The Newbury Park kids aren't THAT talented

Are you bad at math? 97th percentile means that there are thousands of kids who can break 4. My high school has 500 kids in the senior class. You think a dozen or so can break 4?

Agreed, at least regarding the Young twins. The Sahlmans, especially Colin (although Aaron's 1:48 800m suggests he has similar bottom-end speed), have demonstrated superior natural speed and have longer legs/strides, which bodes well for development at the next level, i.e. kicking off a fast pace, superior speed endurance, etc.

Leo has some speed, but Lex seems to run all out from the gun. I think you hit the nail on the head: They're A-tier talent with S-tier training through high school; Nico probably something like S and B+, respectively, which would explain why Leo and Lex may run faster PRs in high school, but I'd bet that they won't come close to what Nico is doing now on the track.

As much as I'm rooting for their success, objectively speaking, I think the Young twins will hit a wall rather early. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. Or maybe their true event is the 10k, who knows.

I think there are probably thousands of kids who have the talent to break 4. For the vast majority of them though, if they start running in high school, it's already too late. There's a whole lot of people who could be great runners but they don't enjoy running, or do another sport, or even just another event. Brazier probably could've broken 4 in HS if he trained for it. If Fisher didn't quit soccer, he wouldn't have broken 4 in HS.

So yeah, if every kid in your high school was getting high quality training since elementary school, I think a dozen or so seniors would have a good shot at breaking 4.

If you go back and look at Nico's HS races, he always looked like he was going all out from the gun as well. Lex and Leo seem to have more leg speed than Nico did tbh. I think they always run all out from the gun because that's the best way to run fast. Whatever talent they have, I don't think it's too far off from Nico, they just got a better start.

Will they match what he's done in college? Not many people have, but I honestly haven't seen any reason they wouldn't. The difference between their running and Nico's HS running is pretty remarkable. Not just the times, but their form is much cleaner. The strongest statement I'd make against the twins is that it seems like they're closer to their ceiling than Nico was in HS. Still, there's no way to know, and the twins could end up better than Nico when all's said and done.

A high schooler running 4:15 is solidly in the 99th+ percentile of the talent distribution.

Yea you could probably pick any 5 random Letsrun Messageboard Posters and NP wouldn’t crack the LRC Top 5.

The talent is that deep here.

Amazing what people will say to try to rationalize superior talent. I mean, are the NP park kids top tier global talent? Almost certainly not; they're no Kiplimo, Cheptegei, Bekele, Kipchoge, or Geb and so on. They may not even be close to Fisher, who was clearly severely undertrained in high school and college.

But yes, they are extremely talented, and are simply innately physically capable of things the vast majority of american high schoolers are not. I have no idea how you are using Kessler as an example here. In no world is training for 1-2 years and arriving at 3:34 not international class talent. And no, it doesn't really matter if you had a solid fitness base from soccer, climbing, underwater basket weaving, or chess.

Definitely there are plenty of high-level talents that are not developed, worldwide but especially in the united states. But this doesn't really change the fact that running 4:00 or close as a junior, and well under as a senior in Sahlman's case, are indicative of top tier talent in the United states ... Definitely in the past decade alone, even before improvements in the spikes, we have seen more sub4's at the high school level, and we should expect this general trend to continue. But this doesn't really effect the level of NP's talent, which is egregiously high, and also strongly reflected by the fact that two families constitute all of their top-tier standout performances.

affect*

Also bear in mind that these kids have training partners who are at an elite level. Most quality high schoolers are head and shoulders above their local competition and effectively have to train by themselves. My son won't see competition that can challenge him until national meets. Until then he's effectively running time trials solo at every meet. Distinct disadvantage. No good times - no invites to quality out of state meets - no recognition - limited scholarship opportunities - but way more upside. NP will not be college stars as the undertrained kids will catch up

I think this is oversimplifying it. This isn't a situation where Brosnan is running these guys 90mpw and starting college training for them early. They're at 60-65mpw, which is higher than many high schoolers but very sustainable. He seems like a coach with an eye to the future and he is training these guys sub-maximally with plenty of room for them to get better like Nico has. They do have training advantages doing altitude camps, having talented teammates, and doing more supplemental off-track work than most high schoolers. But there's no reason they can't become really good college runners. Yes, it's likely some lighter trained guys like Cole Hocker, Grant Fisher or Abdi Nur might be bigger NCAA stars. But there's no reason they can't be All-Americans and potential pros based on the current dynamics.

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The NP team gets all the talent. Wait they don't have talent. This is truly comical.

If that were true, there would be dozens of kids that could break 3:50.

We're not seeing now whether they would be able to stick with Cheptegei or Kipchoge or close like Geb or Bekele as pros. So, we can't judge them in a worldwide talent competition. Nor is there any coherent standard here for the determination of talent (usually, the highest responders to given units of training (but that varies for different people and we can't tell how much activity they had before starting running), or those best on no training). And the percentiles are way off. But the basic impetus behind this is right. Put teenagers in the right training environment with top coaching and people to run with and they will excel. Some will become elite at the high school level. It's a system that absolutely works. Because we don't typically train our high school distance runners hard and smart enough, we either burn them out (like giving them repeat 400s nearly all out) or take it too easy on them. In rowing, they work the athletes at the high school level on two a days and heavy lifting year round. In track, they do a few reps and easy miles. Just as Newbury Park is producing four potential sub-4 guys right now, plus Nico Young a couple years back, because of the right training and training partners at college level, so too are Kenya and Ethiopia in select regions producing mass numbers of top world and regional level athletes. The program works in each place. There probably isn't really an essential physical advantage of Kenyan or Ethiopian (or Ugandan) runners apart from altitude and culture, but in any case it's the program of a lot of miles, progressions, long repeats, spiked sprints for the Ethiopians, high altitude, dirt roads (becoming rarer these days), and great training partners that produces no end of top runners. Our high school ranks, if they took a page from either NP or Ethiopia and Kenya, could be as successful. There was nothing in the water leading to the two most talented families in the entire country being in their general vicinity at NP. It's the training with pretty talented kids and lots more will be generated in the same way. It just helps to have two or three brothers who can train together in the summer and on weekends.

Your post starts out well and is true to a point and then takes a major DUMP!. Yes, NP has the benefit of quality kids to train with and a great coach, and yes, that is a plus. That being said, MANY (99%) of talented high school kids don't have elite teammates to train with and are doing well and getting scholarships to great schools. I'm not sure where you live, but if your son is not being challenged until he competes nationally he must be dominating the state competition, and running fast times. You're claiming he's not being invited to elite HS meets, how fast is he running? It seems you're making excuses for your son's inability to run fast (yet he's not challenged until national meets), which is it? And FYI, you're grossly mistaken with this idiotic comment "NP will not be college stars as the undertrained kids will catch up". Nico is already a star and well on his way to very successful NCAA career and potentially professional career, AND if you look at the NP training program, their not being over trained, just training smart.

Do a little homework before you make uneducated comments. Advise: Move to So Cal and enroll at NP and maybe your son will get the competition he needs.

NEXT!

This is really what I agree with. I think Jim Ryun was probably up there with Bekele, Kipchoge, etc in terms of talent, as in literally a few dozen per generation across the entire world. Kessler may belong with that group tbh, we'll see, but I brought him up because he's an example of someone who wouldn't have run so fast if he had a normal high school training experience. Sub-4? Maybe, but definitely not close to a 3:51 equivalent. Regardless, I think the NP kids are REALLY far away from those guys talent-wise. 97th percentile may have been too low, but I think there are probably hundreds of kids in the US right now that are as/more talented than the NP 4.

Don't disagree here about Kessler specifically, but the solid fitness base is really important in this discussion imo. What I was trying to say was that there are at least dozens of kids every year who have the talent to break 4 in HS, but never do because they play another sport, or don't have good enough training, or just haven't been training long enough. Cole Hocker's mile PR was 4:07, but put him in a situation like NP has and he undoubtedly goes under 4.

Similarly, I'm sure there are kids who have the genetic ability to break 4 in HS, but lived a sedentary lifestyle throughout H. Plus there are some who were moderately active and just never went out for track. Plus a ton of kids who could have done it, but started track in 9th grade when they would have had to start running in 6th grade.

Just look at the 2017 class, that class was loaded. 11 guys under 4:05 before new spikes, and 3 at 4:00! If NP had those guys, every single one would be under 4. Throw in Nuguse who ran 4:05 for good measure.

I feel like one year with 12 guys who definitely had the talent to go sub-4 in HS is pretty good evidence that there are probably hundreds of kids who have the talent to do what NP is doing.

I said this in my post bruh "Basically, with top-quality coaching and teammates, more kids would be breaking 4".

Ah, I see, you wanted to post about your kid. I hope they do great in college, but people have been saying NP kids don't have upside since Nico went through. He just came 3rd in the 5k, has placed well in XC twice, and set the 5k junior record. Aschbrenner ran a 7:56 3k back in February (~12 second PR from HS) during his first college track season. We can't know until it happens, but the future looks bright to me for NP athletes.

If they trained for it, and they had the best coach why not?

How many kids achieve their true potential in running? About 0.01%

Talent is not real. The odds that there would be 4.5 kids running as fast at NP's kids are, at the exact same point in time, and could no matter where or when they existed, is less than zero.

You should have just written but, but but they’re not that talent because I’m jealous of them.