What could drew hunter do different to be competitive to make teams

Drew is a loss-leader for Adidas. They win every time someone pays attention to him.

He was fastest as a high schooler, just like most of us. He's got a hard ceiling because of his biomechanics. Too klunky to go any faster, too fragile to go any further.

Slagowski might have let him into his house, but now Drew is never going to leave.

Better training partners is first. Go somewhere where you have to earn your dues and go against faster people every day. Second is to change up the training. Double thresholds or not: don't ruin the training effect by adding 4 200s at much higher speed at the end. High volume of intervals at 5-10k pace like Bowerman and real speed workouts, or all Ingebrigtsen with lactate measures and 1 hr, not 30 minute pace, plus the weekly all out hill repeats and the seasonal 10x300m at 1500m pace type workouts. The current framework gets him injured and keeps him from improving, though health alone will allow marginal improvements to the 13:10-15 range.

4:26 1600m at a mile of altitude doesn't sound that hard to you or indicate 8:25 3k?

Drop adidas. I think he would thrive under dathan

There are three things being under-appreciated in this thread:

1. Drew was sick during this race. We shouldn't over-analyze this performance.

2. His top performances are actually quite good (3:34 for 1500, making Worlds team in 5K) so IMO it's not that he needs to run harder to get to the top, but instead needs to figure out a way to be more consistent. Like other posters have suggested this may be as simple as staying healthy.

3. Drew is obviously very talented but not the generational talent like Grant Fisher is. They ran similar times in high school but with Drew training very hard/intelligently while Grant basically ran sub-4 off of soccer practice and some 400's. We shouldn't penalize Drew for being on top of his training in HS and maxing out his effort better than most of his peers did.

Yeah I feel like the best case scenario for Drew would be being a more consistent runner and that 3:32/13:05 are probably his ceiling times.

I posted about this months ago. Everyone is going round and round about his training mileage, talent, contract, etc... Drew NEEDS to join a group that will push him both physically and mentally, but ALSO support him physically and mentally. There are a few groups he can reach out to, but he needs to do it himself.

The clock is ticking.

He gets no benefit from his feet off the track. Never gets half way off his toes.

He's a plodder. A fast plodder

Maybe he can spend some time improving that. Its like he's running in sand

I agree with what a lot have said here. I would like to add that I don’t think it was a bad idea to take the money he was offered. Most will never make that ever in our sport.

However, for as much as people say the NCAA system is doo doo, It works and is stupid competitive right now. Good college coaches keep the show ponies healthy because that is how they get paid/ keep their jobs. Could Drew win any event at NCAAs right now? I don’t think he’d be top 3. College runner has a lot of advantages. A trainer everyday, team mates, competition, a set schedule.

Tinman training is great to a point but the people running fast right now are training really really hard. Someone said earlier Jakobs training doesn’t match his racing times, the dude does 5 hard sessions and a long run weekly!

Improve

Have you seen his girlfriend? Drew Hunter is doing quite well.

Not if you look at it this way:

- James Harden, 13y / $200m
- Derrick Rose, 14y / $185m
- Damien Lillard, 10y / $100m
- Lionel Messi, $27m annually for life
- MLS, 6y / $700m
- $38m annually for Italian soccer kit
- $46m annually for German soccer kit
- etc, etc

Different sports, yes, but running is just one (relatively small) division of this corporate behemoth. Drew Hunter was never an investment for Adidas, he is just one of literally thousands of sponsored athletes (think any NCAA team exclusive to Adidas as well) they use to keep their logo in your face. Not one person at Adidas HQ has ever heard of Drew Hunter.

I would have liked to seen what Ron Warhurst could have done for Drew, but I assume that ship (and many other ships) have sailed, now that he has a kid on the way.

adidas is losing every penny they spent on drew hunter. one of the worst investments they ever made. Even when he made a world team, he blew it by getting a stress fracture.

He ran 3:35.90 in 2018. He ran 3:34.86 in 2022, and 2 seconds of that was from new shoe technology. So he has actually gotten slower.

Somehow he's always sick or hurt. I'm beginning to think it's not real, it's just his go-to excuse for a crappy race.

Hunter is the smartest runner in the sport.

My biomechanics are so buttery smooth that I can run a 3:40 mile....

Not how it works.

1) There's always an excuse when it comes to the TME boys' races
2) He's run under 3:36 twice, ever. He's only got under 3:39 twice in 4years. You're saying he needs to be consistent, I think you're giving him too much credit and those were just outliers. If you look through his entire racing history, he's realistically a 3:39 guy who rarely has had the odd race pop off.

It is crazy how wrong this is.

Running 3:30 DOES. NOT. SELL. SHOES.

Having a successful social media presence does.

Go to any high school meet I guarantee there will be a few kids wearing Tinman/Addidas gear. No other pro runner/group will have gear there. Criticize Drew's running all you want but he has done extremely well for addidas at selling shoes and I believe they are likely quite pleased with him in fact.

then give that money to a social media influencer, because Drew isn't exactly getting much screen time in the front of races, and TME seem less and less keen to publish videos on YT consistently

on the other hand, I still think you're wrong - Eliud moves a lot of product for Nike, I'm sure Asics has seen an uptick since signing Katir. Drew doesn't need to run 3:30, but he does need to start being visible/competitive/winning races