Drew Hunter runs indoor 1500m PB of 3:40.37 today at NBIGP

And that's really saying something.

He posted the other day about finally doing a pain free treadmill run and thanking his physical therapist. Possible injury beetween the last workout video and today. I hope Tinman has a plan.

` wrote:

If you're not making world teams out of high school, why go pro? Adidas was irresponsible for throwing all that money at him.

I'm not sure it's on Adidas... he could have chosen not to take the money! Its on him, his parents, his coach. Not Adidas.

But yeah, hard to look back and say for sure if going pro was truly a mistake. I agree he hasn't really stepped it up into the big leagues running pro. But we will never know what would have happened if he had gone and run NCAA instead. Maybe he would have been another slagowski and gotten slower, or maybe he would have thrived and been ahead of where he is now.

All we know is that he has improved incrementally while running pro instead of college. Some guys he was beating in high school now beat him sometimes, while others have dropped away to nothing. He's probably had "average" improvement. But some other guys just ran 3:50 in ncaa, a time he hasn't sniffed after 5 years as a pro, so that isn't an endorsement of his decision.

Jgt11 wrote:

He posted the other day about finally doing a pain free treadmill run and thanking his physical therapist. Possible injury beetween the last workout video and today. I hope Tinman has a plan.

It would be crazy to think he got a second injury. Especially considering how confident Tinman is about keeping his athletes injury free with easy days easy, and CV based workouts.

I’d also judge Tinman for putting Drew in that situation if he is JUST coming off an injury.

Here he is in a video last week, so might be two weeks old, idk, haven’t watched it:

We're all just speculating. I think Rojo summed it up a while back "we bring how you would talk on a run to message boards."

I've watched a few videos of TME. It's great they've found a way for free Enterprise to flourish from their group. One of the many sponsors TME has is a supplement company. In particular they've mentioned a Vitamin D supplement. From personal experience and now in Covid a lot of people seem to think they have to take more all while running a risk of VitD side effects: Joint pain, irregular RBC, BP, sleep patterns. There's a real irresponsible way of thinking this is just a Vitamin it's actually not rather a hormone that can affect one negatively. That's great if VitD has had positive results for many and the many who are not exposed to sun much.

A professional team in Boulder training everyday in the sun doesn't seem like a good mix to throwing back 4000IUs of VitD. I hope Drew has been tested at both 1,2 25hydroxy. I get the professional "edge" but there's another side. A former NOP member was sick of being asked about thyroid meds and was quoted as saying he knew he didn't need them because they made him feel worse. It's just like anything too much iron causes inflammation, trouble breathing, thyroid meds can put you at hypothyroid or just as bad hyperthyroid.

In the Covid era I've known people who have experienced VitD sides. In my case I had incredible fatigue and not runnable tendonitis. I was @78,ng/dl. Discontinuing and being on Magnesium300+mg/day after 10 months dropping to 50ng/dl it felt like the cinder blocks were off. Everyone is different and some don't feel a negative side into the 80s but for pro athletes/Drew's sake.

Hopefully this run conversation on the World famous message boards have helped out TME, Covid, athletes...

does 3:50 mile mean anything to you

dxttfdtdr wrote:

Congrats Drew on your new indoor PB

Hunter ran the equivalent of 3:37.1 last year in a time trial. That said, I think he can run 3:36/3:53 eventually but it'll be hard pressed for him to make a team. He ų move up to the 5000. Could he pop off a random 12:56 like Ritz? No doubt. Will it ever be for a medal? Probably not.

Alexi Santana wrote:

Right out of high school he signed a contract worth more than almost any distance runner has signed coming out of the NCAA. Yet you are saying he should have gone to school (where you think he would not have dominated) then signed his contract after that? Even with a standard good contract out of college that would have cost him millions of dollars.

Drew Hunter had a tough decision to make: take the money and run (literally), or go to college and hope that though his body breaks down a lot, he'd be offered even 1/10th that amount of money upon graduation. I bet he's dealing with an injury right now, and if so, at least he owns the house in which he'll be living in while recovering.

None of us who aren't wealthy already would have turned down funny money from adidas. It really (probably) isn't that much money Drew's making, compared to a benchwarmer in the NBA, say, but it must be a hell of a lot more than what most pro runners are offered. And the guy is set for life, if he's wise with his finances (as I'd bet he is, based on what we see of his personality).

I don't understand why people are so surprised here. At the end of his HS career, Hunter had to make a choice - either accept a lot of money, chasing his dream or go to college, knowing that he probably will never win any NCAA title, live a poor life and be offered maybe 1/10 of what he got in his post-HS deal. For me, that's an easy choice - take the money and live the dream life.

One reason he was so good in HS was that he received very good training compared to the rest of the high schoolers. Most HS coaches are not very good coaches, think we can all agree on that. The good training he received from Tinman (and his parents, but which were also influenced by Tinman) allowed him to be better in HS than similarly talented runners. He probably never had the talent to become an Olympic champion, it's the training that made him so good.

Often people compared him to Grant Fisher here, who is roughly similar age and Hunter beat quite a few times during HS. What people fail to understand is that Fisher ran a MAXIMUM of 50 mpw in HS, and his coach assigned him no speed work until the track season of his senior year in HS. They stated this in multiple interviews. Meanwhile, Hunter did tons of CV and threshold training, which are highly effective, on 70-75 mpw as a senior. In HS, they ran similar times with the respective types of training. It should be a no-brainer to guess who will be better down the road, regardless of what career (early pro, college, etc.) being chosen.

No, Hunter would not be a 3:30 runner now had he chosen NCAA. And Fisher wouldn't have stagnated would he have gone pro after HS. Each runners development is individual, Hunter was likely overvalued by sponsors after HS because they didn't understand that his training was just better than other similarly talented HS kids, and he was never the ultra super talent that has an actual shot at winning Olympic medals.

Also, Hunter seems to be extremely prone to injury. He was never injured in HS, because the training load was not at an elite level yet. He is certainly very talented, but injury-resistance is just as big of importance. Think about Solinsky, maybe he didn't have the fastest 1500/Mile times in HS, but he could pound 100+ mile weeks at sub 6 pace year after year. Hunters training load increased after HS, and it seems his breaking point is very low compared to other elite runners.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Hunter had to make a choice - either accept a lot of money, chasing his dream or go to college, knowing that he probably will never win any NCAA title, live a poor life

Live a poor life?

Dude, you are spouting crap as usual.

ghubb wrote:

OldManRunners wrote:

I get frustrated, as a fan, when American talent like his goes to waste. He should have won that race. The kid ran a 3:57 mile in highschool for crying out loud. How is he SLOWER now than in HS? If you're injured, why are you racing? If you're not 100%, why race in a nationally televised race and tarnish your brand?

I don’t think he’s that talented. I think the unique thing about him was that he was able to reach his potential at a young age. He has never been pleasant to watch; it’s a wonder he’s as fast as he is.

The problem with Tinmans coaching is that the concept of 'keeping the ball rolling' means you hold back on the intensity of the workouts, and the positive is that you are able to do more volum. Except, they are not. It's what the ingebrigtsens does, controlled intervals/tempo,but then twice the amount of work because they are running at or below treshold. If you wanna do it easy, then you have to do more. Doubles should be an everyday thing.

looks like he just hasnt done enough work at race pace. started strong, but he looked rough at 800m

tresh ftw? wrote:

ghubb wrote:

I don’t think he’s that talented. I think the unique thing about him was that he was able to reach his potential at a young age. He has never been pleasant to watch; it’s a wonder he’s as fast as he is.

The problem with Tinmans coaching is that the concept of 'keeping the ball rolling' means you hold back on the intensity of the workouts, and the positive is that you are able to do more volum. Except, they are not. It's what the ingebrigtsens does, controlled intervals/tempo,but then twice the amount of work because they are running at or below treshold. If you wanna do it easy, then you have to do more. Doubles should be an everyday thing.

Exactly. What’s the point of ending a 1200 repeat workout in 3 minutes if the first was in 4 minutes? And if you only do 4 of them?

Tinman doesn’t do enough work at race pace.

AND HE (LateRunnerPhil) DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!! Hahaha

“...he beat quite a few times in high school.” My god, just when I started feeling sorry for Drew and his pathetic followers, they just start blatantly lying. What does “quite a few times” mean to most people? 6? 8? To LateRunnerPhil, it means 2. That’s right- quite a few is actually LESS that a few.

Drew beat Grant exactly once in all high school competition (the 2 Mile win by <1 sec), and once a couple weeks later at US Juniors (were he was 2nd and Grant was 3rd). Zero other times.

Grant beat Drew handily in cross country to defend his FLN title... then defended his indoor mile title in 4:03 hitting the rail, nearly going down, and jogging it in (Drew ducked Grant and ran the 2 Mile, and BARELY won that race)... then beat Drew again without trouble to defend his outdoor Mile title in 4:02.

You are correct in that Drew trained harder/more than Grant in high school. Hell, Grant didn’t completely quit playing soccer until after his junior track season.

But are you now implying that you expected Grant would be ahead of Drew at this point... and that Drew basically never had a shot at becoming world class? Talk about moving the goal posts- Sheesh!

So much hate on this thread. I hope he doesn't read lrc boards because you guys have an obsession with trashing him and his group. It's an olympic year and you guys think he should be running record times in a event he didn't make the team on two years ago. Simple.

haha - YES!

To everyone saying Drew was smart to take the money.... You are wrong. The Hunter family is filthy rich. They live in one of the wealthiest areas in the country. They didn't need it.

Drew missed out on the College experience. To most college runners, that is priceless. His development has been bad. 18 is too young for the sport to be a job. And sticking with Tinman has been a big mistake.

He would have been much happier, and faster, had he not gone pro.

Why are people acting like Drew's adidas contract is making him incredibly rich? Yes, he's making good money for a pro runner, but he is NOT set for life after a decade of making a solid middle class salary. He will certainly need to get another good job afterwards to maintain his standard of living.

For example, I'm sure Fisher's earning potential is much higher than Drew's when looking at his current Nike contract and any job he could get after his running career with his Stanford degree. Now, I don't know what kind of grades Hunter was getting, but I'm sure nearly any school would have made it work for a 3:57 high school miler.

` wrote:

Why are people acting like Drew's adidas contract is making him incredibly rich? Yes, he's making good money for a pro runner, but he is NOT set for life after a decade of making a solid middle class salary. He will certainly need to get another good job afterwards to maintain his standard of living.

For example, I'm sure Fisher's earning potential is much higher than Drew's when looking at his current Nike contract and any job he could get after his running career with his Stanford degree. Now, I don't know what kind of grades Hunter was getting, but I'm sure nearly any school would have made it work for a 3:57 high school miler.

It's not just the contract, it also allowed him to turn his team "Tinman Elite" into a marketing machine and create a brand that's followed by several 100k runners. Anytime they release a new t-shirt it's being sold out in minutes. As NCAA runner he would have been 1 of many many runners, not even allowed to make money in specific ways.

Hunter might not run as fast as Fisher and some others right now. But he managed to build a huge brand, gets consistent income through various sources (hell, the TME guys even sell coaching to HS kids) and has an interesting story to tell as a runner. To me, that's not bad at all. Or in other words - given his talent level, he got a hell lot more out of it than others, and is even making substantially more money than people with higher talent than him.