Newbury Park's success is due to higher expectations, not specific workouts

bluebury park wrote:

Their coach has done an excellent job of raising the bar. Their idea of fast is way different than the rest of the country and their kids respond accordingly.

The same thing happens when good runners progress to the college level. They realize they have to run faster to be competitive so they start doing what it takes to run faster.

You can speculate all you want about their workouts. But, it’s their mental game that makes all the difference.

I agree. It's the same as any other discipline in the benefits of belief and confidence. The practice and complete involvement in the process and vision of the outcome (expectation) progresses accordingly.

Each plateau becomes a home base.

bluebury park wrote:

Their coach has done an excellent job of raising the bar. Their idea of fast is way different than the rest of the country and their kids respond accordingly.

The same thing happens when good runners progress to the college level. They realize they have to run faster to be competitive so they start doing what it takes to run faster.

You can speculate all you want about their workouts. But, it’s their mental game that makes all the difference.

Easy kids, we know you like your coach. There are a lot of coaches that consistently raise the bar for their teams. Good teams make coaches look good and vice versa. It's not just by setting high expectations.

Yeah man they just want it so bad all the other people that want it don’t matter. When the top 4 runners on the team are 2 pairs of brothers it’s probably time to start thanking the parents instead of the coach.

this is right, the rest of you are delusional lol. It's all talent. I mean of course kudos to the kids, the program, and the coach for developing the talent and executing well. But four kids ( two pairs of siblings as pointed out) at 8:40 3200m level (probably faster) is just an unprecedented burst of talent. Lofty expectations don't count for very much when athletes are physically limited.

Also those 2 brothers are most likely motivated by their older brother who had tremendous success in the same program.

They can look at his training and do it better

Are the two pairs of brothers something other programs don't ever have? Is that special to NP? Of course, it helps to have a very good training partner for summer and weekend runs apart from the team.

This team does workouts far above what most high school programs do, which is to say, much closer to college training. Nico Young and the team were doing 7x1k on grass at faster than 5000m pace. They're doing 4M tempos at 5:08 or better. They're doing something like 800 at 3k, mile at 3k, 800 at 3k, mile at 3k, 800 at 3k.

My high school would just go run somewhere nice. No real xc workouts. I doubt that Great Oak does workouts at this level.

What you make of the Jace Aschbrenners (8:40s) and other sub 9 guys in the program if you think they just got some lucky family genes in the three Youngs and the Sahlman brothers?

quasilogarithm wrote:

this is right, the rest of you are delusional lol. It's all talent. I mean of course kudos to the kids, the program, and the coach for developing the talent and executing well. But four kids ( two pairs of siblings as pointed out) at 8:40 3200m level (probably faster) is just an unprecedented burst of talent. Lofty expectations don't count for very much when athletes are physically limited.

Yep, Bill Belichick could only do so much with an aging Cam Newton and they went 7-9. Talent is king, although coaching maximizes what talent is there. With a lesser coach, the '20 Pats go 4-12.

So yes, Newbury Park is very good right now, but for me, can they do it over decades like York HS in Chicago?

xczvzxcv wrote:

Are the two pairs of brothers something other programs don't ever have? Is that special to NP? Of course, it helps to have a very good training partner for summer and weekend runs apart from the team.

This team does workouts far above what most high school programs do, which is to say, much closer to college training. Nico Young and the team were doing 7x1k on grass at faster than 5000m pace. They're doing 4M tempos at 5:08 or better. They're doing something like 800 at 3k, mile at 3k, 800 at 3k, mile at 3k, 800 at 3k.

My high school would just go run somewhere nice. No real xc workouts. I doubt that Great Oak does workouts at this level.

serious question, can hobby runners like me apply those same workouts (albeit slower) to my own training?

800 @ 3k, mile @ 3k, 800 @ 3k, mile @ 3k, 800 @ 3k (even if the 3k pace is slow ).

jecht wrote:

quasilogarithm wrote:

this is right, the rest of you are delusional lol. It's all talent. I mean of course kudos to the kids, the program, and the coach for developing the talent and executing well. But four kids ( two pairs of siblings as pointed out) at 8:40 3200m level (probably faster) is just an unprecedented burst of talent. Lofty expectations don't count for very much when athletes are physically limited.

Yep, Bill Belichick could only do so much with an aging Cam Newton and they went 7-9. Talent is king, although coaching maximizes what talent is there. With a lesser coach, the '20 Pats go 4-12.

So yes, Newbury Park is very good right now, but for me, can they do it over decades like York HS in Chicago?

If Brosnan stays YES.

I can see him moving to a higher level of coaching in College or Pro in the near future.

xczvzxcv wrote:

What you make of the Jace Aschbrenners (8:40s) and other sub 9 guys in the program if you think they just got some lucky family genes in the three Youngs and the Sahlman brothers?

Again, we’re beating a dead horse. The talent at Newbury is unprecedented the past few years. Aschbrenner ran 9:30 and Appleford ran 9:46 as 9th graders. Those are VERY fast times for that age. Solid improvement, but not out of the norm for kids with that kind of early success.

horse whip wrote:

xczvzxcv wrote:

What you make of the Jace Aschbrenners (8:40s) and other sub 9 guys in the program if you think they just got some lucky family genes in the three Youngs and the Sahlman brothers?

Again, we’re beating a dead horse. The talent at Newbury is unprecedented the past few years. Aschbrenner ran 9:30 and Appleford ran 9:46 as 9th graders. Those are VERY fast times for that age. Solid improvement, but not out of the norm for kids with that kind of early success.

I think you're the one beating a dead horse. Aschbrenner ran 8:44 3200m his senior year. And from what I look up he was only a 5:18 1600m runner in 8th grade. That is a huge improvement. It's a cop out to say talent, talent, talent. Brosnan is a huge part of their success. He brought the guys from the dead along with the girls program. Their girls are a top ranked team in the country. Newbury Park was nothing before he got there. It's absolutely amazing in what he is doing at Newbury Park.

I have heard him speak on a conference call. It was a call with other coaches around the country. Some college, some Pro and some High School. This is an invite only call and I was lucky to just sit back and listen. I just wish others can hear his passion and training methods. No doubt one of the best coaches in the country no matter the level.

I would have loved to have listened to that call. Trying to find any coaching vids on YouTube about him or him showing/demonstrating his craft. :)

You definitely can, given you have enough base mileage to complete the workout + wu and cd. Mile reps at 3k pace will be very demanding. Consider doing the whole workout at 5k pace

God I'm so stupid. I was here thinking 1:50 was fast, that's what's been holding me back all this time!

Tortoise wrote:

You definitely can, given you have enough base mileage to complete the workout + wu and cd. Mile reps at 3k pace will be very demanding. Consider doing the whole workout at 5k pace

Thank you!

remember that thread where someone transcribed newbury park's workouts and training schedule from a newbury park kid's strava and some guy who "had dinner with brosnan" was vehemently insisting that's not how they trained.

...then every strava associated with the team was private within a day or two

Specifically define success. Define what the general expectations are. And define what these "higher expectations" are.

Then we can get to whether or not they're actively addressing them, or if some other reason is why their top runners are doing so well right now.

He is a good motivator and recruiter. He is also a very sound technician as a coach. But trying doing these workouts when you have one kid who is a 9:10, another 9:40, a couple 10:20s, and a 10:50. That is still a possibly solid cross team, but you can't do these amazing team workouts with a group like that. Probably not strong enough to get through the workouts, even if paced to their current race times. And even more importantly, these guys can't train together most of the time.

YOu've got to have the ingredients to do what they are doing. You can try to mimic without the ingredients, and you'll have some success. But it can't look like that without a lot of things falling into place.