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Family > Olympics 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Andy Bayer dropped a bomb this week with the sudden announcement of his retirement. To many, this probably comes as a shock — Andy placed 3rd at the last two US championships and is currently one of the few guys with the steeplechase standard. But this tweet sums up the realities of the current sponsorship market. When I reached out to congratulate Andy this week he was in a great headspace, proud of his career and feeling confident in this decision. The emotional maturity to prioritize his family after finishing 4th in 2012 and 2016 is why we need to get rid of skateboarding and replace it with ‘being a great dad’ as an Olympic event.

Coincidentally, I was also catching up with Chris O’Hare this week. He recently started working in Tulsa as an investment sales advisor. With no plans to retire any time soon, he recognizes the need to have long-term financial stability to support his family. This is the reality of running into your 30s.

The Mostly Road Mile Champ🚦

Hosting the US Road Mile Champs every year in conjunction with the Drake Relays is a genius scheduling move. It’s planning with the athlete in mind as it entices them to run the double and get paid twice without additional travel. The race started on pavement and finished on the track, which eliminates the road mile tradition of mistiming the kick and having the finish-line sneak up on you. Rachel Schneider, who is one of the great prize money hunters on the circuit, took home the victory on Wednesday and then doubled back for second in the 1500 on Saturday. That’s $4500 for tuneup races and Under Armour is rumored to reward road miles handsomely. On the men’s side it was Eric Avila who disrupted the Engels-Murphy rivalry and reinserted his name in the conversation for the 1500 team. It’s not wide open because it’s weak — It’s wide open because there are so many fast guys!

SHE RAN THE TAN 💐

In what seems like a regular segment for this newsletter, I’d like to once again highlight Australia and the cool stuff they have going on down there. This week (they’re always competing!) it was the 3.827 km race around the iconic Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. Despite falling at the start, Linden Hall continued her winning ways to break the record by 19 seconds. What was once an unofficial ‘fun’ thing has become a full-fledged official event that attracts top talent from across the country. My favorite part is the permanent digital clock at the start/finish for measuring a loop against the posted all-time list. Who do I write a letter to in NYC about setting up a similar race around the Central Park reservoir loop?

Clemson Track - Saved ✅

Hopefully ADs across the country have paid close attention to what happened with Brown, William and Mary, Minnesota, and now Clemson. It’s not worth the time, effort or money to try cutting track programs with The Enforcer, Russell Dinkins, on the other side of the fight. Without any previous connection to these programs he rallied the troops, organized a movement, and provided a voice. Is there a Noble Peace Prize in track? To whatever university tries to cut track next, if you come at the king, you best not miss.

What are those? 👀

Successful high school careers do not guarantee successful college careers, but with his 13:24 5k at the Drake Relays the adjustment seems to be going well for 18 year old, Nico Young. Initially The Lap Count editorial team was hesitant to share a picture of his “adidas” spikes, but since it has already gone semi-viral we assume the damage has been done. The next day, another kid who can’t get in bars, Cole Hocker, answered back with a 13:19 5k. Every now and then you just have to throw your hands up in the air and appreciate how much better some people are at running than you. I’m just happy to watch.

The ol’ accidental 2:11 marathon

Jake Smith lined up to rabbit the first 25k of the Cheshire Elite Marathon on Sunday, but decided to stay in and finish…and win in 2:11:00 for his debut. If only this effort had taken place a few weeks ago at the British trials! Also of note, just four days before this race he ran a PB of 3:50 for the 1500. Obviously the specificity for two races 25 miles apart is different, but these performances are in different worlds. The next time he lines up for a 1500, I’d recommend he does so as a rabbit.

Even Jenny has bad days 💅

Saturday was being billed as a clash of the titans, but as Laura Muir stormed out of the blocks and gapped the rabbit, Jenny Simpson, our American superhero looked unfamiliarly human, running 4:10 for 9th. This was her slowest non-championship 1500 since 2013, but let’s not sound the alarm just yet. Being tired in April is not only ok, it’s expected. Jenny isn’t a regular tweeter so it’s appreciated that she acknowledged this performance. Pros, consider this your weekly reminder that failing to own up to a subpar race doesn’t make it go away — so you might as well be open about that sort of thing for your fans’ sakes then give them something to cheer for the next time you line up. Also, never apologize. We don’t care that much!

Can you say ‘American Record’ 3x fast 🇺🇸

Any triple jump that doesn’t result in a torn ACL is impressive, but Keturah Orji’s set a new AR and World #1 on Sunday at a relatively quiet meet, and my Twitter feed was virtually silent. It’s wild how separate the track and field sides of the sport can be from one another. If an American Record was broken in any distance race, then my timeline would have exploded with reactions.

The best solution I can think of is for athletes to hype each other up across this divide. In his role working with elite athletes for Tracksmith, Nick Willis has used his personal platform to this end really well. He’s the reason I know that Rudy Winkler, the 2016 trials champ in the hammer bombed a giant PB of 81.98m this weekend.

Anyway, it’s great to see Keturah Orji, an 8x NCAA Champion and Olympian competing under the banner of the Atlanta Track Club, a predominantly distance-oriented club. The organization which is led by Rich Kenah and coached by Amy and Andrew Begley, has done a standout job of creating opportunities for athletes (and hosting the marathon trials). They’ve successfully built a sustainable business model that utilizes the local community’s support to help grow the sport and aid elite athlete development. By hosting 30 events each year, the Atlanta Track Club has multiple revenue streams that concurrently provide increased exposure value to their sponsors, like Mizuno. The BAA is built similarly, and my hope is that one day the NYRR adds an elite team — how cool would it be for the Armory to have a legit, cross-discipline, pro team?

The Tinman Saga

Do you know how much mental energy I’ve spent this week thinking about how to address this situation? This is the reason The Lap Count was born!

Tom “Tinman” Schwartz has been coaching Drew Hunter since high school. Together, they have done amazing things, such as…well, everything you know Drew for. After graduating high school, he signed with adidas, found some training partners and began building a team around himself. That team was affectionately named for its coach, Tinman Elite, until last week when the story broke that he is no longer coaching the squad.

During the summer of 2016 I was at lunch with Drew (and Sam Parsons) in Belgium. They were talking about how brilliant Coach Schwartz is and they had a biblical trust is his system. It took a lot of prying and convincing before Drew reluctantly shared with me some of the workouts that laid at the foundation of his success. I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I heard the secret formula was 7 x 3 min at threshold pace. This whole time I had only been doing 1k repeats!

The reason I share this story is that what exact workouts you’re doing don’t really matter. (Hot take of the week!) Hang out with some pros at training camp and you’ll realize everyone is doing basically the same stuff. The value comes from believing in what you’re doing and for many years TME was completely captured by the magic of the Tinman system— so much so that they built their brand around it! Great coaching is about instilling confidence in athletes. It would seem at some point there was a communication breakdown between the TinPeople and that faith was lost.

The main takeaway is that this is just a normal thing that happens in sports. Clearly all the heartbroken high schoolers have never followed a baseball season. Coach Schwartz has always had a well-regarded online coaching business, one that I am sure has benefited from his time with Tinman Elite. Obviously Drew isn’t going to leave the team he founded and bases out of his own house. This was probably a tough decision, but you’re allowed to change coaches. There exists only a small window in a career to chase this dream and you have to look out for number one.

The popularity (and polarizing nature) of the team is more evident now than ever and dealing with this is unfortunately a part of having always been transparent. For supposed fans of the team, here is your moment of reckoning. Did you root for this group for their coach? Or because you enjoyed the motivating content about their journey? Because this is part of that journey and I feel like this story isn’t over yet.

FREE TRACK THIS WEEKEND

I’ll be in the booth with Chris Chavez for the Trials of Miles Kansas City Qualifier on Saturday, May 1st — The fields are stacked and it’s an opportunity to watch track for FREE on the Citius Mag YouTube channel HERE!