Devastating Femur Stress Fracture for Simeon Birnbaum

Agreed. In a world of instant gratitude, aplying only what truths you pick for yourself and driven by a social media frenzy that has a millisecond attention span just doesnt allow a person to grow into their talent these days. Why does an 18 year old have to believe they are ready for world dominance? What adult thinks thats truly possible? Microwave mentality vs slow cooker.

For all the downvoters: if you arent training, you aren't getting better. I would bet the kid has overtrained for a few years and his luck ran out between hs graduation and now due to not having enough downtime. Some kids have it all figured out and dont listen to wisdom. Some coaches think they are better than everyone with their system. Bad combination.

I feel this guy's pain. I was one of the fastest returning high school guys in our area going into my senior year. I fractured my ankle playing basketball that December. My brain broke the moment I saw the swelling then could not walk and it wasn't my ankle. This guy has way more on the line than I did. I chose no-cast, put weight on the fracture, it didn't heal well, I chose to run with the discomfort because I was still faster than all but two guys on the team and we earned a CIF State plaque. I'd have done better to not have run at all than compete at no more than 90% if that. After focusing for years on getting there, I never foresaw competing at a state meet injured. A healthy me would have mauled the gimp me. This guy will be fine but tough year for him to be a spectator.

S.B. would be a NCAA stud if he was maintained the same level as last year. His 1500m P.R. set last year would've been a top 10 in the NCAA. He was on a good path to make the Olympic trials.

….You don’t race your brains out in the outdoor season your senior year of high school?

He would not have finished top 3 in the Trials. A better question is: if healthy, would he have finished top 3 in the NCAA?

I thought Ritz got injured from collapsing to the ground after every race.

Hopefully recovered enough to have a good red shirt year in college.

Not sure what the Olympics has to do with his disappointment.

Lol, he went to run for the wrong coach if that's what he wants.

I can’t imagine any plan where getting injuried like this is a plus. Dude wasn’t going to make the team but the experience is worth something.

Now we have no clue where to place blame. Maybe he got hit with a 50% stress increase. Maybe we are talking a lot less. You sort of wish a guy like him could have kept last years program and just upped it 10%. But that isn’t how the US system works…

This is what happens to Jerry's athletes when they're not eating burritos.

Schumacher sucks; he should leave the sport. And I've been saying for the last few years that HS distance runners should avoid Oregon.

Tough news for him but he seems to be handling it pretty well. If anybody here knows him, perhaps ask him if he knows what his blood vitamin D level (serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D) is. Odds are very good that he does NOT know his vitamin D level because he has probably never even been tested (given his age). My general advice to any/all runners is to get your serum vitamin D checked and get your blood level between 50-100ng/ml. You can get tested without a doctor for about 69 bucks or so via various labs (QuestDirect and other services). Achieving optimal Vitamin D blood levels can usually be done with daily 5000iu/day (for MOST people, some young people wont need that much, more like 1000-3000 per day). It is super cheap to take this supplement, like 10-20 cents per day. Can't hurt, might help and has many other health-promoting benefits. I wish him the best.

not to mention the lower quality of life that results from such an injury. I had a grade 3 femoral sfx last yr and it SUCKED: the constant pain when literally doing anything other than sitting still (putting on pants, getting out of the shower, turning over at night, taking 3x as long to walk anywhere... awful).

Birnbaum, Connor Burns, Larry Josh Edwards, and Rheinhardt Harrison are some of the MIA's under Schumacher. Harrison is in his second year and barely pops his head above ground. He ran sub-4 in high school; now he's subterranean. Oregon athletes are always sick, injured, or just coming off injury. 180 degrees from Washington, where the guys compete well and compete as a team.

We really have the most cursed sport due to the injury prevalence. Pessimistic view but more likely than not, the talented runners never get to realize their full potential.

How much Vitamin D are Africans getting?

A real mob of vigilante can rattlers here who think they know more about the biz of running than x inc. Who expect metals but don’t like the cost.

Posts last year say Harrison was out with mono for a number or months during his track season, then came back in the summer to run a 3:38 1500m at the Portland track festival. He then had a reoccurrence of mono in the winter which took him out again. These setbacks had nothing to do with overtraining or coach Schumacher.

Yeah not trying to kill Birnbaum or say his ambitions are impossible. Just thinking a more grounded, day-by-day approach (I sound like Mike Smith) will be wiser here. He’s had serious injury issues, and if he starts chasing old fitness too hard in a Jerry system, it’s a scary prospect.