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

Younger than Nick wrote:

I like to play these games. He is running very hard already so I don't see as much improvement as you.

This Track Season:

Mile: 4:01

3000: 7:59

3200: 8:36

5000: 13:45

College Track PBs:

1500: 3:41

Mile: 3:58

3000: 7:45

5000: 13:30

I think he will be a bit faster than this in college. I think he can challenge the AJR in the 5000 his freshman year like Derrick/Fernandez did, maybe run in the 13:20s, I could see him getting into the 13:10s by the end of college. I think his mile could be 3:55 or so if he focused on it, but I don't think he will.

Mike Smith will get him rolling and set him up for a spectacular pro career. I think he can run sub-13, sub-27 someday.

That is a sketchy resume. His PRs are not impressive either.

Younger than Nick wrote:

That is a sketchy resume. His PRs are not impressive either.

In a few seasons, he produced BOTH the individual AND team champions at the 2019 NXN. No one else has ever done that on the boy's side (Aris might have on the girls')

Not exactly "sketchy" IMO

Colorado knows rn55 wrote:

colorunner123 wrote:

If I were the coach, I wouldn't have posted the video. What purpose does it serve except to raise expectations and increase pressure on Nico? Dumb.

The coach didn’t post the video. It’s a series TempoSports is doing on the Newbury Park program that started in September. Remember we are just seeing the really hard days . There is a lot more to a team and program then one video. As you are calling them “Dumb” they are working hard and doing positive things. The irony is real ?

I have been coaching for 15 years in High School and enjoy these videos. I will never be judgmental to a program that’s super motivated and creating opportunities you could only dream of.

OK the coach didn't personally post the video. I stand corrected. The coach did, however, allow TempoSports to videotape and post the workout. That was his call.

I didn't call Nico or his teammates dumb. In my opinion the coach was dumb to allow this workout to be publicized. That doesn't mean I think he's a terrible coach, just that he made a really bad call in this particular case.

Publicizing this workout will increase expectations on Nico which will probably make him more anxious, and anxiety can compromise performance (e.g. via impaired sleep and/or via an elevated heart rate before and during the race). I think it's better to keep pressure low, especially on high school kids. If nobody knew about this workout, Nico would toe the line with confidence that he'd blow away everyone's expectations. Now he must be feeling "If I don't break 8 minutes, I'm gonna disappoint everyone."

1. his mechanics are very similar to Jim Ryun.

2. Han Solo and the rest of you clowns are what's wrong with this site. You know absolutely zilch about the workout, the coach's plan, what came before, what comes etc etc. You people, by and large, are such incredible tools it's astounding. Everyone thinks they can coach until they do. This coach is killing it- and yet Han Solo - some 40 year old incel thinks he's qualified to offer an opinion.

corn puddin wrote:

1. his mechanics are very similar to Jim Ryun.

2. Han Solo and the rest of you clowns are what's wrong with this site. You know absolutely zilch about the workout, the coach's plan, what came before, what comes etc etc. You people, by and large, are such incredible tools it's astounding. Everyone thinks they can coach until they do. This coach is killing it- and yet Han Solo - some 40 year old incel thinks he's qualified to offer an opinion.

I agree. I also was reminded of Jim Ryun. I still say it was a bad idea to publicize this workout but the coach is doing a great job.

I was referring to his changing schools 4 times. Salazar is the best coach of all time.

It's amazing that any critical opinions must be from "tools" or "pathetic people", etc. Isn't that why a forum like Letsrun exists? I think Han Solo's opinions and insight seem solid.

This is a common pattern with all threads related to Newbury Park and their coach. They do something to get attention, but when the attention isn't all positive, people get all butt hurt that it isn't a lovefest.

Every single workout they have posted has been extreme. Of course context is everything, but since they are in control of what is posted and published, why not show some of the boring stuff and things related to culture instead of just a$$ kicker workout after a$$ kicker workout. Continually posting this stuff is going to give the impression that is all that happens at Newbury Park.

Also, the coach has clearly done an excellent job with this group of runners. However, it is an AMAZING group of talented kids with unbelievable youth running results. I would challenge anyone to find a group of kids at any program that has the background and history of success prior to attending any school. It looks like the talent pool at Newbury Park is completely stocked for the next few years, so I'm sure they are going to be incredible for a while, but only time will tell if they continue to have success once that incoming talent starts to taper off (if it ever does).

yo diggity wrote: His coach ran 1 semester at Adams st, preceded by a D3 in NY and a couple JUCO/NAIA stops after.

Big whoop.

Arthur Lydiard was a shoemaker and a milkman who didn't attend college and he revolutionized the sport.

The best coach I had in college was a football player, including a very short stint in the NFL, with an English degree.

Here's the thing about distance coaches - there's no one, or even 10, right path(s) to being a great coach. Coaching distance runners requires being well-versed in so many different disciplines that it's impossible define the best route for anyone. A great coach can be not so great in one area but make up for it in another.

If push came to shove and I had to identify the most important traits for a great distance coach, I would say that they are:

1. A very interdisciplinary mindset, having a wide knowledge base across many different areas. Things you need to know for coach can come anywhere - you just have to be able to recognize it as something useful or analogous. They need to know history, science, psychology, even economics, and host of other things. Having too narrow of a view is one of the worst things a coach can do.

2. Wisdom. Good luck defining that one. I can't effectively define it, but I know it when I see it. I'll take wisdom over a Ph.D. in kinesiology every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Educated ≠ Intelligent ≠ wise. Three separate things. All important, but different.

3. Have an inherent curiosity to learn. Students of the sport as well as everything else.

4. Be observant. I heard Wetmore once comment that horses can't talk, so horse trainers have to learn to study the horse and get information from observation and that he thought coaches needed to do the same. I completely agree with that.

5. Be an active listener, including asking the right questions; see #2-4.

6. Care. They have to put the athlete's long-term interests ahead of their own.

The icing on the cake is if, as an athlete, someone swung for the fences and tried to become as great as they could. I care less about the level they reached as I do the level they tried to reach and how they tried to reach it. Experience at a high level is a fantastic added bonus, but history shows that one can be a very successful coach with out it if they have these traits.

I think the big whoop is that he exaggerates or lies about his background. If he or others didn't claim he must the know or be the best, because of his background, nobody would care if he was an accountant, plumber or played football in school.

Younger than Nick wrote:

That is not at all how it happens at P5 programs. They may have a specific 800 group with its own coach. They have sub groups of 1500-3k and 3k-10k. 800 runners never see the distance guys. The 1500 guys run XC but never run with the real distance guys again during the track season. Even within specific groups, the 28:30 10k guy does a different workout than the 30:30 10k guy.

You might be right, but P5 programs and “all college” programs isn’t the same thing, which is what I was responding to.

but can you pilot the falcon?

YMMV wrote:

Younger than Nick wrote:

That is a sketchy resume. His PRs are not impressive either.

In a few seasons, he produced BOTH the individual AND team champions at the 2019 NXN. No one else has ever done that on the boy's side (Aris might have on the girls')

Not exactly "sketchy" IMO

Chris Derrick would like to have a word with you about this statement

corn puddin wrote:

1. his mechanics are very similar to Jim Ryun.

Ryun was definitely better at the bobblehead than Young.

Anyway, Ryun did some pretty epic workouts in high school as well, right?

I’ll add one more thing to this that is specific to high school coaches. I evaluate HS coaches 50% on how their athletes perform under them, and 50% how they continue to perform after them. If a kid ran fantastic in HS but you wrung everything out of him/her at that level and they didn’t continue to develop later, then you failed in my book. You didn’t coach those kids - you used them to make yourself look good.

What up Neuqua valley wrote:

YMMV wrote:

In a few seasons, he produced BOTH the individual AND team champions at the 2019 NXN. No one else has ever done that on the boy's side (Aris might have on the girls')

Not exactly "sketchy" IMO

Chris Derrick would like to have a word with you about this statement

Technically YMMV is right. Derrick won NTN before individuals were racing at NXN which started the following year if the internet isn’t lying to me.

Some distance programs are split into many groups, some not so much. I definitely agree with you that most of the time their are a variety of groups, but many programs have quite a bit of overlap in their training groups and workouts. There are videos and pictures all over the place of Engles, Murphy, Brazier, Kejelcha and Rupp all doing reps together me. If the top pros can afford to overlap their workouts, so can many NCAA programs.

For what it’s worth, I’m a low 1:50s/4:10s guy and I do all of my aerobic workouts and much of my VO2 type stuff with the best 5k guys on my team (14:40-15:00). But starting in spring I’m with the 4-8 guys once a week most weeks for short, fast reps.

The rare post like this right here is why I still wade through the cesspool of these boards. Spot. On.

It's so weird to see people shocked that top-level athletes are doing top-level workouts. The kid is an aerobic beast, and one of the best all-time hs athletes, yes he can run really fast workouts, and no he's not f*cked his whole career because of it. Not all young talent goes to waste.