Interview: Drew Hunter Stamps His Return From Injury With A National Title, Opens Up On Tinman Elite's Coaching Change

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Tinman Elite’s Drew Hunter is making his fourth appearance on the CITIUS MAG podcast. I first had him on the show after his first pro season back in 2017 and then we did a live show in Boston and Des Moines in 2018. A lot has happened in his life since then...

He has run personal bests of 3:35.90 for 1,500 meters, 7:39.85 for 3,000 meters and 13:17.55 for the 5,000 meters. However, the past year was fairly difficult for him. He raced just once indoors in February and then tore his plantar, which forced him to miss the U.S. Olympic Trials. Tinman Elite also went through a very public breakup with coach Tom Schwartz and now the team is coached by his mother, Joan Hunter. We unpack all of those changes, the comeback from injury and what it was like to stamp his return with a win at the USATF 5K Championships in New York City, where he captured his second national title.

My co-host for this episode is Mac Fleet, who has been working hard behind the scenes to also now bring you some of these conversations and other fun video content on The CITIUS MAG YouTube channel. Subscribe, like and comment – do everything the typical YouTubers say. We’re hoping to really grow that channel out in 2022.

You can now listen to our conversation on The CITIUS MAG Podcast. Catch the latest episode of the podcast on Apple Podcasts. We are also on Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify.

I’ve transcribed a few parts of the interview below, which have been edited lightly for clarity.

Rebuilding After Tearing His Plantar And Approaching His First Race Back

“It's like I've been healthy and fit at all the wrong times of the year as a professional. My Achilles heel, so to speak, is getting in shape really, really quickly and then all of a sudden being like, ‘Oh, I don't have any of that three or six months that all the other guys I'm racing against have behind them.’ So all of a sudden, then the wheels start to come off and then they really come off. I've kind of been stuck in that cycle for probably three years now and I'm really trying to break that this year and just do less – run significantly less on all workout days, easy runs and all of that. I am talented and I don't have to run 100-mile weeks to be a good distance runner. That’s what I want to do.

I genuinely love running. I'm pretty sure I say this on every podcast. I like going out for 15-mile days. That’s not a chore to me. If my body would allow me to do that, I would like to do that but I just can't. That’s been a big focus.

Coming off this last injury, I ran a race in February and felt my plantar afterward, I knew just right away that something was off. The same thing happened to 2019 in the USA 5,000m final. I felt that tear in the race and I was like, ‘Oh boy, here we go again.’ I really had to battle back.

I could get to workout days and after the workout, it'd be pretty tender. Then all of a sudden, every single day, I would get out of bed and I did not want to step on it at all. You just cannot compete at a high level against guys like that. When you're going through that, your mind needs to be so ready to give 100% of your body. I wasn't even 50 percent there. So I kind of gave up on the Olympics.

I said, “OK, I'm just going to learn to love running again and learn to slowly build back up.’ I had my first run-walk at the end of June and it was literally like five minutes of running...You kind of have that, ‘Can I do this again?” question in your head. I just slowly but surely have been building up.

I did a lot of other cross-training, a ton of Elliptigo stuff, swimming and aqua jogging. Now, a good week for me is 70 miles so it's still not a lot. I’ve been consistently between probably 50 and 65 miles per week with a lot of cross-training. That’s kind of all I had going into the U.S. 5K Champs.

I was talking to my mom beforehand and it was like we had like A, B and C goals. Hilariously enough, my A-plus goal was top three. My A-goal was like top five and I was going to be happy with top 10. I just had no idea what to expect. I hadn't run a race in 10 months. So it was very, very unexpected. I want to emphasize that I had no idea that I would feel that good and feel strong over the hills through Central Park. I still have a lot of work to do. It’s November. Nobody cares if I ran that bad and nobody cares if I ran that well. So, we're moving on.”

You can watch the Tinman Elite vlog from New York, here.

Behind the Tinman Elite Coaching Change From Tom Schwartz to Joan Hunter

“​​What I was looking for is really simple: Someone who paid attention to me, gave me the time of day and cared about me as a person. That's all I was looking for. I'm a pretty independent person. I don't need to be self-motivated. I don't need a coach that's super rah-rah like or ‘Let's get pumped up for this race.’ That all comes from me. I do need someone to hold me accountable and just be there for the journey – the highs and the lows. To not just be there to share the successes but also just ride with me when I'm struggling. I think when we started looking for a coach, I didn't first think of my mom. She is in Virginia and has nine kids to raise, including me. She was coaching a high school team at the time and my dad was working back there. I just started to get help from them like ‘ Hey, what do you think about this?’ With a lot of these relationships, you start to lean on someone else and sift through all the problems that you're having. And it just slowly built up through that during the winter months when I was really, really struggling. Eventually, I just decided I do need a change. I think sometimes a change, sometimes is what an athlete needs.

Everyone does the same run training and if they're telling you differently, they're lying to you. Everyone's doing tempo runs. Everyone's doing race pace stuff. Everyone does hills. Everyone does speed work. Yada yada yada. But, what is your relationship with that training and what's your relationship with the person assigning that? I didn't have a good one with those two things.

I needed some self-belief in my coach and that was the empowerment I was looking for. And then it was getting the whole team on board after that and talking through what we wanted. Most of the team was in the same boat where we knew we needed a change and we knew things weren't going well. It was kind of the thing where it's like, ‘Oh, really, we're going to let his mom coach us?’ I totally get the naysayers and the haters. Believe me, I was ready to get blasted once this news hit. I probably would be the person saying some funny jokes and making fun of that person as well. It's a big-time move and it's like a risky move for sure. But at the same time, it's what I believed in and it's what the other guys on my team came around to believe in. It’s been night and day different. I think if you asked every guy on the team now, about how things are going: practices are fun again and we're a team again. We believe in each other. We want the best for each other. All of that stuff really shows up on race day. I just had nothing to pull from the last few years and now I do again.

Getting His Mom To Agree to Coach Him and The Team

“At first I was just like, ‘Can you coach me through the Olympic Trials? That's how it started. I already had a torn plantar. Things were not going well, but I was like, ‘Can you just try to get me to the starting line in June?’

She's my mom. She just wants to help me. She saw how much her son was struggling and was like, ‘OK, Obviously, I’m going to help him for a while.’

I think a lot of people don't realize it is that we looked at other coaches. I talked to other people and was really exploring. At some point – when I was really, really bad – I thought, ‘Should I move somewhere else?’ Hiring my mom was a Band-Aid for me at the time, and then all of a sudden turned into, ‘Oh, this is actually what I want and this is what I deserve.’

How Did He Shut Out The Social Media Criticism Regarding The Change

“I was completely off social media for three or four months. I didn't look at a single thing and that helped. I remember right after my race in February, I got off social media. I remember the first time I actually went on and posted something was right before the Olympic Trials and I wasn't going to run and I just got off.

When everything first broke, I wish I could show you guys some of the messages I got from people that have never met me in my life. It is brutal. You so often want to be like, I don't care and those opinions don't matter. I'm a sensitive person and I genuinely want people to like me. I think I have to admit that to myself. That was hard. These people have never talked to me in their lives and they're formulating awful things about me based on a story that was completely misinterpreted, fabricated.

It wasn’t supposed to go down this way. When we left with coach Schwartz, both of us were like, it was supposed to be cordial. It was like: After the Olympic Trials, we'll announce and you’ll go your way. And he just straight up lied about that and just did not uphold his end of the bargain. He went to news sources and told them the most ridiculous sob story you'll ever hear. At the end of the day, if you're not doing a good job at your job, I don't know why that's such a weird thing in this industry. Like, look at our team's results...They were terrible! With NFL coaches, if you are a bad team for a few years, you are getting the can. That is so normal. But for some reason, in track and field, I don't know if it's because it's a tinier sport and everyone knows everyone, so you kind of have these tight-knit groups of people and you don't ruffle any feathers. That’s what it felt like. Look at the results of our team. We had one guy at the Olympic Trials. The year before 2019, our entire team is basically there. That’s a really bad year. So I think the results speak for themselves. We’ve had a lot of good results under my mom so far and we hope to continue that.

What Is His Relationship Like With Coach Schwartz Now

“I don't have any resentment towards Tom anymore. Resentment does absolutely nothing to make anyone's life better. You can have the worst thing happen to you and being resentful about it does not make that situation any worse. I owe so much to Tom. I would tell him this, if I saw him. I haven't spoken to him since it all went down. We actually had a meeting set up to thank him and he didn't show up. Of course, the media is not hearing any of this. We tried working with him so much to figure out how he could make more time for us. We really, really tried. I broke four minutes in the mile in high school. I ran under eight minutes in the 3,000 meters. Tom was coaching me and I am the first to admit that and the first to be so grateful for the things I learned from him. But at the same time, that's in the past now, and I want to accomplish even greater things going forward.”

Goals for 2022

“I think my number one goal, that is not even performance-related, is to just stay healthy. I want to show up to everything I need to be at this year. I know that sounds funny, but that's a legitimate goal. I want to run U.S. indoors and just be there. If I'm fifth and I'm healthy, I can walk away from that experience being like, ‘OK we can get ready for outdoors.’ Or if I'm first and I am a little banged up, I feel like things are going a little bit south from there. I'll take that fifth place any damn day of the week now.

I realize how important it is to be ready in June and July...I want to get confidence in my consistency and that's kind of what I'm trying to pull from. I want to run well this indoor season. All my best years, I've run well indoors. So I'd like to run a good 5K and I think one of my big goals indoors is to run a big 5K at some point at BU.

I want to get ready to try to be in the top three at USAs and make a World Championship team. I feel like I had that taken away from me in 2019, unfortunately. I know that I'm capable of competing with all those guys if I'm healthy and happy and on the starting line.”

For more from Drew, be sure to listen to the full episode on the CITIUS MAG Podcast. You can now also watch it on YouTube.

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That’s it from me in the latest edition of the CITIUS MAG Newsletter. As always, thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, learned something new or have any questions or commentary on anything featured in this issue, feel free to hit my inbox by replying or writing to [email protected]

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