GERMAN FERNANDEZ 8:34.42!!!!!!!!!

Its all in the compresions.

What with the wind and nop one to help him most of the way, this kid is in 8:25-ish shape right now (this is consistent with his state meet double). Depending on his response curve (which looks very good for longer distance) look for him to run low-13:20's at least within a year, maybe 13:-high teens (like his coach predicts).

There really wasn't that much wind, to tell you the truth. My 2-miler ran in the slower heat an hour earlier and I noticed the flags blowing at the top of the stadium. When I asked him about the wind he said he couldn't feel it at all on the track. I didn't really notice any wind at all at race time. Air temp was pretty much perfect, too.

I'm not sure either why people are hammering at Puskedra for slowing the pace on the first couple of laps. I just think they weren't gauging the pace quite right and it took a couple of laps and a lot of screaming to get the pace on the right track. Once German took the lead, Puskedra and Lowe looked like they were holding on for dear life, too.

IMHO, he really is the real deal. By all accounts he's undertrained, which sounds perfect, to me. His form was brilliant, too--effortless looking. Very little wasted motion. Whoever compared him to AlSal seems to have missed the boat there.

last i heard gregson was staying in australia

Salazar's form was hideous

having said that I still love him

They said in the interview that the wind suddenly picked up 45 minutes prior. If you watch the vid you can see the infield banners fluttering. There definitely was a significant headwind on the home straight.

Musta missed that, because that's where I was sitting! Honestly, I didn't notice it (which doesn't mean it didn't happen).

Why did German wear earrings in the race??

Sagarin wrote:

Who else thinks that German will become yet another casuality on the long list of California prep elites that become flops in college, Jeff Nelson among those? At least he's getting his 15 minutes of fame.

I think the lesson has been learned over the years. Lots of runners from all over the US have been driven into the ground by the college system, not just Californians, but I feel coaches are waking up. It's a shame what happened to Nelson, though.

Wow, very nice to read an intelligent post. Thanks for that. It is indeed harder for high schoolers to achieve those incredible distance marks compared to the sprint times because speed and strength events come easier to teenagers than distance events, which take more years to peak towards.

Personally, I would rate Gerry Lindgren's 13:44.0 5,000m as the best HS performance ever. He ran it in 1964, at a time when the current HS record was well over a minute slower! Lindgren's time was 9 seconds off the World Record, and he broke the previous American Record in this race, which was actually his first ever 5000. It was run on a clay track in Compton, and Lindgren wasn't carried along by anyone. He lead most of the race setting the pace before being outkicked by Gold Medalist Bob Schul and two other notable stars. It was an amazing accomplishment.

Centrifugal Bumble Puppy wrote:

There have been some other high school performances that rival or maybe surpass any of these. Many of the sprint and field event records, like Michael Carter's other-worldly bomb of 81'3.5" (provided there was a conversion to the international shot), might rank as high on a world list as Webb's mile time. But high schoolers tend to perform better in the short, explosive events relative to adults, while they usually require more maturation to achieve the same level in distance running. So comparing a high schooler's 20.13 or 44.69 or 7'7" (all world class performances) to a two-mile of 8:34.40 (not a world class performace) isn't really fair due to the maturation issue.

Looking at the middle distance or long distance performances, Rupp's 13:37.91 is probably better than 8:34.40 at face value. However, Rupp did have the advantage of being hoovered along by other runners in his race. On the other hand, Rupp beat a record that was older (and more long-standing) than the hallowed Jim Ryun mile record that Webb beat, and one which may have been harder for a high school runner to achieve, again due to the maturation issue. So which performance is better? A largely solo 8:34 or a running-with-elites 13:37? Or might Lindgren's 13:44.0 on a poor-quality cinder track be the best HS distance performance of all time? And could any of these runners beat Chapa's 28:32.7 even if they really wanted to? That one (because of the age factor again) might be every bit as impressive. They're all amazing in their own right. But at least now there's no doubt who ran the best HS 2-mile ever. Breaking the record outright was enough to lay that to rest, but doing it from the front makes it far-and-away a better performance than Nelson's 8:36.3.

In comparing HS mile records, don't forget Jim Ryun beat the Olympic Champion! No, it wasn't a 3:53.43, but you can only beat who shows up, right? In this case, it was the best in the world. So the guy was a baller and it's conceivable he could have run 3:53 or better in the same race Webb ran. And that 3:58.3 on a cinder track (with a 53.9 last 440) in a HS-only meet could be as impressive a HS mile as has ever been run. So was Ryun better than Webb as a high schooler? It might have depended on who else was in the race and how it played out, but it certainly would have been a race to see. For some reason, I can't see Webb managing that 3:58.3 cinder track race, but maybe Ryun was topped out at 3:55.3 in HS and couldn't have beaten Webb's record time in any kind of race. We'll never know. It's all just grist for the speculation mill.

What is clear is that high school running is as good as it has ever been, at least at the top. This Fernandez kid just took down a legendary record pretty much by himself. And don't forget Chris Derrick, who ran a totally solo 13:55.96, a mark which stacks up pretty well with a low-8:40s 2M. And neither of these guys won the FLCC championship! That Fout kid (like Withrow beating Rupp and Kiptoo and McDougal several years ago) must be pretty good himself to have beaten these superstars.

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Wow, very nice to read an intelligent post. Thanks for that. It is indeed harder for high schoolers to achieve those incredible distance marks compared to the sprint times because speed and strength events come easier to teenagers than distance events, which take more years to peak towards.

Personally, I would rate Gerry Lindgren's 13:44.0 5,000m as the best HS performance ever. He ran it in 1964, at a time when the current HS record was well over a minute slower! Lindgren's time was 9 seconds off the World Record, and he broke the previous American Record in this race, which was actually his first ever 5000. It was run on a clay track in Compton, and Lindgren wasn't carried along by anyone. He lead most of the race setting the pace before being outkicked by Gold Medalist Bob Schul and two other notable stars. It was an amazing accomplishment.