Meet Grant Fisher: Is 40 mpw, 11th grade Foot Locker champ and 4:02 miler America's next star?

Good thoughts, but 4:01 with a 53 last lap for a high schooler??? No way.

You realize that is the point. You get a lot of people who think will have monster senior years. For a lot of them it doesntvhappen.

gfdsfgaedgf wrote:

adsfasdf wrote:

Someone needs to make a list of the sub 4:03 milers as juniors that didn't break 4 as a senior. It is much longer than the ones that did:) Or heck even just the 4:03 juniors that didn't run faster as a senior.

You do realized that only five high schoolers EVER have broken 4 in this country, right?

That's assuming that he does get into hypothetical HSR time trial shape. It's unlikely that he improves that much, but if he really were in like 3:55 shape and with his kick that kind of result is possible. I could, for example, see Webb (3:53 with a 55 last lap), Ryun (Ryun), or even Saarel (4:02 with a 55 last lap in bad conditions) doing that. Otherworldly but not impossible for the highest echelon of high school runners.

Do not know much about Grant but interview at Brooks indicates an intelligent, level-headed young man..obviously , teens evolve...hope he does not fall prey to a Rasputin type self proclaimed running guru.

Whatever he does this summer, expect him to learn from it.

Also, lots of mileage is not a magic wand.

Focus should be on how he wins, who he beats and even, who beats him. Time only means a lot in prison.

Hope he picks a college based on education value.

I think the Centro comparisons are spot on. Both of them had the wheels in high school to dispense anybody in the last 200m. Centro ran 10 seconds faster in the 2 mile. Anybody know what he got down to in the mile?

I think 4:02 for Centro, as a senior. Also to be noted, he ran low mileage like Fisher.

I'm so excited about this kid and have to keep reminding myself that he's only a JUNIOR. He can get Centro's 2 mile I think, if he wants it and if he's in a fast race. The question is, is there anybody to push him like that? Centro had Forys, who has kinda stagnated since. Who does Fisher have? Oh, and Centro ran 4:03 too I believe.

Fast Guys wrote:

I'm so excited about this kid and have to keep reminding myself that he's only a JUNIOR. He can get Centro's 2 mile I think, if he wants it and if he's in a fast race. The question is, is there anybody to push him like that? Centro had Forys, who has kinda stagnated since. Who does Fisher have? Oh, and Centro ran 4:03 too I believe.

Fisher has Maton in the 800 up, Mantz in the 2 mile and xc, Dressel in xc, and whoever emerges in the next year; there's gonna be someone. Depth is not an issue.

Fisher ran almost 30 seconds faster winning Footlocker as a junior than Centrowitz ran finishing eighth as a senior.

Of all the Footlocker boys' champions going back to 1979, only one, AJ Acosta, has really tried to make a career as a miler. And he's just been OK, not a star.

Many boys' Footlocker champs have gone on to make national teams and have great careers at 5k/10k. If history is the guide, and if Fisher is going to reach the top level, that's how he'll get there.

gaze higher wrote:

Fisher ran almost 30 seconds faster winning Footlocker as a junior than Centrowitz ran finishing eighth as a senior.

Of all the Footlocker boys' champions going back to 1979, only one, AJ Acosta, has really tried to make a career as a miler. And he's just been OK, not a star.

Many boys' Footlocker champs have gone on to make national teams and have great careers at 5k/10k. If history is the guide, and if Fisher is going to reach the top level, that's how he'll get there.

But this is why Fisher is so good. It's foolish to bring up names of American stars who panned out after high school--Fisher is extremely intelligent and also still hasn't picked track over soccer, for all we know he doesn't even want a professional career when he could have a great career doing something else--but Fisher is not in the mould of Ritz or Goucher or someone like that. He's in the mould of Webb, or Centro: athletes who are extraordinarily versatile so that they can compete well in xc but aren't true xc runners. I think that if he makes a career as a runner, it'll be as a miler. He almost has too much speed to really compete in the 5k/10k.

Grant Fisher is one of the nicest looking closing runners I have seen in years without some huge underside 800, or cross mileage profile either, except of course he wins all of those too.

He wins all that he runs, the puzzle to be solved is.... how good a soccer player is he, and by they way this has been brought up , with games and training he runs at least 70 miles a week, easily, same tax on any legs, plus contact.

I love guys that look to be undertrained, I would argue , Grant has huge mix of aerobic, plus anoerobic bursts from soccer, it gives him snap.Not so sure he is as undertrained as folks think, he is NEVER not in shape.

he is actually one guy I would say that is better than he looks, but one ankle turn, one bad header?

Folks say , and I am a believer in this, that guys that play both sports like this should? The time has come to pick a course.

Ask Lukas Verzbikas.

Flotrack has the individual Brooks PR race videos up. Here's Fisher's 2-mile race:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251399-Brooks-PR-Invitational-2014/video/747624-Boys-2-Mile-F01-Grant-Fisher-big-back-to-back-wins-Brooks-PR-2014

It was posted earlier that Fisher launched his kick from perhaps 250m to 300m out, but it turns out it was not until 200m. All of his 4-second victory margin was gained in the final half-lap.

You can see on the video here he hit the bell right behind Fahey, both in roughly 7:53. The pair gradually pulled away in tandem and put, I'm going to say, about 7-8 meters on the rest of the field by the time they hit 200m to go in 7:23. At that point Fisher swiftly changed gears and put the pedal to the metal, sprinting easily away from the field with the gap growing steadily all the way to 4 seconds at the line. He was *flying* as he powered through the tape. Roughly 30-28 for his last lap. Fahey went about 30-32. The others didn't gain much on Fahey down the homestretch, so those behind him within view of the camera must have been in the vicinity of 31or 32 for their last 200s.

You don't see such a smokin' final 200 meters like this often in a h.s. race. Joy to behold.

We don't really know about Fisher's 800m speed yet. We know that he has the strength to win Footlocker and we know he can close a 4:02 mile in 58. Those are our data points.

Too early to put him in the category of Webb, who ran 1:47 in HS; or Centro, who was always very quick at 800m and has developed into a 1:45 guy. That kind of speed is historically hard to come by.

We'll just have to see what happens. I think Fisher can become a true xc/5k guy if he wants, and being a true xc/5k guy with a lethal kick is a very good thing to be.

I really want to see the kid run a competitive 800. When he was talking with the Flotrack announcers after his race he was jokingly asked about beating Nick Symmonds over 800m, and his response was apprehension over dropping down to the half mile.

He could certainly go sub-1:50, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to hit 1:47 high or so in the right race.

webfoot wrote:

Grant Fisher appears to have a lot of talent and he and his coach have found training that works. However, I don't think the average ambitious HS runner will have success on 40 mpw while doing another sport at the same time. I'm curious what kind of success Fisher's coach has had with above average but not super talented runners.

The biggest mistake I made in HS was not working up to 70mpw the summer before entering college. I mostly averaged 45-50 in HS and as a 5k/10k runner in college it took me until sophomore year to build my mileage up and approach NCAA qualifying times in track.

As a guy who would integrate with their group on weekends for workouts and long-runs, everyone who ran with Scannell has enjoyed success . Every single guy from that group had great success throughout the track season. There is your answer.

My friend and I had him right at 27 flat for his last 200m. 30-28 wouldn't have looked THAT fast. Love how he never broke form to the tape. Like a robot out there.

I had him in 26-ish, but it's hard to see from the vid. In any case it looked downright Ches-like for sure.

This kid is more exciting to me than Webb or LV, and that's saying something.

speediman wrote:

My friend and I had him right at 27 flat for his last 200m. 30-28 wouldn't have looked THAT fast. Love how he never broke form to the tape. Like a robot out there.

He looks uncomfortable until he opens up at the end. It's like he hasn't put enough miles in yet to get a fluid stride. You can tell he's thinking about his arms.

Watched it a few more times- just ridiculous. His last lap was right around 57 flat, with something like 30.7-26.3 splits. Seemed to be just under 31 for the first 200m, so no matter how you cut it he was well under 27 flat for the final 200m. Unreal.I don't care how much speed the kid has, if he's able to run a 26 at the end of a sub 9:00 2 Mile, he wasn't hurting AT ALL during the race. So, if someone took the race out in 4:20 and continued to push that pace through at least 2400m, could he have ran 8:40? I think so.

Final Buzzer wrote:

I had him in 26-ish, but it's hard to see from the vid. In any case it looked downright Ches-like for sure.

This kid is more exciting to me than Webb or LV, and that's saying something.