German Fernandez - 8:53 low key 3200

The 400 was not a mistake, I did that exact quad early in season in high school, sometimes the 4X8 with it, and would run amazing pr's AT THE RIGHT TIME at the end of season. Any solid coach will swear by a good 4x4 at the end of a hard day if the meet doesnt matter.

Geb, Bekele and other top distance runners don't hop in 400 meter events, and rarely the 800 either.

But every year there are high school runners who do this and get injured, putting an end to their seasons.

Live and learn.

The guy wasn't wearing spikes for any of this...so essentially this was just like one big workout...1600, 800, 3200, 400....the dude ran 8:53 in his third race of the day in trainers...ridiculous....Jeff Nelson had quite a run, but it appears it will end in the small farming town of Riverbank, CA.

He still has 20+ seconds to go to even touch Nelson. Let's not forget that Nelson ran 8:42 indoors for the full 2 miles his Senior year. I wouldn't start popping the champagne just yet.

If you honestly think that it is 20+ seconds, you have no idea what you are talking about. For one thing, he ran at least a full two miles lapping a field of about twenty.Throw in flats, wind and previous races, and 8:40 is quite realistic for him right now. The tough part is, that unlike Nelson, when he goes for it, he won't have pros to draft off of.

Wyco Loco wrote:

He still has 20+ seconds to go to even touch Nelson. Let's not forget that Nelson ran 8:42 indoors for the full 2 miles his Senior year. I wouldn't start popping the champagne just yet.

Tripling a distance runner then adding the 4x4 is a tough day. I will eat all the necessary crow when he runs fast in June, but such an early season race schedule seems a little ambitious and greedy to me. 8:53 is no joke. That alone would have been enough for people to talk about without all the other trappings added in. Hope this kid keeps it all together.

I was at the meet and started the Dyestat Thread on the topic. German was not pushing in the 1600 nor the 800. His coaches were telling him to just relax and roll. I honestly think he could go out and run 4 x 1600 in about 4:22-4:24 as an interval workout. He was hitting 67s in the 3200 like a machine and didn't really look tired ever. His coach said that the last 800 was a bit tough for German, but other than that, he was unpressed.

As for the wind, it was pretty strong on the back stretch and second turn, but the way that the stadium was constructed, there wasn't much of a tail wind on the home stretch.

German was running in XC spikes, without the spikes in them, so it is not correct to say that he ran in trainers, more like running in a spikeless cross country shoe.

Does anyone know how Fernandez trains? I mean, is he one of these 120-mile per week kids or is a 40-mile per week prodigy?

4:21 was 9 seconds faster than the state winning time last year??? Shit I wish I went there I would have won state all 4 years instead of having to race Steve Fein and AJ!

The wording in the article is ambiguous, but I took it to mean that the 8:53 was 9 secs faster than the state meet last year. Not very good writing.

supportive community? Its hickville man, supportive if you play football however, okie state was a bad decision.... for a runner.

3rd place at nationals with a group of high schoolers who were non-footlocker champs is pretty bad I guess

add these two in there too (from another thread):

At the flat track at PSG. 4:27 at the first mile, and 7:47.xx with 2 to go. Puskedra leading most of it.

1 Puskedra, Luke 08 Judge Memorial,Ogde 8:49.58J

2 Lowe, Colby 08 Una-Tx-South,Southl 8:50.79J

Running into ground wrote:

His coach must know a little about running if the kid's running that fast, but why the heck would he have him run all those races in one day? Even at a small meet that's a bitch of a day.

Maybe it was just a workout for him?

Plenty of high school boys run triples or even quads during their conference meets. Sometimes they even push hard during all races. I don't see why it automatically means German is pushing too hard if he runs an easy 4:21 mile an even easier 1:58 half and then maybe works hard on a quick 8:53 2mile and then tops it off with another tough one lapper.

As a coach who knows who these conference meets work, I know that it is a difficult job for high school athletes to work this hard in a meet like this but the rest in between races is enough if the athlete is tough. And German is tough.

Plus, he is getting ready for World XC. So many of us in America complain about the US being weak on the world stage, I don't see why we don't applaud one of our best young athletes for pushing and working hard to represent our country at the international level.

There's no way the great African runners who so many adore didn't work just as hard as German seems to have worked at this meet.

In my mind we need more of our best high school boys working like this.

German is not a robot.

There is no other high school runner who routinely runs a 1:57, 4:21, THEN 8:53 ---- THEN risks his career with a meaningless 4x 400 that tweaked his hamstring.

You don't see Geb and Bekele doing such foolish things, they rarely even run 1500 meters.

Remember when Aouita ran the 800, and was constantly having hamstring problems for his foolishness.

Any coach who puts a 5000 meter runner in a 4x 400 is a bad coach, and it's strange you don't have any sprinters who can run even one lap of the track.

German can either be a mediocre 400 runner or great distance runner but he's not going to be both.

Sagarin wrote:

Does anyone know how Fernandez trains? I mean, is he one of these 120-mile per week kids or is a 40-mile per week prodigy?

I am going to over simplify here, but Riverbank trains pretty hard. Not off the hook hard, but hard enough to field good cc teams every year, even when they aren't loaded with talent.

In the past, they would sort of fade toward the end of the school year. I can remember many of their athletes dominating during cross and early track season, but faring poorly come championship time in track. This does not seem to be the case anymore. I think that coach Edwards has backed off the gas just a little bit. Frankly, I think it was German who helped him do so. German ran so well off of so little, so early on that Coach Edwards had the luxury of bringing him along slow and winning a state title (15:14 to win Cal State D4 as a sophomore). Knowing that German has had some injuries has also helped hold the over all training down.

I don't know a whole lot of their training, but he does about 70mpw with a 14 mile long run on Sundays. He doubles pretty frequently. Early season they run a fair ammount of short intervals with short recovery (but I think German may be doing longer stuff than his teammates) for instance, German mentioned doing 20 x 200 @ 30 with 30 sec recovery pretty early on in the cross country season. Later in the season, they back off the intensity and try to run longer intervals (1 to 1.5 miles) at cross country race pace, with a fair ammount of rest. I know that one of Germans key workouts this year was a cruise interval session of 4 x 1 mile in the low to mid 4:40s with 1 min recovery. This was done in trainers, on a slightly rolling paved road.

I don't know as much about what they have been doing for track. Their coaches are always kind of hush hush. Scratch that, coach Edwards likes to talk in generalities, but stays away from discussing specific wokrouts and training plans.

good coach wrote:

German is not a robot.

There is no other high school runner who routinely runs a 1:57, 4:21, THEN 8:53 ---- THEN risks his career with a meaningless 4x 400 that tweaked his hamstring.

You don't see Geb and Bekele doing such foolish things, they rarely even run 1500 meters.

Remember when Aouita ran the 800, and was constantly having hamstring problems for his foolishness.

Any coach who puts a 5000 meter runner in a 4x 400 is a bad coach, and it's strange you don't have any sprinters who can run even one lap of the track.

German can either be a mediocre 400 runner or great distance runner but he's not going to be both.

I disagree. We like to laud guys for being able to kick down a 10k in 53 or 54, but get all uptight when discussing running a 4x4 directly after a hard race. Yes, maybe it was an unwarrented risk, but if we want our guys to be able to hang with the Africans in the big races, they need to have great 400 speed and fantastic endurance.

Also, Geb has run plenty of 800s and 1500s. When he was in peak form, he would run the short stuff during the indoor season. He has an 800 PR of 1:47, 1500 of 3:33 and mile of 3:52.

The purpose of the meet for German was to serve as a workout to prep for bigger stuff to come. Yes, he tweaked a hammy in the race, but I'm sure he will recover.

CoachB wrote:

Geb has run plenty of 800s and 1500s. When he was in peak form, he would run the short stuff during the indoor season. He has an 800 PR of 1:47, 1500 of 3:33 and mile of 3:52.

Please tell me when either Geb or Bekele ran in a 400 meter race, in particular after racing a distance event. A link would be helpful. Geb's PB for 1500 is 3:31.76 and his PB for 800 is 1:49.35 not 1:47.

Bekele's 1500 is 3:32.35 and he's not ever run a race of 800 meters. Neither Geb nor Bekele have ever run a race at 400 meters, certainly not ever after racing a distance event.