Nico Young runs 4:10, 4:16 in practice!!!

Han Solo wrote:

Probably anything that isn’t on a seemingly never ending chain of insanely hard workouts.

There will be convincing you though, since you seem to be in the same league as this coach.

I’m not a fan of workouts like this in February and I especially don’t think it makes sense to be chasing indoor records. If I were coaching him I’d probably go for a record chase at Arcadia and that’s about it. The run up to the CA state meet takes a real toll which I think lessens his chances at doing something big in a post-State national meet. I’d plan on him shutting it down after state so he can rest sooner rather than later and get on the NAU training program. Bigger fish to fry for this kid.

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Good article that offers some insight into Nico's training

You must be doing something wrong if no one is talking sh#$ on you.

Nico has been developed slowly and perfect by his coach. It’s always people on their keyboards who criticize and have uneducated opinions about ones training.

I certainly appreciate this comment and I hope that you’re right and he goes on to do great things.

Clearly we have some differences in opinions on some things. Apologies though for coming off like a jerk - I pass the proverbial olive branch to you!

Whether or not the design and placement of the workout is a good idea, I'll leave that for ya'll to debate.

As for times/execution in one of these FloTrack/MileSplit High School workout videos, this is the most impressive workout I can recall. Perhaps I'm missing one. I believe the Cooper Teare 3k, 2k, 1k, 500 was the most impressive HS workout I've seen before this.

JO Coach wrote:

Whether or not the design and placement of the workout is a good idea, I'll leave that for ya'll to debate.

As for times/execution in one of these FloTrack/MileSplit High School workout videos, this is the most impressive workout I can recall. Perhaps I'm missing one. I believe the Cooper Teare 3k, 2k, 1k, 500 was the most impressive HS workout I've seen before this.

I second that

Younger than Nick wrote:

I am okay with it if you want to hit your peak in high school.

Improvement in college is from having one's body continue to mature. Someone's not going to peak in HS merely because they trained too hard. There have been runners who trained hard in HS and continued to improve and others that trained moderately that didn't.

I've reached out to LetsRun.com coaching guru John Kellogg to see what he thinks of the workout. I'm slowly trying to entice John back out of retirement and into the game.

What's not clear to me is if Nico got extra rest. I assume he did as ever rep he started with the other runners. So does anyone know how much rest he got? Or did the others get less and have to start when his 3/2 minutes was up.

When you factor in the stair reps, that workout was a doozy

I agree this is impressive, and 10 days before a big meet makes sense, especially if you aren't doing much racing right now (which Nico is not.) Hard to run fast in big meets if you don't have either a race or two or a race-type workout under your belt.

Couple other observations. First, those boys are very thin. Yes, most good distance runners are skinny but this whole team looks really skinny, which seems weird. Second, Brosnan is so tightly wound it makes me nervous to listen to him. I noticed this on a previous interview before NXN, and thought, wow, if I were his athlete, I'd be stressed out by this guy. I love his enthusiasm but he makes me feel jittery. Doesn't appear to messing up the kids' performances, though.

I really don't understand this workout. why are the 800's the same pace as 1600? makes no sense. back off a bit on the 16's and run the 8's a bit harder. dude was gased at the end

We talkin' bout practice? Not a race. Not a race, mind you. A workout.

Hot takes:

-Coach says it’s windy before the workout starts. HOWEVER look at the background, trees aren’t blowing around.

-They don’t show the full laps, parts are sped up and slowed down.

Possibly training for MENTALITY... IE Calling out goal meet day splits while tempoing the distance.

odetoiverson wrote:

We talkin' bout practice? Not a race. Not a race, mind you. A workout.

That's not a workout, it's essentially a few 1600 and 800 meter races really close together. If this is a common thing to be doing then he'll be fried by the time outdoors gets here.

He should be doing more controlled higher volume workouts right now unless he plans to peak this month and reset in March to build back up to the summer.

There's nowhere to go up from this type of workout, it's pretty much all-out racing.

Han Solo wrote:

What a stupid workout. Feel bad for these kids.

Taking one workout in a vacuum and saying it's stupid? Then saying you feel bad for "these kids" as if there are multiple kids capable of that? Educate yourself on our sport. This is not that crazy, and actually a common type of workout.

That's not a workout wrote:

That's not a workout, it's essentially a few 1600 and 800 meter races really close together. If this is a common thing to be doing then he'll be fried by the time outdoors gets here.

He should be doing more controlled higher volume workouts right now unless he plans to peak this month and reset in March to build back up to the summer.

There's nowhere to go up from this type of workout, it's pretty much all-out racing.

I do agree it's basically an all-out race.

I can't imagine doing 1600m repeats at basically 10-15 seconds slower than my PR with 800 repeats in between at the same pace. Seems ungodly hard to do period, but probably actually harsher on the body than running a 1600m all out TT.

I understand the point of this was to get used to 3000m pace necessary to break the record. Just seems like a lot to do 4000m of work at 3000m goal pace.

The overall length and speed are okay but the way he did it is the thing that makes it crazy. Repeat 800s at 3k pace would be more normal instead of 1600s. But he was able to complete it somehow. I will say it again. He can break 8 minutes but he is much closer to his peak than most high school kids would be. So he may be running 7:55 in 3 years when some undertrained 9 minute 3200 kids may be running 7:50.

Only time will tell if Nico continues to improve.

Curious if there are any runners (boys or girls) that have been through the Newbury Park program over the past few years that are currently running in college. How are they doing? I know FM and Great Oak are often criticized for their runners flaming out because they trained so hard in high school. Is there any evidence one way or the other for kids who have gone through the past few years at Newbury Park?