Like most professional runners, Drew Hunter looks impossibly smooth running 5-minute mile pace. After six one-kilometer repetitions on the track at Longmont High School (an hour north of Denver), each one just as mechanically graceful as the last, Hunter pulls off the track. His teammates, Joey Berriatua and Anthony Camerieri, jog around the bend, taking a one-minute rest before another rep.
Hunter isn’t done with the workout yet—he’s just taking a lactate reading. The small blood sample taken from his earlobe will show how many millimoles of lactic acid is in his blood—a good measure of how hard he’s exerting himself.
Before Max McNerney, Tinman Elite’s “media man” and Hunter’s longtime friend, can get a reading, Hunter gets an idea. “Tell them it’s 1.1,” he says with a boyish chuckle. Berriatua and Camerieri both recorded 2.2 on their first readings, and he knows that a near-impossible number will annoy them slightly.
As it turns out, he’s not far off. Hunter records a 1.5, an impressively low number after six reps in 90-degree heat. He laughs and heads off to join his teammates, who are expectedly dumbfounded when McNerney gives them the “news” on their next rep. McNerney remarks that the harmless prank is a near-perfect microcosm of where Hunter is at right now.
In terms of fitness, the low reading isn’t that much of a surprise. “He’s always testing low,” McNerney says. Hunter believes he’s as fit as he’s ever been—at the perfect time, no less. In May, just over a month before the Olympic Trials, he recorded a 5,000-meter PB of 13:08 at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix, making him the 10th fastest American entered at the upcoming Olympic Trials. Hunter will race the 10,000 meters at the meet on June 21 and the first round of the 5,000 on June 27.
“I’m in the best shape of my life,” Hunter says. “It’s been the most consistent past six to eight months I’ve ever had … so I just have an awesome foundation. I’m very, very fit.”
The prank reveals something else about him, though.
“When Drew is in a bad place, it’s usually self-deprecating humor,” McNerney, who has known Hunter since high school, says. “When he’s in a good place, though, it’s a lot more fun-loving.”
The fake reading prank definitely falls in the latter category, and it’s no exception to the rule.
“I feel like I’m in such a happy place with my running,” Hunter says, “and such a healthy place with it.”
Getting to that place is important for any runner, but it means so much more for someone who took so long to get there. Hunter’s story is not a fairy tale. It’s filled with injuries, burnout, drama, backlash, depression, and heartbreak.
And it starts with a teenage phenom.
The next big thing
As a senior in high school, Drew Hunter was already being hailed as one of the next great American distance runners. In the midst of a dominant cross-country season—one which would end with zero losses and a Foot Locker national title—he committed to the University of Oregon, following in the footsteps of Steve Prefontaine, Matthew Centrowitz, and many other elite American runners.
At the time, he said, the commitment made perfect sense. Oregon was one of the best distance programs in the country, led by junior Edward Cheserek, who would finish his collegiate career with a record 17 national titles. Hunter was poised to become the next star of “Tracktown, USA.”
Then his indoor season happened. More precisely, 3:58.25 happened.
At the Armory Track Invitational in February 2016, Hunter became the eighth high school runner to break 4:00 in the mile and broke Alan Webb’s indoor high school mile record. Two weeks later, he did it again, clocking a 3:57.81 at the Millrose Games. At this point, Hunter’s path diverged even further from the norm; he was now clearly expected to be the next great American distance runner.
It was also at this point that Hunter and his family were faced with another option for his future. While they were in New York City for the Millrose Games, his parents, Joan and Marc Hunter, met with an Adidas agent who laid out a contract offer for Drew. It was life-changing from a financial standpoint, but signing it meant giving up an NCAA career. “He wanted so badly to run in college,” says Marc, who ran for Kent State and Cleveland State. “I had a great experience with it, and I was telling him stories about it.” Drew had also grown close to Oregon coach Andy Powell, and when Joan called Powell to tell him about the offer, Powell was devastated.
“He said, ‘Joan, I gotta call you back. I have to sit down, I feel sick,’” Joan recalls. “It was really hard for everybody, and I think that’s why it took Drew so long to make the decision.”
In July of 2016, Hunter pulled the trigger, signing a 10-year contract with Adidas. The company did not have a fully sponsored team, so it was up to him to create a training situation that worked. After settling in Boulder, Colorado, and deciding to continue training under Tom “Tinman” Schwartz, his high school coach, he formed a group with two other runners, Reed Fischer and Sam Parsons. Before long, they expanded, and they started calling themselves “Tinman Elite.”
The early days of the team hinged on a mission, which was to be different from everyone else in the game. While most teams relied on secrecy for a competitive edge, the Tinmen were decisively transparent, putting everything from training to daily life on display through social media.
“For us, it never seemed like there was another way to do it,” co-founder Reed Fischer says. “Whether that’s a byproduct of us being open books as people or of not seeing much [transparency] when we were paying attention to the post-collegiate scene when we were in college … we just thought, ‘We have social media as a tool. Why aren’t we leveraging it?’”
The culture they displayed was fun, carefree, and occasionally cocky—a product of both their youth and their success. “We thought we were so cool,” Hunter says. “And in a sense, you know, we were, just because we thought we were. That confidence oozed into what we were doing at the time.”
And people loved it. The team’s YouTube channel attracted thousands of subscribers, many of whom were attracted to their style in addition to their success. They were the new kids on the block, punching upwards and defying expectations.
In 2019, the group signed a contract with Adidas, giving them financial support for team members and staff, but also sacrificing some autonomy. All of a sudden, the free-and-easy youngsters became business partners, and their passion became their livelihood.
“I think that saying, ‘More money, more problems,’ is definitely true,” Parsons says. “As our platform got bigger and there were more eyes on us and more expectations … I feel like that’s when stuff really started to shift, where all of a sudden, it’s not just about, ‘Let’s have fun doing this.’ It’s like, ‘How do we make this legitimate?’”
All of them knew that the quickest way to legitimize themselves as a professional team was to race fast in the spotlight, and as the most recognizable name on the team, Hunter assumed a lot of that responsibility.
“I hadn’t made a World team [by the 2019 season],” he remembers, “so I felt like my sponsor was going to think I was a failure if I didn’t start making teams.” Nowadays, he admits that it was a silly thing to care about, but during the 2019 season, the hunt to make a team was all-consuming. As a 21-year-old (in his words, a “stupid, young athlete”), running was the most important thing in his life, and he was lured into a trap that many professional runners have fallen into: equating success with value—not just as a runner, but as a person.
Reality check
However unhealthy that mindset was, it took a while for any problems to present themselves. In early 2019, Hunter looked unstoppable. He won the 2-mile at the U.S. Indoor Championships in February, his first national championship on the professional stage. After PBs in the 5,000 and 3,000 meters in May and June, respectively, it seemed like he was the guy to beat on the national stage.
With about six weeks to go until the U.S. Outdoor Championships, Hunter tried to cram in as much fitness as possible. Even after developing serious foot pain, he hardly stepped off the gas, running two 90-mile weeks—the highest mileage he had ever run—in late June.
All of that intensity was supposed to pay off on July 28, 2019. Hunter toed the line for the 5,000 meters at the U.S. Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, knowing that he had a real shot at qualifying for his first world championship. The pain in his foot still lingered, but it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to come between him and making this team. He shut out the pain for as long as possible.
That turned out to be 4,900 meters. Coming into the home stretch, Hunter felt a pop in his foot. He limped to the finish line, holding his form well enough to finish fifth in the race (which earned him a spot on Team USA because the two runners ahead of him had not run the World Championships qualifying standard time, while he had).
Of course, it didn’t come without a price; Hunter tore his plantar fascia and broke three bones in his foot. In the following weeks, he tried to stay as fit as possible for the World Championships in Doha, Qatar, but he eventually had to shut his season down. Closing the door on one of his biggest ambitions as an athlete was heartbreaking, and it drove him into a dark place. He doesn’t sugarcoat it: “I was depressed.”
Marc and Joan Hunter remember watching their son spiral, clinging to the belief that he was disappointing everybody in his world—even his parents. “We had to evaluate our relationship with him,” Joan says, “and ask ourselves, ‘Are we sending that message?’ We were shocked that he thought that, to be honest.”
To some extent, Hunter used the time off his feet to be introspective and learn from his mistakes. The injury and subsequent depression became a “reality check” for him, and he realized that he was carrying around a mindset of “You’re only Drew Hunter if you’re running fast.” The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic gave him time to sit with his thoughts; he couldn’t obsess about racing if there was almost no racing happening.
Sink or swim
The following year, however, was a different story—the Tokyo Olympic Games were just around the corner. Suddenly, Hunter’s intensity came back all at once. So began the most tumultuous year Tinman Elite had faced in its short history.
2021 was a make-or-break year for the Tinmen. Parsons says the team mindset was “a combination of total insecurity and a relentless need for success,” and it showed in their training. Unwilling to settle for steady progress, they increased their mileage and performed more intense workouts than ever.
“We felt like we were treading water with weights on,” Parsons says. “We were trying so desperately to keep our heads above water, and we were willing to f***ing tread water so hard to get out.”
Hunter, meanwhile, hired a sports psychologist, started an “insane morning routine,” and journaled like his life depended on it. “It was too much,” he says. “I was like, ‘I don’t enjoy this. I’m not a better person because of this. I’m not fun to be around.’”
Once again, his focus backfired. He tried to prove himself in workouts, which only made him more tired and more angry that he wasn’t performing well. In a twist of déjà vu, he sustained a season-ending injury, preventing him from lining up at the Olympic Trials. Other teammates struggled to stay healthy, too.
In the spring, the team decided to part with Coach Schwartz, a decision that was leaked months ahead of when they were hoping to announce it. Later, when they hired Joan Hunter to become the new head coach, a lot of people, particularly on LetsRun message boards, had negative opinions. In her first few months, Joan felt a major sense of impostor syndrome.
“She took it really hard,” Drew remembers. “She was like, ‘I don’t deserve this job. I don’t believe I can do this. You guys should have hired someone else.’”
Coupled with a lack of racing success, the controversy around the team could have ended it altogether, especially considering their dependence on merchandise sales to create funding.
With their backs against the wall, they relied on the one thing that had set them apart from the beginning: transparency. Using footage from throughout the year, McNerney and Kevin Gunawan produced a new season of their YouTube docu-series, “Inside Tinman Elite.” That season sugarcoated nothing, and it displayed the message that regardless of the struggles they faced, the team would live to fight another day.
Acknowledging the difficult times was crucial in helping the group, especially Hunter, grow and recover. With everything pushed out in the open, Hunter couldn’t hide from reality. He had to face it head-on.
Just as he did in 2019, he took the time to reexamine his actions and priorities, but this time, he made real, structural changes that put his life on a positive trajectory.
Taking the reins
First and foremost, Hunter renewed his faith in God. In earlier years, he viewed being fast as something that he was responsible for, but his newfound faith made him realize that it was instead a God-given gift, which allowed him to both detach himself from it and appreciate it more.
“Before, I thought it was my running, my talent,” Hunter says. “It was so easy for me to be like, ‘Holy crap, if I’m not doing well, then that’s who I am.’ And now … at the end of the day, I’m just lucky that I found this gift and I’m able to pursue it at the highest level.”
He also got married to his fiancée, Sandra, in August of 2022, which gave him confidence and further simplified his running. “All of a sudden, it wasn’t my career,” Hunter says. “It was our life together, and running was a part of that.”
Then, in April of 2023, the couple welcomed their daughter, Ella. That change allowed him to see how special it was to be a professional runner. “I think I’m now more grateful than ever for my career,” he says. “I get to spend so much time with my daughter, more than most dads … this is the best job ever. It’s not like I previously didn’t understand that, but when it was going poorly, I was more jaded to the reality of my running.”
All of these changes created new priorities for Hunter. Long story short: running was, and is, no longer the most important thing in his life. Those who witnessed this change were impressed. McNerney thought that with a child to support, Hunter might become stressed with the newfound responsibilities, but he says he’s found the opposite to be true.
By late 2023, after all of his priorities shifted, Hunter was almost all the way back to being himself.
Almost.
He had taken major steps as a person, but he was still struggling as a runner. Hunter contracted COVID-19 several times between 2020 and 2023, including a bout of what Marc and Joan believed to be long COVID. He had trouble breathing, couldn't finish workouts, and felt tired and out of shape a lot of the time.
Coupled with the enjoyment he was getting from life outside of running, he believed that his days as a professional runner were numbered. “I almost looked at [2024] as my victory lap year after how bad [2023] went,” Hunter says. “I told myself, ‘Just go to practice and enjoy the time you have with your teammates, cause you ain’t ever getting this again.’”
The self-deprecating humor was still there—as Parsons says, he was “his own worst enemy, tenfold.” At the end of the season, he was in a position he was all too familiar with: broken, unhealthy, and wondering what the hell he was going to do.
So, Hunter did what he does best: he looked within himself, admitted something was wrong, and decided to address it. In the fall of 2023, he had a meeting with his parents, and he told them that something needed to change with his approach. In his words, the message sounded something like this:
I don’t know the answer to what’s wrong with me. I don’t think anyone knows. But I don’t feel like myself. I feel weak. I feel tired all the time. I feel unfit, and I know we can’t conquer all these things at once, but can we just slowly chip away at these things? Let’s not put anything on the calendar, let’s just have fun, and train, and see where that can take us.
Finding equilibrium
That’s exactly what he did. Eager to shake things up, he and his parents designed a complete upheaval of Hunter’s training, centering on two goals: race your best in June, and be good at every distance. Instead of hammering intense workouts, they decided to focus on volume, consistency, and threshold work.
At first, Hunter was nervous, if not skeptical, about his training. Running dozens of 75-second 400s with short rest felt like an odd choice considering his 5K race pace was around 63 seconds per 400 meters. But he accepted the irony of training slower in order to race faster, mostly because he didn’t have another choice.
Sure enough, the training worked, and it had a lot to do with his maturity. Instead of looking at a flashy workout to tell himself he was fit, he had to believe that months of repetitive, consistent miles—in his words, a “freakin’ Picasso painting of work”—would pay off.
And it helped, of course, that he was able to find proof in his races.
After beginning his career as a 1500-meter specialist, Hunter showed that he could throw down some impressive results at longer events in early 2024. In January, he took ninth place at the USATF Cross-Country Championships, his first time racing 10,000 meters. In March, he ran 27:38 in his first ever track 10,000 meters at the TEN Invitational, winning his heat. Two months later, he ran 13:08 in the 5,000, once again putting him in the upper echelon of American distance runners.
Simply put, Hunter is back—and more importantly, so is his confidence. It’s a welcome change for all. “I’ve heard Drew say in the past two years, ‘Oh, I’m gonna retire after my Adidas contract is up,’” Parsons says. “Now, to hear him talk about potentially being a U.S. champion … it just shows how much growth he’s had.”
From the outside looking in, this should not be a quiet, calm year at all for Drew Hunter. It’s an Olympic year; it’s the last year of his contract with Adidas, and he now has a family to support.
But he’s not worried about relapsing into an obsessive mindset. “I’m just enjoying my running right now,” he says. “I don’t want to get back to a place where I’m intense and putting more pressure on myself because it’s not going to help my performance. I just want to stay in this beautiful homeostasis of, ‘I love what I do.’”
Admittedly, there’s a what-if that persists: what if Hunter had been able to find this headspace earlier? It may have saved him several injuries and led to more success. Hunter admits with a remarkable calmness that he has not lived up to the expectations that he created as a high school prodigy (a statement that, according to him, he would have been too insecure to make as a younger athlete). However, in looking at the life he’s created, he has no regrets—in fact, he says he’s “won the lottery in life.”
His experience with misfortune, in fact, could be his greatest advantage this summer. One of his mantras for the season is to let others make the mistakes he’s made in the past. “I know they’re easy to make,” he says. “I’ve seen it. There’s a lot of guys who won’t be on the starting line because they’re injured and I’m like, ‘That was me.’ You can never make an Olympic team if your plantar is torn.”
And even if he doesn’t make the team, he’ll be at peace with that, regardless of the implications. Even if he makes far less money on his next contract, or he doesn’t get a contract at all, he’ll be at peace with that, too.
He’s running for his teammates, his family, and himself. Regardless of what happens, he knows they will love him. He knows he will love himself. He can’t lose.
“What am I gonna do, pout in my room because my running isn’t going well when I have a beautiful daughter, another amazing daughter on the way, an incredible wife, and a great life?” he says. “I’m not gonna do that. I’ll pick myself up and figure something out. That’s the only choice we have.”
