German Fernandez is Injured...Proof in attached article from OSU coach Dave Smith.

A stress reaction is not a stress fracture. Running one cross country race is probably not too risky. If his base is solid, the rest he's gotten already might be a good thing for Sat.

A good percentage of runners who have placed high in World XC go on to win medals on the track. A breakthrough performance here would be a huge boost for German. Let's all just wish him luck.

I'll be really bummed to see him miss running a fast debut 5K at Cardinal, but if he can still run well on Saturday, it'll soften the disappointment. Resting and cross training through April is probably the best thing for him.

uh_no wrote:

UH OH

he has an ALTER G treadnill!!!??!?!??!?

ADVANTAGES!!!!!

he can't be amatuer....

Heck, my local club has one and you frequently see all the mid to back packers training on it (I'm talking 8 to 10 minute/milers) because of their "injuries". They need to recover for some upcoming 10K they want to complete in under 60 minutes.

clarence boddicker wrote:

The next Ritzenheim? Monster talent battered throughout college?

I blame the coach.

777 wrote:

the article does specify that it IS in his foot.

That should not be any problem then, as long as they're using ice water and not heat.

even if he does get a stress fracture from running a race, its not going to really mess up his whole long term running career. Many of runners get stress fractures, then rest and recover from it. And the bone will be stronger then it was before. Im not saying he should run or not, but i dont think it will affect his whole career either way he chooses.

More importantly, German and his coach must figure out why he is already on his 2nd injury through 6 months of college. If I'm not mistaken, he was also injury prone in high school.

It's the U.S. Gov'ts strategy to lower the focus on German and the U.S. team. There's no telling what them crazy semites (Israelis, Fatah, Hamas) and them crazy caucasians (Hezbollah, Syria, Iran) are planning. It's a 500 year tribal war, we've sent our U.S. team right into the middle of it, and who knows what will cut lose next.

from coach smith in the article:

"We have an Alter-G treadmill he worked on for three or four days. Even that made him asymptomatic." Looking ahead, Smith says of Fernandez "he may redshirt outdoors. I think he felt tired already anyway. Who knows what we'll do? We'll play it by ear."

Coach Smith seems like a really nice guy and easily likeable for a young runner, however I do not believe he is anywhere near a great coach yet. Good recruiter due to his likeable personality, good area to train for a focussed runner who doesn't need to be near a big city, but there is a serious lack of planning there.

"I think he felt tired already anyway" ??? This is precisely why he had to skip indoor NCAA's. Not because it was a masterplan of saying "f@ck you NCAA, I'm already too big and I'm ready to take on the world" (while using an NCAA scholarship for training and free education). It was because like a lot of young coaches who get a talented runner they are like a kid on x-mas day. They get excited and let the cat out of the bag way too early. German was mentally redlining during the indoor season and physically pushing it and it was really evident.

German is a huge talent, but the key will be managing his mental and physical output. Figuring out what they are aiming for and designing seasons around that. Being on the conservative side in terms of racing AND mileage. He has proven that he is very injury prone and that emotionally he is either on or off. 90% of the time he's ON in a big way, but it tends to build up pressure in him and sometimes results in a pretty big OFF day.

Smith will probably have to follow the path that Rupp has often taken (exception this indoor season) and that Hall is taking and race him only with purpose. A qualifying race, a conference meet and a national meet. In track maybe a few off distance low key races with a tactic other than time trialing (say negative splitting an 800 or coming through at 3:00 in a 1500 and seeing how fast he can close.

The kid has a ton of pressure out there, and his coach will have to become one of the best coaches in terms of strategy to manage the emotional and physical stress that he can endure.

Best of luck to both, because it is a very special opportunity. It also can end up like so many of the phenoms that wash away from pressure, injury and a variety of other reasons. None of us want that to happen.

So true. After German's injury (I don't think he took a dive) at the NCAA XC Championships, I began to wonder about the kind of coaching he is getting. The poor kid was already suffering from some type of achilles/soleus type inflammation but they put all the pressure on him to win a championship for OSU. After the injury at NCAA's, it seemed that German was racing again within a couple weeks. What's missing in this picture???? In my opinion, he has never been healthy while at OSU, and if they keep abusing him this way, German's career may be very short indeed. Just saying so.

Americans coaches and athletes will always look for an excuse of under performance, esp at world stage like XC championships. This is one typical example. I knew it people, I am not biased but that is the truth!

"he has never been healthy while at OSU"--Gee, what to make of 3:55 indoors, on his own, or 7:47.

If you ask me, Bruce Edwards figured out how to keep him healthy after some adjustments.

History (from me, coach of rival HS)

Frosh: No cross, runs 4:34 after about 3 weeks of running in track. Finishes with 4:22.

Soph: No summer running, planning on soccer. Comes out in mid aug. Wins state d4 meet in 15:14, second fastest time of the day, one second slower than 12th grader michael Coe. Faster than AJ. Tears Meniscus in knee playing JV hoops during the winter. Injury goes undiagnosed until may. Runs league finals on bad knee and wins all 3 distance events. Has surgery 1 weeklater

Junior: Does not resume running until Aug. Places 2nd at CA state meet in Nov behind eventual national champion Chad Hall. Begins training for running in earnest. Runs 4:05 1500 in early feb on a saturday followed by a 1:09 hafl marathon on sunday (which was supposed to be a tempo run, he went out in 6:00 but ended up averaging 5:19). A few weeks later, develops serious shin splints. Trains mostly on bicycle. Ends up running well enough at end of season to notch 9:08 for 3200 and 4:13 for a full mile.

Senior year: Most of you know the story from here. Stays healthy and trains consistantly for 1 year straight. Shatters Mark Davis's CR at Woodward Park. Doubles up at State with record 1600 and 3200 runs. Breaks 2 mile NR.

The point is, he can stay healthy. I don't know what Bruce did his senior year, but it worked pretty well. His only other running injury in HS was a result of coming back too aggressively from his long layoff after knee surgery.

777 wrote:

Maybe German should just "redshirt" indoors every year, peaking only for NCAA cross nationals and for outdoor. If this phenom (who appears to be much like Ritz: unbelievably talented but VERY injury prone--he had many injury problems in high school, if I recall correctly) tries to race year-round, bad things are bound to happen.

I would endorse having every major distance talent skip indoors, and just focus on xc and outdoor. Now I just need someone whose endorsement matters to back me up.

Didn't he have some sort of Achilles issue in high school?

i thought he had some issues right after a quadruple early in his senior track season, which made him miss arcadia and possibly some training and other races.

CoachB wrote:

The point is, he can stay healthy. I don't know what Bruce did his senior year, but it worked pretty well. His only other running injury in HS was a result of coming back too aggressively from his long layoff after knee surgery.

He used a Daniels System right out of the book. Stayed away from high mileage (not over 60 and only 30 during track season) and speed (nothing faster than race pace)....and it worked, obviously.

As a D1 coach myself, I've wanted to keep my mouth shut about the whole German/OSU/Smith situation without any real facts to back it up, just from ethics considerations. But this is starting to sound too eerily similar to Alan Webb at Michigan...and it took Webb YEARS to get over that.

At this point, I think I'd tell German to talk to John Cook.

Actually I was in the OSU team two years ago.

Dave always tries to slow us down like crazy....!! he doesnt put any pressure on us at all...

It must me very tough to slow down someone like German, he recovers very fast, run his long run maybe around 5.30 per mile,never seemed tired. I think he is just too good for his own body right now.

When German ran 3.56 opener indoors this year many people speculated he took a dive at nationals. Not many people suggested he has come back too quickly though.

HE HAS.

This stress response is a direct reaction to over training and coming back to training too aggressively.

I hope he learns some lessons from this.

Let's be clear, Coach, you have no knowledge of the situation at OSU--you don't know the kid, you don't know the coach and his relationship with the kid, you don't know the kid's training, you don't know whether the coach is trying to slow the kid down--yet YOU think you'd advise him to talk to John Cook and thus ditch his current coach: arrogance on one sleeve matched only by ignorance on the other. I've always found your posts on this site illuminating, but here you've done all of them a disservice.

Coach D wrote:

CoachB wrote:

The point is, he can stay healthy. I don't know what Bruce did his senior year, but it worked pretty well. His only other running injury in HS was a result of coming back too aggressively from his long layoff after knee surgery.

He used a Daniels System right out of the book. Stayed away from high mileage (not over 60 and only 30 during track season) and speed (nothing faster than race pace)....and it worked, obviously.

As a D1 coach myself, I've wanted to keep my mouth shut about the whole German/OSU/Smith situation without any real facts to back it up, just from ethics considerations. But this is starting to sound too eerily similar to Alan Webb at Michigan...and it took Webb YEARS to get over that.

At this point, I think I'd tell German to talk to John Cook.