempo runs, massage, gray area, and a proper taper. It is literally not rocket science. Nike can get anyone they want for Sifan and she likes to work with Tim Rowberry.

As for Tim, he seemed like a nice guy but he was also describing "falling backwards into the job" without the real coaching pedigree or training. It isn't as if he went to Elite Coaching School and spent 20 years winning NCAA titles before moving over to NOP.

Maybe that is what seemed weird. He went from pacer and errand boy for Alberto to a very, very special position... Tim Rowberry is probably great if you get to know him, but in the interview he came across as too modest/humble to fill the shoes of "Coach to the GOAT."

I thought the exact same thing. Very short on basic information. His philosophy answers in terms of coaching were especially telling.

That was a great interview, really good work from John. I felt like I learned a lot about Hassan and her training, and good to hear about Rowberry's setup as well. That was probably the best interview I've ever heard on LRC. More please!

Rowberry being Alberto's go-between for Sifan is a poorly kept secret. It's like when a baseball manager gets ejected, but he still "manages from the clubhouse" by relaying his instructions to a coach or attendant who then relays to the acting manager (usually the bench coach). No one will call him on it because his punishment (along with being an unassociated pyrrhic "nailing Al Capone for tax evasion" thing) was mostly just for show by WA and they don't really care about actually stopping him from coaching.

As his sister has pointed out in this thread, Tim Rowberry is an actual coach and does stand there at workouts telling Sifan what to do as needed. But he is only Sifan Hassan's coach publicly and in name. Her coaching is from Salazar as before.

strange speculation for someone who took in the interview. rowberry says that nike had no confidence in him and he admits he got the job by default. he even admits to asking kipchoge how to train for a marathon.

So true! My one question after listening to the interview is how is it that Rowberry is not swamped with pros wanting to work with him? If I were even close to being good enough to race at the elite levels, I would ask him to coach me in a second. Those of you focused on his interview skills, are looking at the wrong metric. Look at Hassan has done under his tutelage! Yeah, she has talent. But it seems his talents include helping her to bring it out.

I think the reason he is not swamped by pros is that unless you already had a relationship with him, nothing he said was really cutting edge.

He seems nice, but we could all give an interview like that. Saying things like this, "We try to do a mix of mileage and old-school workouts but also I tried something from that one guy from Tulane."

And to top it off, none of us would keep saying "I think maybe she..." and "I believe that maybe it was..." Half the time it seemed like he had a hard time remembering things that we all remember.

We all remember a million splits from a million workouts. We know our race results. We know if it was a Half Marathon or not. Rowberry kept saying things like, "I believe she was doing three workouts a week with like sometimes maybe three days off between workouts when she needed it." It sounds like he has a terrible memory or wasn't really as involved as he is claiming.

That kind of interview makes it sound like he can't really remember anything very clearly. That is odd because most of us would remember what we were doing if we were coaching one athlete and that athlete was the GOAT.

p.s. He also said, "I think I would like to know something about the 'threshold' kind of workouts." Are you serious? He is coaching the GOAT but doesn't know how to define "threshold" or what DT training looks like? Odd.

Kenyan journalists are now obviously following the Brojo's every move.

pulsesports.co.ke

'It's a defeatist attitude'-Sifan Hassan's coach hits out at doping skeptics of the Olympic champion

Pulse Sports

Olympic champion Sifan Hassan has faced skepticism following her impressive records on the track, skepticism her coach says is unwarranted.

Link:www.pulsesports.co.ke/athletics/story/...

I would guess the reason he isn’t swamped with requests is runners know the deal.

Good point! Why isn’t he swamped? 🤔

Ok, as I listened to the interview I was thinking that this guy is like the only person who could coach Hassan long term. Have you listened to her interviews? She comes across as a little odd and all over the place, impulsive, quick to tire of conventional opinions and approaches. Hassan and Tim just wander the globe looking for places to train. That encapsulated what they do perfectly. I just can’t see Hassan being coached by somebody who is telling her, you’re focusing on this event and this is the program to get the best results. Anyway, they seem like a perfect match, two peas in a pod. The question is whether or not Hassan would be better served by a more conventional approach, but it seems like she’s doing just fine. Her talent level is so off the charts, probably hard to keep her down.

He has two problems:

1. He's so involved in training Hassan that if I was a pro, I'd wonder how I fit into his schedule. He travels with her so much of the year, splitting time between the US, Europe, and Ethiopia. And she's so good and so high-profile that it's inevitable that she will occupy most of his time.

2. His potential market for athletes is quite small. For whatever reason, Nike has never made him a contract coach so he requires a coaching fee from individual athletes. How many pros can afford to do that, but also have the contractual freedom to choose any coach that they want?

Put those two together and you get most of the explanation. And then there's the link with NOP which might put some people off, but people still went to Pete Julian and Ritz who were also linked to NOP, and others still go to Schumacher despite his links to doped athletes.

These are solvable issues, but the real crux of the matter is Hassan is going to dictate a lot of what happens here. Rowberry is going to travel with her and how many athletes are willing to keep up with her unpredictable travel habits or accept Rowberry in more of a virtual role if they don’t?

I do think Rowberrys results speak for themselves. Nakaayi had stagnated and took a step forward, Hassan obviously thriving. If I were Nike I’d put him in charge of some of the next crop of NCAA Africans like Justine Kipkoech, Brian Musau or Kidali in a heartbeat. Granted Haron Lagat is a good option it seems as well.

I’m rarely surprised by these message boards anymore but I am disappointed by the reaction to this interview

Firstly I thought it was great, I came away from it thinking Tim had given much more depth than a lot of coaches we hear from, didn’t come across pretentiously (like a certain OLY-medallist coach on LR before), and never needed to be pushed to provide more context or detail. Anyone criticising him for not being more specific has clearly never listened to any elite coach talk about their athlete’s training.

I also though Jon handled the interview really well (as we have come to expect from him anyway), with maybe the two exceptions of a) when Tim had just given a long explanation on training philosophy and Jon ignores it just circling back to repeating his previous question bluntly “what about double threshold” and b) a missed opportunity to hear who the names were of athletes that have been asking to join him.

Then I was amazed to hear Nike don’t support Tim in anyway, that’s frankly unacceptable and I have a whole new appreciation for Sifan now after hearing how she went to bat for him to keep him on as her coach, and still pays his salary and travel etc ?!? Madness.

Wejo, I’m floored you’re still harping on about asking NOP questions. Jon did great to push the appropriate amount on this, and how long ago was Salazar now? How many years? How much has happened for Sifan since? And you’d rather waste time asking the same repeated questions every journalist has always asked him about, on a topic referring to the actions of someone else and allegations that never included Tim. Seeing as Rojo likes to refer everything back to coaching at Cornell - imagine if during Rojo's time there one of the athletes or a coaching assistant got banned for something - and then for the rest of his professional career people only ever asked him the same 5 questions about that period of his life?

While I believe in principle Tim and anyone in his situation does have a responsibility to stand up and face these tough questions, I think the topic has been bled dry, especially when it's not from the source, and what a fantastic way to burn a relationship with someone giving you this level of insights to the “freak of nature” & “women’s GOAT” by scaring him off circling the same sensitive topic endlessly.

Final point - I dont know why people are saying it's weird he doesnt have people asking to join, he literally said in the interview he gets requests often (but the issues with constant travel etc).

Jon, great interview, and if ever Tim reads this thread - thank you Tim for the insights!