German Fernandez Out Two to Four Weeks

Its About The Dive wrote:

Yeah sure....Vail, Kosgei and Lowe all faded badly. Why? Because they ran a poorly coached race. Smith had them out far too conservatively, then wanted them to make up the gap too quickly. Bluntly state, they (including German) all went into oxygen debt. The entire team faded during the last couple meters, except for German, and he took a dive. What really took place was poor coaching and a young man who hasn't learned how to lose yet.

I bet you they learn from that though.. It worked for them last year very well.. Chir Chir was in 120 at 5k and moved up to 21 Barnes moved up really well as well. Vail moved up well..

This year they learned a lesson. I bet they are back on top of there game. They get back 4 of there top 5 and Ryan Prentice will be running as well. And I think that Dave has shown that he can Recruit so I can that they get some really good recruits in for next year.

Any truth that German requested a release to speak with Wisconsin (Coach Byrne)? Is he trying to save some indoor eligibility for another school?

Smith spent all his scholarship money last year, throwing a full ride to German, and chunks to the other freshmen. Between track and field and XC, he has only 3 per year, so he won't have the luxury of recruiting many athletes this year. Do they have track events at Okie State?

It's always the kids on this board that get off on criticizing any upcoming American runner.

The most important race of your life is the one you are in? Are you insane?

What if you spent 3 months training for a race and do one the previous week as a warm up without fully tapering? What is important about the race you are in?

I think it's wrong to assume German dived.

But then again, I've had every achilles injury known to man-kind: tendonitis, bone spur, tear and post-operation rehab. I don't know of an achilles injury that'd cause someone to fall over in pain... and only keep him out 2-4 weeks. I haven't gone through the entire thread yet, so maybe there's an explanation.

yeah unless you have hav an achilles injury you can talk. I was out for 6 weeks.

In case the speculation that he took a dive is not a troll attempt, let me add this to the discussion.

I was coaching against Riverbank when German was a sophomore. German had been trying to come back all track season from a misdiagnosed meniscus tear (he had been originally told it was a slight ligament sprain). He would run for a couple of weeks, then be out for a while. I believe that he missed every league meet that year, but his goal was to run in the league finals and help his team win their 10th straight title.

On a hot (mid 90s) humid day in early may, with very little conditioning under his belt, running on a knee that would be surgically repaired a week later, German won the 1600, 800, and 3200 in our league meet (low 4:30's, 2:01, 10:07). I held my best runner out till the 32 because I thought he would have a shot at an obviously less than 100% German if he ran fresh. Plus in our league, the order of events leaves only about 15 min between the 800 and 3200, so I knew German would be tired. I had my guy throw surges and attempt to drop German. It didn't work. My guy wilted in the heat and finished 4th while German ran away with the race. After the race, German's teamates had to help him off the track. German didn't run another step until late october.

I am 100% certain that German did not pull a Hamilton. I am sure that if he could have finished the race, he would have. Everybody is entitled to their own private speculations, but I don't think anybody that actually knows German would think that he took a dive.

fgfg wrote:

To be great you need the Tiger Wood attitude that every shot is for the Masters

Do you make orange juice with apples?

he probably got tripped up and fell and felt a little pain in his ankle or whatever and then improvised it. At that moment there is so much adrenaline going through your body that you either get back up and don't even think about it or stay down and let your emotions run with pain. He's just a freshman and stuff like this happens. Luckily he is not too badly injured and he can now get some rest and get back for track.

darkness wrote:

I was just looking at Bios on USATF.org and was looking at Dathan's and it hit me that as great as he was in HS (1:54/4:05/8:41/13:44) he still improved tremendously (13:22/27:38) in college and now has gone 7:39/8:11y/13:16 recently.

*side note: It says in DR's bio that he went 13:22 as a freshman? I was almost certain that he went 13:27. Am I right?

He only went 1327 as a frosh, you are correct. He ran 1322 3 years after that.

Also you forget to mention his 10k pr is 2735 as well now. Not a huge improvement but it's his pr since college.

hahahha...

awesome. great point.

I started specifically watching German with my binoculars at the NCAA when he came through the half way point at 5K in the 2 lap course. I counted him at 46th place, though difficult to count as they sped by.

They drop out of view in a down hill section, but just past the 7K mark, right before they make a hairpin turn to go back uphill, he had already moved up to 6th place, and was running effortlessly. At one point he passed 3 runners in about 2 quick strides. Then I "lost him", which must be when he fell. I looked for him the rest of the race but never caught sight of him in the binoculars. I later found out why.

What a pleasure in watching a young man do what most of us only dream about doing. I look forward to many great years for German.