What is missing from Tinman training? Is it speed development, hard intervals, harder intervals, race pace, etc?
The results seem solid, there haven’t been many racing opportunities this year, but everyone is acting like their results are terrible.
Also what are the main events for each runner? At first I thought 1500 was the main club focus.
Focus from the athletes, a will to evolve, from the coach.
2020 Version wrote:
What is missing from Tinman training? Is it speed development, hard intervals, harder intervals, race pace, etc?
The results seem solid, there haven’t been many racing opportunities this year, but everyone is acting like their results are terrible.
Also what are the main events for each runner? At first I thought 1500 was the main club focus.
RACE PACE
What's missing from Tinman training is a good coach
Hunter ran a PR, it's not like they he's falling apart or anything. I haven't dug down too deeply into the results to see how the rest of the guys did relative to their best times.
Watching Hunter get outkicked repeatedly though makes me wonder the same thing. That being said, would it be more acceptable if he didn't run a PR, but had more left for a kick to beat inferior opponents?
They lack periodization.
CV pace isn’t even that bad of a theory, many coaches prescribe 10k pace work. But I don’t think that CV pace should be emphasized over threshold work, especially for 5k-10k guys.
If you have a base phase where 10k guys are doing 10k pace work, it’s not much different than what they do in season. For guys running 1500, 10k work is much easier and easily applicable during the base phase.
For 5k-10k guys, it’s better to work on both ends of the spectrum. AKA a lot of threshold and marathon paced work, and throw in some short 200s at mile pace and hill sprints with long rest.
I don’t think they prioritize actual speed development. Sprinting, sled pulls, hill sprints. I used to follow them on Instagram and would see them post videos about their extensive hill work, but it seemed to always be long hills. Those have a place, but not really that important compared to the benefit you can get from short hill sprints.
I don’t know too much of the details I’ll admit, but the best athletes have long build ups to a peak race, usually 20-24 weeks, twice a year. This theory allows for the traditional base, pre comp, peak phases that almost all coaches use, albeit with different names.
Tinman however seems to have an almost continuous training plan where peak races get a couple weeks of harder work, and not much time off after.
I’m all for innovation in training. I think far too many coaches do things just because that’s how they’ve been taught, so I commend Tom for putting himself out there, but I do think the traditional build up is superior.
I don’t think they do enough mileage either. Obviously this is very individual, but you can’t be a world beater running 80 miles a week. The top guys are almost always around 120. Higher volume allows for more intense and higher volume workouts.
I think someone, maybe Han Solo or Working Stiff, posted the training logs of some of the athletes. The workouts are very monotonous, almost the same thing every week. I believe the body needs constant variables at the highest level of competition, and doing the same workouts week in week out arent going to achieve much benefit.
For younger, less experienced athletes you can do the same 4 mile tempo a week and get much better, but it just doesn’t cut at the the higher levels.
2020 Version wrote:
What is missing from Tinman training? Is it speed development, hard intervals, harder intervals, race pace, etc?
The results seem solid, there haven’t been many racing opportunities this year, but everyone is acting like their results are terrible.
Also what are the main events for each runner? At first I thought 1500 was the main club focus.
Races. From what I have read about Tinman's approach, I think it works for people who race regularly. This is one reason why it has been successful for high schoolers.
Multiple PRs this year despite having no funding or truly professional training facilities is "missing"?
Elite running is very hard. What did people expect of Hunter, that he just shows up and becomes a National Champion?
Tinman is only working with the talent level of athletes he was given. While Gidabuday, Barazza, Winter, Berritoua, Fischer, etc. are all strong runners, you wouldn't think of them as "the next BIG thing" or "super talent" when they joined TME. Hunter is pretty much coached by Schwartz since he was a HS kid so self-made.
People are expecting TME to perform like Nike/US Army or other powerhouses and set the running world on fire, when anyone who is informed about running knows about the talent level of the athletes in TME and their potential.
His training does work well. In the addition to the good performance of his elite runners, TTC (Tinman Track club) had good results and his HS kids are delivering week after week. Don't understand the criticism, or the unreal expectations of TME runners like they are apparently supposed to medal in any National T&F championship.
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
TTC (Tinman Track club) had good results
Tinman literally just had an Instagram post the other day about how his TTC athletes all ran like crap at a marathon in DC over the weekend, but justified it because the conditions were "compromised by proximately 4.5%". This isn't the first time Tinman has done something similar, either. It's easy to say your athletes are running well when you can always come up with BS reasons for why they're not running well. If he was a good coach he wouldn't need these justifications, the times and results would speak for themselves
He has a bunch of athletes that were All-American in college. That's a very high talent level.
There's not one athlete in his group where I'm saying "wow, I never thought he could run that fast"
Everyone is improving by very small margins. Just getting older and training at altitude contributes more to their improvements than Tinman's workouts.