michael furey wrote:
I honestly wonder if German Fernandez was the most talented runner ever to live. He basically did what he did in his freshman year of college in his second year of running. He seemed a whole other tier of talent above guys like Rupp, Tegenkamp, or Ritz who ended up running in the 12:50s for 5000m.
His freshman year isnt even close to Tom Byers freshman year.
CoachB wrote:
Lots of misinformation on this thread. As a guy who coaches in the same league as Riverbank and considers their coaches to be friends, I can assure you guys a few things
German trained and raced extremely hard in high school
German was often injured in high school
Not winning FLN was really the only blemish on his senior year.
Since most of his college/pro career is easily accessible, I'll focus on what he did prior. This is done from memory from 12-16 years ago, so excuse if the details are off a bit.
Fall, FR - Played JV football, Riverbank is terrible at football.
Spring FR - Ran 4:34 in his first competitive mile ever, after training for 3 weeks at the end of JV basketball season. Ended up at 4:22 and 9:40ish for the season
Sophomore year - Was not going to run cross. Coach saw him around town prior to the start of school and talked him into coming out for the team. Mileage around 35. Won the division 4 CA state title in 15:12. Placed just out of a qualifying spot for FLN. Ran with the lead pack (Acosta, Coe, et al, until about a mile to go, couldn't hang). Played JV basketball and tore his meniscus.
Sophomore Track. Meniscus injury went undiagnosed for most of the season. He'd run for a week then take 3 weeks off. Won all 3 distance events at league finals, then had surgery on the meniscus one week later.
Junior Year. Didn't start running again until October of his Junior year. Placed 2nd in D4 at the CA state meet in, I believe, 15:34 off of about 6 weeks of running.
This was probably the start of German thinking of himself as a runner rather than just as a kid who runs track and cross in addition to his other sports. This is also conjecture on my part.
Over the winter, he decided to focus on running. He started building his miles up. By January he was running 12-14 miles for his long runs. Entered the Davis Stampede half marathon with his girlfriend. After running the first mile in slower than 6:00, he decided to speed up. Ended up catching the leader by 10 ish miles. Looked at the guy and asked, "how long is a half marathon"? Went on to win in, I believe 1:09. There was a great thread on here by the guy that got second. After that, he developed shin splints (possibly undiagnosed stress fracture, stress reaction. Spent most of his Junior track season on the bike. Got healthy enough by the end of the season to win the Sac Joaquin section meet in 9:13 then place 3rd at the state meet in 9:08 on a hot afternoon. A week or two later, he ran 4:13 at Golden West Invite.
Summer prior to senior year. Since he missed most of his junior year of running, he mostly kept training after Golden West. He was able to stay injury free for his entire senior campaign and this is when he burst into the national consciousness. In late July, he entered the Wharf to Wharf road race, where he placed 6th or 7th running in trainers and holding his ipod, running right around 30 flat for 6 miles.
His coach was a big believer in pace work. Someone posted on here earlier that "his training wasn't that hard, he never ran faster than 30 seconds for a 200" That may be true or it may not be, but by August he was running workouts such as 20 x 200 in 30 seconds with a 30 second recovery jog.
He opened the cross country season of his senior year with a couple of high 14s for the 5k. This included a 14:44 on the course we use for our league meet, which it turns out is actually 3.17 miles. I don't believe that they ran him in any of the big high school invites so he hadn't really "taken many scalps" leading into the post season so there was some skepticism about how good he actually was. At our league finals meet, I was riding lead bike. His shoe came untied before the 800m mark. His coach happened to be standing there and told him to go ahead and tie it. He stopped, tied his shoe and kept on going. Even 800 in, nobody caught him during his stop. I believe he finished in 14:47. He then jogged through the chute, put on his trainers, and was out on the course running a tempo effort 5k (which he finished in the low 16s.)
When he announced he was going for Marc Davis's record Woodward Park course record, most people were skeptical. Davis was quoted in the papers saying that when he ran the record, he had gone out too fast (I believe 4:29) and that if German wanted the record, he needed to not go out too hard. I believe Davis's course record was 14:38, which was run under perfect foggy conditions at the Kinney (pre foot locker era) regional meet (pre Mt SAC). German went out in 4:24 and went on to break the course record by 14 seconds, despite running in warm conditions in the last race of the day. Won FLR over Puskedra the next week then had a rare off day at FLN to take 3rd.
I actually think that his course record at Woodward was the most impressive meet of his high school career. Marc Davis was a 2 time Olympic team member and tons of other guys (Meb, Ryan Hall, etc...) never even broke 14:50 on that course. I thought that Nico Young had a shot at the record this year. He got perfect conditions at the state meet, very similar to when Marc Davis ran in '87. Young finished in, I think, 14:29.
During the off season between cross and track, he won USA Juniors, taking some revenge on Chris Derrick, who had beaten him at FLN. He ran OK at worlds and then his coaches pulled him from the Arcadia lineup as a precaution because he was pretty fatigued after coming back from worlds.
German tripled and quadrupled at almost every dual meet that year. He broke 9:00 for the first time at a super low key invitational. He ran 8:53 as part of a quadruple that first saw him run 4:15-4:18ish, 1:57 ish, and then split 53 on the relay leg of the 4x4.
He quadrupled at our league finals meet running similar times on a dirt track on a hot day. Then doubled at the SJS D4 meet. If I remember correctly, he ran 4:07 and 8:4x. He actually ran a little slower the next week at the Sac Joaquin masters meet before going to the state meet where he ran his 4:00/8:34 double.
Say what you want about his high school coaches running him too hard or too easy or Dave Smith ruining him. I don't really want to debate that. I do know that for his style of running (a kid that loved to just run even splits), his HS coaching was perfect.
Fantastic post. Thanks for sharing.
coach d. wrote:
zxczxcv wrote:
Why the focus on where he worked in high school? Most people, at least in my day, worked in high school.
Later that winter, to show how much he developed with the better team competition and higher mileage (and presumably much harder workouts), he ran 3:56 solo, then 3:55 for the mile and 7:47 junior 3k record while quite sick. At this point, he was just 18 years old. He went on to go wire to wire in the NCAA 1500m final for the title, again as a freshman, and run 13:25 for the 3k junior record.
He never set a 3000 meter under-20 US record indoors or out.
Yes he did. His AJrR indoors is 7:47. It sill stands. He also holds the indoor AJr record.
michael furey wrote:
I honestly wonder if German Fernandez was the most talented runner ever to live. He basically did what he did in his freshman year of college in his second year of running. He seemed a whole other tier of talent above guys like Rupp, Tegenkamp, or Ritz who ended up running in the 12:50s for 5000m.
If you define talent solely as the abilty to run well without much training, German is definately the most talented runner I've ever seen, and perhaps the most talented ever. I watched him run many times in HS and he never looked uncomfortable, even running on the torn meniscus.
Durability and the ability to absorb training is a talent that is not often talked about. He certainly was not the most talented in that regard. However, he did train very hard. Had he been held back a bit, brought a long a bit more slowly, perhaps he would have had a longer career, or perhaps he would never have reached the level he did and we wouldn't be talking about him at all anymore.
malmo wrote:
coach d. wrote:
He never set a 3000 meter under-20 US record indoors or out.
Yes he did. His AJrR indoors is 7:47. It sill stands. He also holds the indoor AJr record.
Chris Derrick holds the US indoor 3000 m record. Fernandez's 7:47 has not and will not be ratified as it was on an oversized track.
That is, US under-20 3000 meter record
Ya - he got hit from behind by a car when riding his bike and folded over a guardrail. In the ICU for some time with a broken back. Subsequently underwent extensive rehab (there were videos here of his first braced steps when it happened).
LV was hit by a car?
Math Professor wrote:
Ya - he got hit from behind by a car when riding his bike and folded over a guardrail. In the ICU for some time with a broken back. Subsequently underwent extensive rehab (there were videos here of his first braced steps when it happened).
If you're discussing what happened to LV, the accident was caused by wet sand along a turn that caused him to crash into a guardrail. No car was involved.
Indeed one of the smoothest forms. I appreciate your insights. Let us be honest. If German never accomplished his High School accolades and got fifth is Senior year of college and then never accomplished much Pro wise we would probably not remember him as well.
Just watch this - count the time from when he passes to when you see another runner in the CIF state meet. He was an absurd talent. Just such a shame we never saw him at the top of the sport.
CoachB wrote:
However, he did train very hard. Had he been held back a bit, brought a long a bit more slowly, perhaps he would have had a longer career, or perhaps he would never have reached the level he did and we wouldn't be talking about him at all anymore.
Earlier, you state, "I do know that for his style of running (a kid that loved to just run even splits), his HS coaching was perfect."
Howeber, it has been repeatedly stated he was running (just) 30sec 200's. Is that true? If so, how could that have possibly been too hard for a 4:0x miler (unless he was doing hundreds of them per workout)?
Can you share more info on the specifics of his high school training?
Whoops, sorry for the question about the 30sec 200's. I completely screwed up . 30sec 200's is what would be expected of a 4:0x miler. Sorry.
Did he officially retire at this point?
IPlayTrackFoundation wrote:
On this day at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina, German Fernandez set a new American high-school record with a time of 8:34.40 for the two mile. A record that was held until 2011 when Lukas Verzbicas lowered it to 8:29.46.
Watch it here:
https://youtu.be/M7a9_en89skhttps://www.facebook.com/1228761723824335/posts/3521837777850040/?d=n
He ran for Dave Smith. That's what happened to him.
For every runner that had success with Dave Smith, there are 2-3 who got ruined.
These D1 coaches get a lot of credit for winning when most of the big names they bring on would see the same, or better, results by just listening to their HS coach for 4 more years.
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Another Option wrote:
There are other great things to do in life other than run. Why not strike while the iron's hot and then get on with your next great adventure?
Long ago, I read that you have ~10 years from the first year you really train/race seriously until the end of your competitive career. I think that might even be longer than the norm.
There is no shame in giving it your all, saying "that was fun", and moving on.
"Other great things to do in life other than run."
Like what, traveling or having kids? Most things in life do not compare to chasing self-improvement. Training 1-2 hours/day indefinitely is also reasonable if you enjoy it.
I don't know where you got that 10-year quote but it's complete garbage. Good thing Eluid Kipchoge didn't read that, huh?
im not a dumb dumb wrote:
romper room wrote:
Going to ok state did not work for him. He ran very well for a year but that training seemed to destroy him. If he kept a nice progression like high school, he would have been running sub 13 by now. You really have to look at the training before you choose a college coach.
Are you suggesting he didn't look at that? Dude has multiple XC All-American awards and an NCAA title along with the junior records he ran, he did well in college and who knows how somewhere else would have gone. Running is a total crapshoot, he got a lot out of it when he could and I think it is unfair to suggest he didn't.
Running is not a crapshoot but you cannot run all these "nationals" as a young child and expect to excell in distance running. Ask Jim Ryun if that might be true. "You can overtrain" but even more true is "You can overrace." That is not my opinion alone of course and that might be why, more than anything else, America does not dominate in world-wide athletics. WE have the youth program!
For my money Fernandez was and still is the most talented American born distance runner. Running/training essentially two out of his four high school years and finishing with the most notorious XC record (Fresno course) and the two mile national record, all while running solo from the gun to finish is easily the most prolific accomplishment of any high school distance runner. Just the eyeball test and you knew he was different; legendary runners like Bekele, El Guerrouj, Haile, all had a certain gate and fluidity that was above the pack, German had that.