German Fernandez 3:44.43

Clean House.

Jerry has a group that has a bad team atmosphere. Older guys are annoyed by the younger guys and the younger guys are out to prove themselves. Meanwhile Shalane often appears to be Jerry's only focus. Solinsky was willing to quit for a minor coaching job. Nelson and Bairu have moved on. They need to start over. The blend is bad. They will be done at 2016.

critical but honest wrote:

Clean House.

Jerry has a group that has a bad team atmosphere. Older guys are annoyed by the younger guys and the younger guys are out to prove themselves. Meanwhile Shalane often appears to be Jerry's only focus. Solinsky was willing to quit for a minor coaching job. Nelson and Bairu have moved on. They need to start over. The blend is bad. They will be done at 2016.

This.

Too many 5k guys under one roof.

It seemed like they had a good group with two older guys, Teg and Solinsky, and two young guys, Bumbi and Jager. They they added Derrick and GF and I thought, well that doesn't seem ideal for the group dynamics - a ton of competitive guys trying to do the same thing on the same team - but I wouldn't pass up Derrick and GF either. Then they added Ryan Hill, then Heath and Bayer...Again, they're all great runners, it just doesn't seem like it makes sense to have all those people on the same team. Bumbi should consider going to train with Mead, who seems to be figuring it out and has progressed. Bumbi has not progressed. Maybe Hill, too, although he has seemed to thrive most of the time under Jerry. GF, as much as I hate to say it, should go to Salazar. There is zero evidence that Jerry is the right coach for GF.

This is a pretty good post. Jerry and Pascal seem to be pretty passive aggressive personality types, and while both great runners themselves in their prime, they may not be the best combo for managing this group. The old dynamic may have worked better because for a while you had Teg as the obvious Papa Bear/Alpha male. He was the oldest, most decorated, experienced and fastest. Behind him you had Solinsky, Riley, Bairu, Nelson and a young Jager. I think they all respected Teg and just wanted to draw off him in the early days. Solinsky was challenging a bit but that was manageable. But as the older guys hit their ceiling and/or had problems, Jager kept improving and other young studs started joining. Now you have a handful of guys all running quite well, wanting to prove themselves with nobody clearly being the guy. Jager is the guy with his legs, but doesn't have the command that a Teg or Solinsky had in their prime. With so many guys at the 3:33-3:37 / 7:35-7:40 / 13:00-13:15 level it must be very difficult to control workouts, egos and confidence of individuals. I wonder if Solinsky wouldn't have come back if he had gone to a program with just one or two quality runners to train with, and ideally guys who don't specialize at 5000.

At this point, here is the way it appears to break down:

1500m: Lomong, Fernandez

Steeple: Jager, Huling, Bayer

5k: Bumbalough, Hlll, Heath (Elliott, now back training)

10k/XC: Derrick, Infield

Marathon/roads: Tegenkamp, Solinksy, Flanagan

Obviously lots of x-over but these appear to be their primary distances for now although Lomong has flirted with the 5k and may move up for good next year.

Jerry & Pascal have done wonderful work with the steeplers: Jager keeps improving, Huling has stayed healthy and is back near his pr level despite turning 30, and Bayer just started steepling a few months ago and has already hit an 8:25.

Flanagan's been consistently great, probably most outstanding of everyone on the team. Even the guys have said she is the toughest.

Infield, like Fernandez, has had injuries, but she's back again and running roads very well and should be a contender for the World's 10k or 5k team next year.

Derrick's main interest is xc, so he's now trying for a double peak each year. Already made 2 world champs teams just out of college last year so his star is rising.

Bumbi and Hill have been up and down last year and this but still have a few more races left. Hill just got into the Zurich 5k with Rupp, True and Mead so he'll have plenty of US guys to key off to try to get a pr. Bumbi will race the ISTAF 5k this weekend then he and Hill will end track with the Reiti 3k. Let the season complete its course before pointing fingers at anybody.

Seen through this wide-angle lens, the original BTC members have moved up to the marathon while the newer ones have replaced them on the track. Nothing wrong here.

Injuries happen to everyone including someone so consistent as Derrick who's out now with an Achilles problem which he's had before at Stanford. Fernandez and Infield have been the most brittle but are back competing and have more left in their seasons.

Plus, these guys/gals are twittering and posting instagrams all the time. Seem to be having a lot of fun. If you follow their tweets you'll always know what they're doing. Only Jerry and Pascal stay out of the limelight . . . i.e, allow the spotlight to shine on their athletes, not them.

Last I read, Derrick, Fernandez, Heath, Jager, Hill all live together.

No bad karma here.

Totally agree. Bairu was a x-country demon - as everyone knows, ran a solid NR in the 10000m, and then decided to run the marathon with Schumacher advising. As some may recall, he (they) had no clue as to the requirements of the event (including in-event nutrition), did a couple of horror-show attempts at 26.2 and Bairu, today, is a mere shadow of his former self.

Kind of shocking.

Does he even run anymore? What happened to him? It's weird how Bairu and Nelson seemed to just stop racing without any sort of announcement or public discussion among fans or retirement...Teg has sort of gone down that same path. Solinsky has at least been vocal about what's going on.

This is the same runner who ran a 3:55.02 indoor mile as an 18 year old?

Speaking generally, when you train in a group environment there tend to be those training at the edge or slightly within themselves and those attempting to train beyond that edge. There is a definite group of guys at BTC who have done quite well, and those who clearly have struggled. It seems to me like there may be a tendency for those lower tier BTC guys (and sometimes even the quite solid but inconsistent guys like Hill) to overtrain. Obviously I could be way off base, but I just don't get the sense he lets guys come along at their own pace. It may not even be Jerry's doing, GF just may be too hardworking for his own good. It's just difficult for me to imagine a talent like GF performing this poorly without being wildly overtrained.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure Bayer mentioned his focus on the steeple was at least in part due to his inability to handle the intensity of the 1500m workouts. Instead of individualizing his training, he switched events?

Tim Nelson's "retirement" back in December 2012 was public. RunnersWorld, I believe, carried a small piece mentioning that Nike did not renew his contract.

Per Simon Bairu's recent tweet, he is now an assistant coach (didn't say specifically Jerry's assistant) by day, runs a bar/night club in Portland at night.

I have to agree that the guy to fix German would be Alberto, if he didn't have Rupp and Farah and Cain. I think with full time attention to every detail, GF would come around.

Galen Rupp needs to leave Alberto and go train with Wetmore and he'd be well under 13 for 5k. In fact all of the U.S. elites need to go train with Wetmore