Beyond Fast: How Sean Brosnan Turned Newbury Park into a Distance Running Dynasty

In 2019, fresh off Newbury Park’s Nike Cross Nationals title, head coach Sean Brosnan declared: “4:20 is not fast for a high school mile, it’s just not fast.” At the time, 559 boys had dipped under 4:20 in the 1600 the previous spring.

Six years later, his words sound prophetic. According to MileSplit’s rankings – which stop at 1,000 – the 1,000th fastest boy in the nation now runs 4:18.25. Some point to super shoes or the spread of lactate-buffering supplements as explanations. Brosnan, though, argues that he and his Newbury Park athletes helped push the sport into a new era.

In Beyond Fast: How a Renegade Coach and His Unlikely High School Team Revolutionized Distance Running (out today, September 2), Brosnan, with Chris Lear and Andrew Greif, traces the unlikely journey that led him to Newbury Park and the program’s rise from an afterthought to a dynasty between 2016 and 2022. Under his watch, the Panthers claimed two national cross-country titles and produced performances that rewrote the high school record books.

Brosnan’s journey

Brosnan’s own path was far from linear. He fell in love with running as a youth but stuck with BMX racing until midway through high school. Not quick enough for his dream school, Arkansas, he strung together a collegiate career across several programs, with formative stops at Adams State under Damon Martin, CSU San Marcos under mile legend Steve Scott, and Queens University, where he also volunteered alongside Scott Simmons. Post-collegiately, stints in Portland exposed him to Alberto Salazar and Jerry Schumacher, whose training philosophies helped shape his own. By the time Brosnan arrived in Thousand Oaks, California, he had assembled a philosophy that would soon upend the standards of high school distance running.

When Brosnan took over Newbury Park in 2016, the program had little championship pedigree. Before his first season, he told athletes and parents, “If we do everything I say, and we get a total commitment, Newbury Park is going to win a state championship in four years.” By 2018, they had done just that.

The book’s most compelling passages spotlight Brosnan’s appreciation for his athletes. He credits Jace Aschbrenner and his family for buying in early, praises Nico Young’s discipline – who early in his career spent ten weeks of aqua jogging in a wetsuit just to stay fit – and highlights Ethan Duffy, a senior during his first year, for setting the hard-working tone that became the team’s foundation.

Yet Brosnan’s own influence is undeniable. It is tempting to attribute Newbury Park’s dominance to the generational talent of the Young brothers or the Sahlmans. But Beyond Fast makes clear the extent of Brosnan’s investment: summer-long altitude camps in Big Bear, makeshift competitions in Arizona during COVID shutdowns, and 240-mile round trips to Clovis just to rehearse on the state meet course.

For the die-hard running nerd, the book offers plenty of detail – workouts, splits, and training cycles (but he also makes clear his training is no secret – it’s the culture and hard work that account for most of the success). For the casual reader, it remains accessible, thanks in part to Lear and Greif’s narrative pacing.

As someone who competed in the Southern Section of California and thought I knew Newbury Park’s story, I found Beyond Fast full of fun behind-the-scenes details. It’s a great story of a maverick coach and a window into a cultural shift that helped reshape American high school distance running.

You can purchase the book at Amazon here or support independent book sellers here. (LetsRun.com gets a commission if you buy books through our links. Thank you)

Want more? Our podcast with Sean Brosnan is out now. Listen in the player below or here in your favorite podcast app.

LRC note: LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson was Chris Lear’s college roommate and Wejo is good friends with Chris as well.  Intern Tate unprompted said he got an advance copy of Beyond Fast from his dad and wanted to write a review. So we let him and didn’t give him any guidance or edit his review beyond a few words. But we want you to buy the book! Check out the great offer below.