Regarding Tinman:
The name came from the Tin Man Triathlon which is half of an Iron Man. He used to, and maybe still does, write for a triathlon publication. Although his true love is running, he is interested in human performance in general, has degrees in exercise physiology, and did graduate study work in the human performance lab. He has coached everything from 400-meter runners to ultra runners.
A lot of the bashers on letsrun.com point to his use of an alias. He started posting and writing articles with this handle and developed quite a following. Why not keep it? In addition to the bashers, there have also been many to come to his defense. The letsrun crowd will bash just about everyone at one time or another. Btw, there are many high-profile coaches who also write and post using aliases for various reasons. When Tinman coaches someone he uses his real name, provides phone number, email, home address (not a p.o. box!), and more. He gave it to me the first time I talked to him. I have to admit that I was a little bit leery at first but I don?t know how he could have been any more transparent. I suppose I could have even jotted down his license number if I?d wanted to.
He met me at local running track, driving over in his rv, while he was in my area doing contract work at one of the hospitals. He did not have to do that. It was a thrill to have the notorious Tinman supervise my workout, running back and forth accross the track with is stopwatch, and even run a few laps with me. This guy is an absolute nut about running. If he does not truly love this sport and know a helluva a lot about it, he as me fooled. After the workout we stopped for a little snack before he was off to Stanford U to watch a big cross country meet over there. It was the one where the McDougle twins ran 1-2. To him it was like having tickets to the Super Bowl?he was very animated in talking about it. When he gets home from work he spends a great deal of time retrieving and answering emails from runners, and working on all the various charts, stats, etc. that he keeps up with. He lives and breathes it. Although he has had some injury problems in recent years, he was also a runner in college and still runs a little and cross trains. He had, in his words, a ?very mediocre? mile best of 4:32. He still appears to be in very good shape and is built more like a halfback than a distance runner.
I don't have any real in-depth knowledge about his credentials other than what I've said. I only know that he's been very helpful to me, and believe that he's also been helpful to many others. It has been the response that he has recieved from the running community, bashers not withstanding, that inspired him to start the Web site. Just the dedication, enthusiasm, and interest is enough for me but I believe there is more than that.
http://This message has been edited by Jim24315 (edited Dec-26-2005).
) and has nudged me in that direction. I was racing almost nothing but 5k's when I first started working with him. When I moved up to half marathon I had my best race of the year. The "2 big per week" schedule didn't start until late Nov. when I started pointing toward a March marathon.
