OK, so clearly you have kept yourself apprised of their race results and likely their weekly training.
From a debate perspective, you left a gaping hole, you clearly chose to leave out all data regarding their performances. I am familiar with *most* their performances in those races, and they were pretty ugly. The steeple times would have barely qualified for NCAA regionals top 48. On the top end of Tinman's squad, the best steeple performance would barely have a shot to contend to make it out of regionals.
Tori-Can she qualify for NCAAs this year as a "pro"? I had never heard of her until this board brought her up in relation to TME.
Will you please post with the data on those races you alluded to so everyone can get a proper perspective on where they stand now in comparison to prior years?
Let's allow everyone to make an evaluation off of objective data. To be fair most people here don't waste their time looking up every single race, and also to be fair, I did see the results on most of those races, but definitely not every single one.
I have Instagram though...if there was a major result, I am sure I would have seen updates on the IG.
TME in 2023 so far: Goose - 10,000m PR, HM PR Drew - Mile PR in his main event, as a new parent Connor - HM PR while returning from surgery Brian - HM PR & within 5s of 3000m PR Joey - 5,000m PR, 10,000m PR Austin - i1500m PR, iMile PR, Mile PR Jermaine - bad SC result, but first race in 10months Tori - iMile PR Reed - within 15s of HM PR while juggling wife's cancer treatment Aaron - coming back from injuries Sam - has covid Brogan - ??
If you want any more details, look it up yourself. No one is saying they're going to be medalling at Worlds, but to OP's point, "Some of the guys are getting actively worse while some seem to have disappeared entirely" is clearly untrue. They're active, they're progressing, some people just like to jump on the trend of crapping on this team.
I’m not going to say they aren’t improving, but mile PRs that are inferior to their old 1500m times, and PRs in races they’ve rarely run just isn’t that impressive. Drew’s mile has improved exactly 3s since HS, 7 years ago. I doubt he’s completely satisfied being a 3:54.8 miler. Drew’s a nice guy by all accounts, but let’s not pretend that this situation has worked out for him as everyone had hoped.
Drew Hunter has a side job outside of running and is now a dad.
Sam Parsons hasn't raced in months and seems to just be lobbying for a sports marketing job once he stops being able to even make German teams (half the time doesn't race once he makes the team anyway).
We're now celebrating "2nd fastest season opener ever" and the "rookie" on the team is 27 years old. Some of the guys are getting actively worse while some seem to have disappeared entirely. The group seems to have killed more careers than it has propelled.
Are most of the guys just working in the basement peddling merch these days between sessions on the eliptigo?
Also, hilarious that all their friends and significant others are "photographers" and "designers" for the team. Wow, here's a black and white photo of someone running. Here's a super close up shot! Wow, I moved the logo from the left side to the center and made it a little bigger, we better sell this thoughtfully designed merch immediately.
Big fan of Reed Fischer though, and he's doing awesome lately.
And yes, before the teens come in here, they're all faster than I ever was. I only ran 29:xx and 14:2x.
Was with you til the humblebrag. Who cares what you've run?
I'll admit I thought Tinman was pretty cool back in 2018 and 2019... I bought one of their first lines of merch, but pretty quickly realized it's pretty expensive and all kind of pointless. I'm genuinely surprised they've found it profitable to continue dropping more and more lines of merch. How much further can they go before they completely exhaust that vein?
I think the TME guys probably feel like they have a chip on their shoulder because of all the criticism they get online. If they feel entitled to that, that's fine. I'm just not that interested in their brand. I wonder if they'll continue to pull interest from HSers in the future, or people will lose interest. Branding yourself as a group of elites, yet consistently not being elite, is just not good branding.
Pretty much everything this group does is stolen or disingenuous.
One of them heard that podcast with coach Mike Smith referencing the Japanese proverb, Chop Wood, Carry Water, and now that’s their new motto plastered everywhere.
Thru started doing double threshold workouts (exact replicas of Jakob Ing) when that was coming out last year. The coach of a “professional” running team is just copying workouts and hoping something sticks.
Perhaps the most egregious fabrication was in some hypebeast article that described them as some of the best runners in the world.
HAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHH you're such a drama queen. "they'll be gone like the autumn leaves" they're a group of guys doing what they love missy. I'm sure their fans care about the slag they get on this website but yk who doesn't? They don't.
HAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHH you're such a drama queen. "they'll be gone like the autumn leaves" they're a group of guys doing what they love missy. I'm sure their fans care about the slag they get on this website but yk who doesn't? They don't.
There is a certain ‘boy band’ element to it. They should really segway into a dance troupe. I’ll bet there YouTube hits would increase 1000%.
Pretty much everything this group does is stolen or disingenuous.
One of them heard that podcast with coach Mike Smith referencing the Japanese proverb, Chop Wood, Carry Water, and now that’s their new motto plastered everywhere.
They started doing double threshold workouts (exact replicas of Jakob Ing) when that was coming out last year. The coach of a “professional” running team is just copying workouts and hoping something sticks.
Perhaps the most egregious fabrication was in some hypebeast article that described them as some of the best runners in the world.
This has more or less always been Joan's MO. The LVHS championship teams were using Tinman training supplemented with the latest fad of training, sometimes lifted straight from these very message boards.
The double threshold workouts- like mentioned above, exact replicas of what Jakob Ingebrigtsen's- really made me raise an eyebrow when they started them within a week or so of a lengthy thread about them on letsrun.
I think almost everyone agrees that Drew is a good guy. He's just made a number of wrong turns in his career that have prevented him from reaching his full potential.
Drew Hunter has a side job outside of running and is now a dad.
Sam Parsons hasn't raced in months and seems to just be lobbying for a sports marketing job once he stops being able to even make German teams (half the time doesn't race once he makes the team anyway).
We're now celebrating "2nd fastest season opener ever" and the "rookie" on the team is 27 years old. Some of the guys are getting actively worse while some seem to have disappeared entirely. The group seems to have killed more careers than it has propelled.
Are most of the guys just working in the basement peddling merch these days between sessions on the eliptigo?
Also, hilarious that all their friends and significant others are "photographers" and "designers" for the team. Wow, here's a black and white photo of someone running. Here's a super close up shot! Wow, I moved the logo from the left side to the center and made it a little bigger, we better sell this thoughtfully designed merch immediately.
Big fan of Reed Fischer though, and he's doing awesome lately.
And yes, before the teens come in here, they're all faster than I ever was. I only ran 29:xx and 14:2x.
None of this is what "jumping the shark" means. You're saying they're irrelevant, which may be true. But "jumping the shark" means doing some ridiculous stunt to try to get publicity and stay relevant. Like if they decided to set the world record for fastest 10k while juggling or something. But sliding into irrelevance without a fight is in no way "jumping the shark."
Does signing a 45 year old man make this phrase accurate now?
I think the issue with Tinman is that they're not really sure what they want their brand to be. Not successful enough to be classified as truly world class athletes, barring a couple of members. Don't create nearly enough content to build a good YouTube brand; and obviously the level of success when selling merch is going to correlate with the things i've just mentioned. Consequently, I don't imagine Adidas will be renewing their contract with the team because what value do they bring to Adidas?
In my opinion, Drew needs to do a few things to reinvigorate the brand and push it to its full potential:
1. Trim the squad - the majority of Tinman Elite runners aren't at the elite level. If you can't make the final in your respective event at your national championships, how can you possibly bring any value to the brand? As harsh as it may seem, no-one knows who Aaron Templeton or Tori Gerlach are, so what's the point in having them as part of your team and spending some of your budget on them if they can't bring about enough success to give you a decent ROI? Personally, I would only keep Drew, Reed, Sam & potentially Connor depending on how he performs in marathons. Those are the only guys that can compete at the best levels of their events.
2. Massively improve the content offering - For a team that likes to think they have a strong social presence, their content is limited and often boring. They release about two videos a month and they always follow the same formula. One minute at the beginning having a nice chat and warm-up, 5 minutes of the team running round a track with some slightly motivational music in the background, followed by another minute of chat at the end. At least mix it up a little! Explain race tactics for beginners, give some advice on training sessions or psychology, review your races (what you were thinking, why you did this or that). Essentially, provide some content that people can learn from as well as the entertaining stuff.
The Tinman Elite brand has potential, but they can't just keep cruising along expecting it to just blow up suddenly. Work has to be put in both on and off the track.
good ideas to reinvigorate the brand but I will say that with the rest of the team being much older than drew, a lot of guys can be on the chopping board. Some people forget this but drew is still relatively young, he is the same age as Hoppel: 25. Everyone else in the group is in their late 20s going and most of their guys will be turning 30 next year. Rlly think that Parsons and Coleman will retire after next season; I have gotten that vibe from Sam based on his recent interviews this past year where he talks about his role in the sport and how much time he has left. I do think that Sam will try and give it one last shot to make an olympic team so I have him forecasted for a 2024/2025 retirement; even after a his worst season health wise he still showed that he is a top 3 5k runner in Germany so expect him to go all in on 2024. Same with Jamaine, if you have watched the videos yk how his plan was to spend a few years to see how good he could be then call it quits. Like sam, his down year still saw a podium finish at UK steeple champs and when healthy, he has shown that he can be a national champion. Rlly hope coach hunter makes it a point to get her two most competitive international athletes into high level races to improve their world ranking and maybe get selected to the UK/German Olympic team because I don't have faith that they can nab the Olympic standard but if they get enough diamond/gold meeting performances along with a national championship, then that should be enough to get them in. As for the rest, Sam allegedly had to beg guys like Berriatua to stay after 2021 so would not be surprised if the rest of those guys retire in the next few months or after Paris
Pretty much everything this group does is stolen or disingenuous.
One of them heard that podcast with coach Mike Smith referencing the Japanese proverb, Chop Wood, Carry Water, and now that’s their new motto plastered everywhere.
Thru started doing double threshold workouts (exact replicas of Jakob Ing) when that was coming out last year. The coach of a “professional” running team is just copying workouts and hoping something sticks.
Perhaps the most egregious fabrication was in some hypebeast article that described them as some of the best runners in the world.
Your other criticisms are fine, but there is no intellectual property with regard to workouts. The improvements in training over decades is all the result of copying other people's workouts in one form or another.
Gusman leaves one of the best, most experienced Coaches, who is also a world leading sports scientist for...wait for it...a high school coach, who is a prolific message board poster - who is then sacked for one of the squad member's mother. Wait, I think I was better training with Dick Telford. No sh#t mate!!!
None of this is what "jumping the shark" means. You're saying they're irrelevant, which may be true. But "jumping the shark" means doing some ridiculous stunt to try to get publicity and stay relevant. Like if they decided to set the world record for fastest 10k while juggling or something. But sliding into irrelevance without a fight is in no way "jumping the shark."
Does signing a 45 year old man make this phrase accurate now?