Brosnan likes to have them do intervals faster than race pace for a total well above race distance. For instance, Nico Young's recorded workout from several years ago was 7 or 8 x 1k at sub-13:30 pace on fairly thick grass. That year he ran around 13:50. Another workout was 4:10 for 1600m, 2:05 for 800m, then maybe 4:16 and another low two 800 or two. That was faster than 3k pace for more than 3k. They also do 4M tempos at around 5-5:20 pace.
Brosnan seems a strong personality. And many are quick to attribute all of this success to simply having two familes with freak genetics, but he clearly knows what he is doing... Look at the non Young/Sahlman results from the past three springs:
Jace Aschbrenner 8:44
Daniel Appleford 8:56
Nicholas Goldstein 4:14/9:00
Dev Doshi 9:09
Hector Martinez 9:10
Aaron Cantu 4:17/9:19
Thomas McDonnell 9:27
Christian Simone 4:14
Every program in the country would love to have these results over the last three springs (one of which was a COVID loss, and one of which is barely begun). And this doesn't include five of the top distance runners in history added on top.
More data on the non Young/Sahlman runners. Not a shabby group to start with.
Their PR's before coming to Newbury:
Jace Aschbrenner 8:44 (10:57 3200 in 8th grade) Daniel Appleford 8:56 (4:52 1600 in 8th grade) Nicholas Goldstein 4:14/9:00 (4:41 1600 in 8th grade) Dev Doshi 9:09 (5:00 1600 in 7th grade. no 8th due to COVID) Hector Martinez 9:10 (4:22 1500 and 9:33 3000 in 8th grade) Aaron Cantu 4:17/9:19 (4:27 1500 in 7th grade) Thomas McDonnell 9:27 (5:21 1600 in 8th grade) Christian Simone 4:14 (4:30 1600 9th grade at Chaminade HS)
Brosnan likes to have them do intervals faster than race pace for a total well above race distance. For instance, Nico Young's recorded workout from several years ago was 7 or 8 x 1k at sub-13:30 pace on fairly thick grass. That year he ran around 13:50. Another workout was 4:10 for 1600m, 2:05 for 800m, then maybe 4:16 and another low two 800 or two. That was faster than 3k pace for more than 3k. They also do 4M tempos at around 5-5:20 pace.
This is pretty key. The whole “4:20 isn’t fast” relates to this. If he only had his guys do workouts geared towards running 4:20, he’d have a lot of guys running 4:18-4:35.
Let your 4:30 milers run at 3:59 pace every once in a while. Let their mile be their 5000m pace for a workout. You scale back the rep distances for sure, but if you don’t expose runners to fast running, they are going to stagnate.
They are getting really fast siblings to move into their school district.
That’s the meat of the answer. Brosnan, no matter how much of a dbag he may come across as, is coaching them well and has had really great success with other non-sahlman/young kids, but the answer is still that the top tier talent would be good anywhere. This good? Almost definitely no, but still great.
Not really the mileage you run greatly helps your times
I'm not arguing against that, I'm just saying that Americans are obsessed with MPW as an indicator of fitness when it's not. I've known guys who ran 120mpw that I could beat at every distance from 200m-marathon when I was running 50mpw. LIkewise, there were guys who ran 25mpw who could lap me in a 5000m.
MPW tells you absolutely nothing about the types of times someone is capable of. Brosnan seems to put a premium on doing workouts that adapt the body to be ready to run fast for 3-20 minutes at a time. That's the goal. You don't get to that goal by counting a bunch of miles.
Not really the mileage you run greatly helps your times
I'm not arguing against that, I'm just saying that Americans are obsessed with MPW as an indicator of fitness when it's not. I've known guys who ran 120mpw that I could beat at every distance from 200m-marathon when I was running 50mpw. LIkewise, there were guys who ran 25mpw who could lap me in a 5000m.
MPW tells you absolutely nothing about the types of times someone is capable of. Brosnan seems to put a premium on doing workouts that adapt the body to be ready to run fast for 3-20 minutes at a time. That's the goal. You don't get to that goal by counting a bunch of miles.
A consistent 60mpw is a non trivial amount for a middle distance guy especially if you are doing singles. Go look at Spiveys training logs for a guy running sub 350 off that level of mileage. Or a guy like Kennedy running 339/1320. Eventually they should run a few more miles but right now they might not be in a place to handle it.
Brosnan likes to have them do intervals faster than race pace for a total well above race distance. For instance, Nico Young's recorded workout from several years ago was 7 or 8 x 1k at sub-13:30 pace on fairly thick grass. That year he ran around 13:50. Another workout was 4:10 for 1600m, 2:05 for 800m, then maybe 4:16 and another low two 800 or two. That was faster than 3k pace for more than 3k. They also do 4M tempos at around 5-5:20 pace.
I believe his k’s around the park were 2:45-2:50…13:50-14:10 pace.
These threads always pop up. Arcadia, Dana Hills, Great Oak, now Newberry Park. Go outside of CA and you see the same questions about whatever school is dominating in the moment.
It boils down to this: enormous genetic talent. Like once in a lifetime talent. Great coaching. Like coach knows his stuff and is borderline obsessed. Super involved, bought in parents who are doing financially well.
Those are the big three. Mostly #1. Lesser so are community, school culture, and things like inner district transfers, recruiting, etc.
These threads always pop up. Arcadia, Dana Hills, Great Oak, now Newberry Park. Go outside of CA and you see the same questions about whatever school is dominating in the moment.
It boils down to this: enormous genetic talent. Like once in a lifetime talent. Great coaching. Like coach knows his stuff and is borderline obsessed. Super involved, bought in parents who are doing financially well.
Those are the big three. Mostly #1. Lesser so are community, school culture, and things like inner district transfers, recruiting, etc.
Nobody breaks 4 or 8:40 without talent. But the other factors have to be there in order to optimize the talent. Of the kids that actually run on a XC/track team there are probably kids who have the Sahlman/Young level talent but don't have the other factors in place. Maybe just a coach who has no running background and is only there because the school couldn't get anyone to coach and so he volunteered. Maybe the kids themselves are not motivated to train more than the minimum. Maybe the parents don't care about running and want Johnny to just do well in his classes and enjoy his social life. And this doesn't include good potential runners who are either in other sports or never catch the "running bug." What NPHS has this season is a perfect storm of all the factors coming together with very naturally talented kids.
Sean Brosnan- Wantagh, NY - Mike Byrnes coaching tree. Took the passion and crazy of Byrnes and keeps adapting. 10 day cycle to slightly deemphasize the long run and doesn't do strict periodization so kids are constantly improving without the need/want to take massive downtime. Add in some generational talents, what appears to be 100% devotion to the team, the weather of Southern CA, and now he's got it rolling.
What they have at NP…. they have parents willing to sacrifice a lot for their kids. period. end of story. it’s a socio-economic factor.
No it’s 100% having the talent to run 8:40 or faster. German Fernandez was probably the first guy to break 10:00 at his HS and I doubt he came from a wealthy family. Craig Virgin received some flack from his father for going to practice rather then home to help with chores at their farm.
A lot of posters want to attribute outstanding performance to an early start, fancy coaching or something else, but the NP brothers have phenomenal talent and would just as good at many other HSs.
I’ve posted this before, but if German had equally talented brothers and 2 more from another family, his coach would have had 5 HS legends instead of just 1.
I love the idea of the 10-day cycle and working on “speed” year round, but I have a hard time believing they are all only doing 60 mpw. I mean, in season, sure, but they are probably running high volume out of season? Or are they doing morning runs & warmups/cooldowns they are not counting? Seems too good to be true. However, a 10-day cycle is superior to the standard 7-day cycle. It’s novel, but it shouldn’t be.
Whenever people ask “what are they doing?” and one of the things they want to know is “how many miles a week?” it shows how little they know about training.
Newbury Park trains to run fast middle distance times. They don’t train to hit some arbitrary mileage total every seven days.
Any coach in the world can tell kids to run 40, 50, 60, 80, whatever miles per week. It means jack butt about how fast they can run a race.
QFE.
Mileage is important but it is just one piece of the puzzle. These boards are absolutely obsessed with high mileage. It works for many, not for all, and isn't always necessary. 60-70 miles per week isn't nothing, especially for high schoolers. Stress the body, then recover. There is more emphasis in this program on adaptation, hence the ten day cycle, as opposed to hitting some big mileage number.
Are you that clueless? It's talent, period. Joe Blow, even you, could try to do the same workouts at YOUR best effort and you'd never be that fast. Talent, period.
We keep discussing all the factors that have made the NP team what it is this year, and of course the talent of the NP4 has been highlighted as an outlier occurrence. But I also think about where the NP program was prior to Brosnan. Same school, same demographics, same local running clubs. But what did NPHS produce regarding distance runners? Not that much from my memory. So beyond the Xs and 0s of coaching Brosnan has done a terrific job in cultivating the culture that's there now. I'm sure it took a lot of work in communicating with everyone in the community, from school administrators to youth track clubs, to families of runners, etc. No doubt he was greatly aided by the success of Nico Young. Nico's success convinced parents of motivated youth runners to head to NPHS rather than to Thousand Oaks H.S. or Camarillo H.S., etc. And now the program is at a point where it just keeps going at a high level. This season of course is an outlier, and next season will also be terrific. Everyone expects a dropoff after that, and that's probably true. But with Brosnan there a dropoff might mean the top runner around 9:05-9:10, and then the others filtering down from the teens to the nine twenties. I don't expect his "off years" to be any worse than that, and possibly better than that.
There's this thread, and the "How to skate a 10K guy."
All around us, people are training in ways that defy our logic. And we collectively sit here with pathetic PRs and wives who are not supermodels, and argue this can't be true. And they continue to run faster that we never did, and faster than most collegiates, and set world records, and say exactly how they're training, and we refuse to believe it.
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