German Fernandez - 8:53 low key 3200

talent scout wrote:

The tough part is, that unlike Nelson, when he goes for it, he won't have pros to draft off of.

Perhaps, but then again, he also won't have a jealous "pro" shoving him onto the infield on the home stretch like Nelson did. That low-class move might have cost him an 8:34!

good coach wrote:

German is not a robot.

How do know that? Do they even test for that? I wonder how many of our young runners are robots nowadays. Frightening thought for the future of our sport.

Futureyeballer wrote:

How do know that? Do they even test for that? I wonder how many of our young runners are robots nowadays. Frightening thought for the future of our sport.

rofl rofl rofl

CIF - Class of 79 wrote:

talent scout wrote:

The tough part is, that unlike Nelson, when he goes for it, he won't have pros to draft off of.

Perhaps, but then again, he also won't have a jealous "pro" shoving him onto the infield on the home stretch like Nelson did. That low-class move might have cost him an 8:34!

could you explain what happened? i never heard this before.

I'm not a coach, and dont know alot about coaching. Can someone explain why a 400 at the end of the meet could be such a terrible thing? We never had any sub 9 guys, but we did have a fair amount of state qualifiers at my HS and all the distance guys were running in 4x4s at the end of the tuesday tri meets. Especially when there's not competition our coach would structure those meets as a work out. The 400 at the end of the day should be teaching your body to run fast when it's tired, like at the end of the race. In fact alot of the 2 miler workouts involved a tempo run or long track repeats followed by a couple of hard 200s. And to everyone on the team, it made sense.

There's a huge difference between running 5x mile plus a few 200's after that, and running 1:58, 4:21, a nation leading 8:53 PB .... and then hopping in a 4x400 and tweaking a hamstring. It's because of already sprinting at top level speed over 14 laps, and then when the muscles are at the end of their tether endangering their integrity with an additional full out one lap at a speed somewhat faster.

Also there's a huge difference between someone running a 10:50 2 mile or a 4:24 mile, and a quad including an 8:53 two mile. The time to balance training is in training, not in a meet.

Why not to do it is that something bad can happen, as it many times has and does, even to sprinters who specialize in 400's, sometimes ending athlete's careers. The point is that, sure anyone can hop in and run a 400 at the end of a quad, but it's a bad idea and huge risk. Why don't all those sprinters and high jumpers hop in and run an 8:53 for 8 laps before they do their events? This is not a question of team or performance. It's a matter of doing what is best for the athlete, for every athlete that is within the responsibility of the coach.

What's discusting is the "state champion" ran 4:30...

This kid is amazing though. I hope he ends up not being run into the ground in college. He has a ton of talent!

How about Bekele's last 400 of the Athens 10k? He probably could have won with only a 57 last lap. Instead he poured it on, after 6 miles of racing, and ran a 53. Does that make him or his coach an idiot? It certainly doesn't seem to have ruined his career.

Throwing an out of shape distance runner into a 400 when he's not properly warmed up is one thing. A guy of this caliber running a 53 is a totally different ballgame, even after three other races. He'll be fine, to argue differently is unsupported speculation.

Just so we are clear on this, last year's California State Championship 1600 was won in 4:07 and the 3200 was won in 9:01. The "9 seconds faster" in the original post in this thread refers to the 3200, not the 1600.

Boys 1600 Meter Run

=======================================================================

Name Year School Finals Points

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Finals

1 Hudson Andrews 12 Royal/ss 4:07.59 10

2 Mac Fleet 10 Univers C/Sd 4:08.09 8

3 Fawad Khan 12 Palos Verdes 4:11.38 6

4 Brian Cole 12 St Helena/nc 4:11.74 4

5 Austin Jett 12 Eastlake/sd 4:12.09 2

6 Brandon Shirck 12 Nordhoff/ss 4:12.50 1

7 Chad Hall 12 Big Bear/ss 4:13.16

8 Dylan Knight 12 La Sierra/ss 4:16.42

9 Spencer Knight 12 La Sierra/ss 4:20.62

Boys 3200 Meter Run

=======================================================================

Name Year School Finals Points

=======================================================================

1 Eric Avila 12 Bnta Vsta/sd 9:01.77 10

2 Chad Hall 12 Big Bear/ss 9:03.68 8

3 German Fernandez 11 Riverbank/sj 9:08.05 6

4 John Sullivan 12 Trabuco H/Ss 9:09.89 4

5 Mikel Thomas 12 Clovis/ce 9:10.09 2

6 Brendan Gregg Sr Davis /sj 9:12.54 1

7 Scott Blair 11 Trabuco H/Ss 9:14.77

8 Michael Cybulski 12 Royal/ss 9:17.36

9 Erick Garcia 12 Parlier 9:18.51

10 Spencer Knight 12 La Sierra/ss 9:21.99

Back not too long ago there was a kid in High School that ran the 1600, 400, 800, 3200 quad in the league finals to help his team try and win the league championship. He won all but the 2 mile (the winner only did the 2 mile and was a 9:20 guy) and it killed him the rest of the season. He still ran 4:16 but he didn't have the big kick after that.

For most kids 4 races at a hard pace like that is not smart. For this kid to run those times this early is remarkable. As long as he only does it once or twice he should be fine.

Dual meets in my opinion are a waste for the stronger athletes. I often have my star runners run slower and pace their teammates. This helps them to get in a workout, and helps the other kids run faster. I mean Ferandez could run a 9:30 easy and pace a teammate and no harm would be done...just another hard workout.

By the way I have no problem with the 4 x 400 relay. It is the most exciting event on the track and fun for the kids. (Remember he is still a kid).

If they want Fernandez to do dual meets then maybe he can do things like stay with the pack for 3 laps and then try to break 55 seconds on the last lap. Or do a 800 & 4 x 400 double. Hopefully he won't get burnt out, he could be in line with Ritz and Webb in a few years if he plays his cards right.

first of all, your argument about the sprinters and high jumpers hopping into an 8:53 3200 to warm up for their event only hurts your apparent "knowledge" of the sport and goes to show your lack of understanding for argument and logically thinking.

done with the personal attack, the reason they don't do these to warm up for their events is the same reason German didn't use it to warm up for the quarter. He used it AFTER his main workout to try and add a very USEFUL tool in distance running. Being able to control a faster than pace 400 after putting forth a very quality (and in this case, very CONTROLLED) effort. German never had to fully, or over, exert himself during the day, not having any competition. All of his efforts were always under control and it doesn't seem like he put himself in too much danger. The 400 also seems to have been under control - lets hope for his sake that 53.9 isn't all out for him. It was simply adding to his already quality workout. Now, if he had RACED the 3200 after RACING the 800 and 1600 and had to over-exert himself to close in sub-60 to beat some guys, then the 400 wouldn't be so smart.

Now, for the easy smartass answer - the high jumpers and sprinters don't jump in the 8:53 3200 because THEY CAN'T. Simple as that.

Now for those trying to compare this situation to Bekele and Geb are just completely lacking in understanding what German's effort was and what those guys go through during races. Geb and Bekele will go to a race for a workout, will RACE and exert themselves physically and mentally. Who knows what they do the rest of the day - if it does end up being a "workout" of a race for those two, whos to say they don't go out and hammer a sprint session or tempo or something? On top of that - Geb and Bekele do run 1500s, and Geb and Bekele are 10,000m runners and up. German right now is a 5k cross country and 3200m runner. If Geb and Bekele were getting ready for their season ending, gold medal run at 3200, you can be sure they would be getting in some faster than pace 400's.

Yes, if German's day had been overly stressful in any one of the races, then the 400 would have been a risk. But because all of his races were under CONTROL (don't read "easy", because 8:53 isn't easy) he never really put himself in danger. In fact, what he did was get himself a very good 6000m workout with full recovery and about a 5k goal race pace effort over 3200m in the middle (8:53 is about 66.6s 400's, which is 13:52 for 5k - remember, he ran 14:24 5k on a relatively tough cross course) and finished it off with a quicker than pace, but not all out, 400 to get his legs used to a fast final 400, running away from people.

If you think you're a "good coach", i feel bad for your obviously under privilidged athletes. Learn a thing or two before you go spouting your mouth off and talking about sprinters and high jumpers running an 8:53 3200 - that doesn't help them at all. Lesson number one, a fast 400 at the end of a quality effort helps a distance runner get stronger.

See, the problem with that is that it was BEKELE, and it was in the process of a race (the biggest race of his life at that point). Its wasn't some rinky dink meet where he was running 4 separate races, it was a major championship.

This was a quad at a small meet early in a long track season. I'll approach this question from a different angle. After an 800 and a 1600, then running an 8:53, what it the point of jumping into a 4X400? This quad was supposedly a workout, why would he throw the 400 in after 3 quick races?

I'm not saying this is something that is going to hamper him, but it was kinda pointless. It doesn't matter what shape he is in, there was no reason to run this 400.

where do you think Bekele got that closing speed for the final 400? From workouts probably based generally like this one - hard effort at race pace, broken up between different distances and parts of the race, and finishing with a faster than pace shorter distance.

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.

So do you think Geb and Tergat have never sprinted an all out 400 meters at the end of a workout? I guess they risked tweaking a hamstring then right?

I believe Ritzenhein did run four races in one day, with that 4x400m a specific aim at improving his speed the grade-12 season following his 8.41.

i heard that he ran these times in trainers on a dirt track, is this true?

db37 wrote:

i heard that he ran these times in trainers on a dirt track, is this true?

Correct. It was also an uphill track.

Eric Pelle wrote:

I believe Ritzenhein did run four races in one day, with that 4x400m a specific aim at improving his speed the grade-12 season following his 8.41.

If he wasn't injured all the time, we could see that blazing finishing kick that he's got from it.