He just got his doctorate a couple days ago on March 25th
He just got his doctorate a couple days ago on March 25th
1) It's now common to finish a PhD with a manuscript in preparation/submitted etc. Given the length of the peer review these days a lot of programs give you leeway with the "first author publication" rule. I don't think it's fair to comment on his doctoral work without without actually analyzing it.
2) I - repeating myself - never understood why people mix private and professional stuff on their social media. I guess it's a good lesson for you older folks who are new to the game.
Met him in person and the way I recall he said he was doing a Ph.D. at University of Chicago.
I did not see the "Concordia" part until this thread. Could have been an oversight.
As far as "Dr." is concerned, that title is not bestowed until the dissertation is successfully defended--which if his graduating this spring, would have been some time since January.
And re: publications, he has been on some publications in the past, but Ph.D. research is often not published until later. Sometime there are lead articles, but a lot of the time the graduate school/committee want the work vetted through them first. So it would not be surprising to not to see his researched published for even for another year or two.
I would like to address some comments on this thread accusing Tom Schwartz of being a racist.
I have been coached by him and spoken extensively with him about the sport. Tom Schwartz has a passion for the science of running and developing athletes. One’s skin color, gender and ethnic background mean absolutely NOTHING to him. As a Hispanic raised in a Spanish speaking household, I have never for a moment been treated differently by Tom.
However, I did notice Tom cares deeply about an athlete’s willingness to work hard, follow the program, do the little things etc. Tom constantly stressed the importance of these virtues, in order to be a coachable athlete. We are lucky to have someone as brilliant and passionate as Tom in our sport, but there is no place for those who throw wild accusations in an act of desperation.
Dr. Tom Schwartz has put his entire life into the science of running and has established himself as a household name in the sport. In respect for his hard work and accomplishments in our beloved sport, he certainly deserves what is his and only his: “TINMAN.”
-Collegiate Runner in the WCC & Former Tinman athlete.
xczvzxcv wrote:
In response to the claim that Tinman was maybe on the spectrum, I watched an interview he did last year with strydr or something like that. He's fine and very knowledgeable and detail-oriented so you can see how he is so successful with his athletes, but he does go on and eventually gets very dogmatic about the workout issue, some of which he is just dead wrong about. Specifically, you can cavil about the notion that you get all you need from shortening a workout and adding short sprints. You could point to more successful groups and whole countries (Kenya, Ethiopia) that do much more volume in intervals. Bowerman is a good example. They don't stop at 5x800 and then add 4x200. They have 10-12x800. Kenyans will often do 10-15x1k (usually marathoners, but not all). Then too they will do serious speed sessions. Tinman says that no one uses anything better than mile speed at the end of a 5000m or 10000m, but the best guys in the world go as fast as their 600m-800m pace in the last lap of races. It is common for us to see closes of 51-53 seconds at the end of a 5000m or even 10000m. Lagat, who never ran faster than 1:46 in the 800m despite many attempts closed a 12:59 5000m over Bekele in 51 (1:42 pace). Mo closed a 14 something 5000m in 49-50. So, it is the case that many distance runners go substantially faster than mile pace at the end of their races. It is also the case that many of the best do much faster speedwork. Ethiopians will do full spiked up short sprints at the end of their easy runs and workouts. Not too surprising that they often have the best kicks in the business. Salazar had his 5k/10k guys running 49-50s in workouts, which was not much above their theoretical pr's and certainly equivalent or better than their 600m times. There is also a major benefit to going at paces faster than you would in your race in practice because it makes any given pace slower than that easier, more efficient, more powerful, and improves your change of pace. So, sometimes the dogma Tinman expressed was simply false and held his athletes back, while overall he had fantastic results with runners on the upswing until they were at the pro level and needed more.
Cheptegei closed a 26:49 10k in 55.
Cheptegei has a 3:37 1500m.
Bingo, this is my main criticism of Tinman.
The idea that some people in the Tinman camp about sprint work is just wrong, and I feel it's mostly because the training principles they have come only from Tinman and not from elsewhere. As if he's the foremost scientific expert on training in the world, and everything else is suboptimal because that's the way that the man communicates his opinions.
The thing about sprint work is that it's not just about training that tiny percent of the race that's supposed to help you "kick." It's also simply about improving your absolute top speed and training all of the systems used in a race. I think most in the Tinman camp think that's a waste of time and energy when you can get the efficiency you "need" from 800m - 1 mile race pace. But what about when you need to run 400 pace or faster in a race? You've never practiced it because it's a waste of time, and now you can't run with good form, power, or efficiency at faster than 800 pace because you simply don't have it.
Hate to quote this guy, but Salazar had the perfect explanation for doing sprint work:
“Here’s how to think of it… If Mo never does any sprint training, he may only run 51.5 for 400m. With good speed training, he runs 49.5. If 13:00 is 62.5, that means he will be working at 80% of his top end rather than 83%. Only 3%, but at his level, that is a huge difference.”
Don't get me wrong, I still think Tinman knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to developing athletes. Based on what he's done the idea is reinforced that Americans at almost all levels tend to have woefully underdeveloped aerobic systems and that's precisely what Tinman focuses on year-round. That should be what most distance runners do for 80 - 90% of the year before they specialize and do more event-specific work.
And where does it say “Tinman” on the coaching website? You may conflate the two but it holds no water.
kipudgy wrote:
the beagle wrote:
One more reflective thought...
I think the issue that Tammy (and by extension, probably Tom) had with the "Hammer and Axe" training programs from some of the team adds insight into one of the underlying problems. She was adamant that this was theft of Tom's coaching. The thing is, coaching is about a LOT more than just a training calendar in a spreadsheet. Perhaps that lack of understanding permeated through this whole debacle.
If I had to guess I’d say she wasn’t as concerned about recycling of training principles (which some might say are derivative anyway) as much as people going to the *Tinman* Elite website for coaching and getting people other than Tinman himself. The name is the real problem in the end.
I'm in agreement that TME should rebrand this year and drop the Tinman name, for what it's worth. But I don't agree that Tom/Tammy only took issue with them advertising it from the "Tinman Elite" website - it was clearly about the content of the training as well:
"Fact: Coach Tinman has nothing to do with the Hammer & Axe training plans or $$ gained from them. They are cookie cutter plans derived from what they have learned from Tinman. Do you really think these guys have the credentials to Coach your middle school kids or high school kids. Heck no! Tinman has credentials and proven experience with results. PhD in Health & Human Performance/Exercise Science, USATF Level 3 in: Youth Specialization and Endurance Coaching, plus Level 5 IAAF Elite Endurance Certification and former collegiate coaching. None of the Tinman Elite runners have any experience coaching, nor credentials. They are using a dummied down version of Coach Tinman’s training just to make $. They were told to not use Coach Tinman’s training methods for their personal gains financially."
I would like to be able to just use a school outdoor track in boulder on a weekday without having the police show up. It was very possible when the little kids were home due to covid and the covid dial thing was on rainbow colors, but now it’s no longer possible. Is that too much to ask?
the beagle wrote:
kipudgy wrote:
They were told to not use Coach Tinman’s training methods for their personal gains financially."
what is this supposed to mean? I get not wanting your athletes to recycle what you give them to others, but what gives? If this is reflective of the truth, why is the idea of having some patent-protected workout scheme and paces even crossing a coach's mind? Leave that to the high school and college coaches.
Every coach that haves a significant impact on the sport does it to push the sport forward and make it better for everyone. Imagine if Vigil was cagey about his training methods.
This really is much ado about nothing. Maybe that is the saddest part of it. None of the parties involved are particularly important figures in the sport. And of course the sport itself is not considered to be important.
Radio Silence wrote:
Remember when people were taking TME's silence as an admission of guilt at the beginning of this? They then proceeded to put out a professional statement within a couple of days and moved on?
Curious that Team Schwartz has been completely absent (or at least seemingly so...) since the screenshots of Tammy's burner accounts and the letter from TMTC have been posted. If Team Schwartz chooses to put out an equally professional statement apologizing for the selective truths and Tom's clear shortcomings as a coach, then fair play. Regardless of which 'side' you're on, that seems to be their best play at the moment.
If not, then their immediate disappearance from the boards as soon as information contrary to their narrative should be the most telling part of all of this.
I agree, its incredible how bad the Schwartz camp fumbled all this that the Tinman group comes out looking good....
If Tinman the group can do one thing good, its they understand how the internet and social media works.
dhdj wrote:
This really is much ado about nothing. Maybe that is the saddest part of it. None of the parties involved are particularly important figures in the sport. And of course the sport itself is not considered to be important.
Boulder more about escalating real estate prices for tech bros than accommodating serious training lolz
shootpost wrote:
Radio Silence wrote:
Remember when people were taking TME's silence as an admission of guilt at the beginning of this? They then proceeded to put out a professional statement within a couple of days and moved on?
Curious that Team Schwartz has been completely absent (or at least seemingly so...) since the screenshots of Tammy's burner accounts and the letter from TMTC have been posted. If Team Schwartz chooses to put out an equally professional statement apologizing for the selective truths and Tom's clear shortcomings as a coach, then fair play. Regardless of which 'side' you're on, that seems to be their best play at the moment.
If not, then their immediate disappearance from the boards as soon as information contrary to their narrative should be the most telling part of all of this.
I agree, its incredible how bad the Schwartz camp fumbled all this that the Tinman group comes out looking good....
If Tinman the group can do one thing good, its they understand how the internet and social media works.
They clearly don’t understand how the internet and social media work nearly as well as you think they do — a group that prides itself on and boasts about their connection to the running community thought they could avoid mentioning the fact that they fired their coach for MONTHS in the lead up to the biggest American meet in 5 years.
Radio Silence wrote:
Remember when people were taking TME's silence as an admission of guilt at the beginning of this? They then proceeded to put out a professional statement within a couple of days and moved on?
Curious that Team Schwartz has been completely absent (or at least seemingly so...) since the screenshots of Tammy's burner accounts and the letter from TMTC have been posted. If Team Schwartz chooses to put out an equally professional statement apologizing for the selective truths and Tom's clear shortcomings as a coach, then fair play. Regardless of which 'side' you're on, that seems to be their best play at the moment.
If not, then their immediate disappearance from the boards as soon as information contrary to their narrative should be the most telling part of all of this.
Tinman's statement to Letsrun is literally in the article that Rojo posted that started this whole thread.
Astride Lapped Miler's ex wrote:
FartKing69 wrote:
* UNDENIABLY TRUE: Tom's wife jumped into the thread and delivered a, how do you say unhinged series of rants.
Uh, not undeniably true. You can contest the specifics, but by the standard of Letsrun, her post was - how do you say it? - positively reserved in its tone.
There is nothing reserved about going onto an online running messageboard to take on a bunch of anonymous posters by ripping on people that your husband used to provide coaching services for. She was very insulting to the team in her rant, and it was classless.
iykyk wrote:
"Here is the full letter sent to Coach Schwartz from the Boulder TTC:
Dear Coach,
A lot of us were drawn to you and the idea of Tinman Track Club because we are working professionals who have unfinished stories, and we sought out a coach who had not only the knowledge to provide elite level training, but also individualized training plans in order for each of us to reach our maximum potential.
Over the last several months, without a conversation or a reduction in price, we were moved to a team training plan on Final Surge, and then ultimately had to ask you each day for the workout when our Final Surge was empty. In addition, when we reached out for the workouts the night before, you often made it seem as if it were an inconvenience and that you were too busy to provide this information to us. This resulted in two issues: first, it is difficult to mentally and physically prepare for workouts when we don’t know what we will be doing until we arrive to practice, and secondly, many team members simply stopped asking for workouts or felt as though they were walking on eggshells when they reached out.
Multiple times, we have communicated that it is challenging for the majority of the team to make it to Broomfield for workouts, when our jobs require us to be on the clock at 9 am (or prior). Due to this, for most of the fall, a lot of us missed out on being coached in person by you because we simply could not make it to Broomfield, and you were unwilling to come to Boulder. When the majority of our team, and Tinman Elite, live between Boulder and Longmont, a 30-40 minute commute one way is simply inconvenient and expensive. Furthermore, numerous people joined Tinman Track Club with the expectation to be training with a team in Boulder.
Ultimately, we feel as though we were not a priority to you; we were always falling behind Tinman Elite, your dissertation, and various other high school, junior high, and remote athletes. This is highlighted by confrontations with multiple team members when they asked for bare minimum coaching, you failing to show up to or ask about races that team members competed in throughout the fall, and forcing us to participate in your dissertation, even when it wasn’t to our benefit and quite possibly to the detriment of several team members.
This decision does not come lightly, but we are each making the decision based on our own personal best interest. We wish you the best of luck in your future coaching endeavors.
Sincerely,
Boulder TTC"
The only response to this email was "Good luck!"
I'm a lowly hobby jogger, but this list of grievances squares pretty well with my experience as a Tinman "personal coaching" client. I've said it on other threads in the past, but the feeling of any question/clarification you may have being met with sort of an annoyed tone and incomplete/partial answers was par for the course. That along with a general feeling that he wasn't giving much thought to you and probably wasn't paying too much attention. I had assumed it was probably different for his more prestigious clients but maybe not...
They clearly don’t understand how the internet and social media work nearly as well as you think they do — a group that prides itself on and boasts about their connection to the running community thought they could avoid mentioning the fact that they fired their coach for MONTHS in the lead up to the biggest American meet in 5 years.
I don't have Instagram/Twitter/Facebook and so only hear about TME on this site and occasionally a YouTube video. As a fan of the sport, I do believe that SM could be an effective tool for growing its popularity and so, out of curiosity, just decided to check out their SM pages. I'm shocked at how relatively small their reach is, particularly after all of the talk about their SM savvy, content creation, etc.
For comparison, I occasionally keep tabs on the trail runner Zach Miller, whom I used to compete against in D3 and so have a general interest in. I would think that Miller would not possibly be in the same sphere as a media-savvy, up-and-coming group of Olympic hopefuls, but I guess I was wrong:
Instagram:
80k followers: @zachmiller38
78k followers: @tinmanelite
55k followers: @drewhunter00
27k followers: @par_sam_sons
Additionally, in December Billy Yang did a YouTube video on Miller ("In Relentless Pursuit of His Best") which currently has 340k views. TME's most popular video from the same month ("*Sub 13:20 Race*) has 68k views.
I don't have a strong opinion of TME one way or another. I was just really surprised that, despite being labeled as the SM darlings of T&F, they really have a pretty small following.
dhdj wrote:
This really is much ado about nothing. Maybe that is the saddest part of it. None of the parties involved are particularly important figures in the sport. And of course the sport itself is not considered to be important.
You haven't read the thread. There's information about the business side of professional running in general. This is a little but rich business case covering entrepreneurship, sponsorship, branding, IP, PR, family and friend involvement, and managing human resources.
There's the attempt to control the narrative by Tinman's wife that forced TME to issue a statement.
Attempts to derail the possiblity of a serious discussion with heated accusations of extremist political views and old man bigotry, which was stopped. The result was that some involved actually felt it was worthwhile to share meaningful information with everyone.
Also, Tinman was a prominant poster on this site and no doubt some of the support here is because of his many contributions at that time.
Drew Hunter was for short while the next Great While Hope of American middle distance racing and it's not worked out so far but there's still time.
John Macardle wrote:
Astride Lapped Miler's ex wrote:
Uh, not undeniably true. You can contest the specifics, but by the standard of Letsrun, her post was - how do you say it? - positively reserved in its tone.
There is nothing reserved about going onto an online running messageboard to take on a bunch of anonymous posters by ripping on people that your husband used to provide coaching services for. She was very insulting to the team in her rant, and it was classless.
+1
Does anybody know how Laterunnerphil is taking this?