First, Colin Sahlman came for his mother’s notes.
Chrystall Sahlman and her husband, their eldest son Colin, not only participated in childhood, but also saw a special intention to push themselves through competition. Shortly after he offered to join Camarillo Cosmos, a youth track club near his home, he explained why the then 7-year-old was interested in knowing his personal best times, run by his former middle-class college mother. runner.
“‘How fast did you run it? 12.3 was your 100 [meters]? ‘ Then he said, ‘26.4 for 200? What about 55.1 for your 400? Crystal said. “He was going to get my records.”
They were the first to follow him.
In December, as the best runner on the dominant Newbury Park High School cross-country team, Sahlman, the biggest runner in training history, broke the 21-year national record in the 5,000 meters. In February, he was the 13th high school student to run a mile in less than four minutes, making him the third fastest indoor. On Saturday, Sahlman lined up with professionals at Hayward Field in Oregon in an attempt to win one of the holiest places, a high school mile – 21 years after the same match, Alan Webb became the backbone for a record-breaking three runs. minutes 53.42 seconds.
Sahlman was third fastest with a time of 3: 56.24, following Jacob Ingebrigze’s 3-minute, 49.76-second victory in a humid, thundering 14-seat arena. A mile in high school history behind Webb and Jim Ryun in 1965.
On the left, yellow Colin Sahlman and teammate Lex Young train on the Newbury Park High track.
(Andrew Greif / Los Angeles Times)
“I’m still proud of that,” Sahlman said. “I was hoping it would be a little better, but in the end I still had to compete in the Diamond League against the best in the world, so it was amazing.”
Sahlman met Webb last year, and during his senior season, Webbin researched a video of a record race in Eugene in 2001, not sure if he was within range. However, training in May was optimistic about the impact of an 18-year-old man with a brown-haired palm.
In early May, Sahlman ran the final lap of the track with professionals and colleagues in San Juan Capistrano for 55 seconds, covering a distance of more than 1,500 meters, becoming the fourth fastest high school student. is available. Two weeks later, during the 800-meter hurdles in Goz, Sahlman’s shot in the last 100 meters was intensified when he helped cross almost the entire field, despite windy, cold conditions.
“I was standing next to his future college coach,” said Brosnan, who coaches with his wife, Tanya, in Newbury Park, and he turned to me and said, “This guy can win NCAA titles.” I said, “Yes, I can.”
Again, the speed of his closure was the only factor in Sahlman’s ability to challenge even Webb and Ryuna.
A week before the race, Brosnan said, “There’s a difference between saying at the end of the day that someone can do something and really believing it or trying to convince themselves of it.” “It simply came to our notice then. He believes. And he knows he can do it. “
Colin Sahlman, a junior member of Newbury Park, on the left, reached the finish line in the 3,200-meter run on May 9, 2021 by his teammate Lex Young, a sophomore at the Arcadia Invitational.
(For Steve Galluzzo / The Times)
In 2001, even before the launch of the Prefontaine Classic, Webb was already notable – the first U.S. high school student to run a mile in less than four minutes since 1967. Webb, advancing at the speed of the race won by world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj, surpassed his personal best by six seconds, beating Ryun’s 1965 record of 3: 55.3.
It is not uncommon to fall under four. Twelve high school students have achieved this success since 2015, and Doug Binder, editor-in-chief of running and athletics Dyestat.com, said he wouldn’t be surprised if one or two people cross the four-minute hurdle again next month. This year’s fourth-grader includes Gary Martin of Sahlman and Pennsylvania, who on May 15 had a time of 3: 57.98, the fastest so far in the high school field.
Sahlman said he was “shocked” by Martin’s time, but the two will not duel in high school; Saturday was the last mile of the high school season for Sahlman. Brosnan said he and Martin will compete in Seattle in June, Sahlman will run the 800 and “complete his high school career.”
There are many theories for the boom period for fast times at all levels – world records for men and women at 5,000 and 10,000 meters each since 2020 – and it starts with improved shoe technology with carbon plates and thicker soles. Binder also believes that the pandemic allowed for longer uninterrupted training blocks and increased aggression to run faster upon return. Competitors can follow each other more easily than ever thanks to social media. Brosnan believes that high school methods become more sophisticated as they master professional and collegial methods.
However, even during the boom of fast high school students, Sahlman and Newbury Park are unique in their height, as are the obsessive, if not niche, fandom of athletics. Two years after Niko Young was named the nation’s best high school athlete and created the mystery of Newbury Park, Sahlman, his younger brother Aaron, and Young’s younger twin brothers, Lex and Leo Young, preferred running times so much that Binder compared it to having four Stevens. did. Prefontaines in a team.
When the Panthers won the California state cross-country title last fall with 16 points, in just one of the sport’s mathematically perfect scores, “They were like rock stars as the Beatles showed,” Binder said.
Fans stay there after the quartet cools down after the race for autographs and selfies, and subscribe to a YouTube channel run by Lex and Leo Young, who have about 23,000 subscribers – “No one wanted to watch them until we started running fast,” Lex said, shrugging. Take an inside look at the lives and fast times of some of the fastest teens.
Personally and online, Sean Brosnan met with fans who were determined to uncover any crumbs about the program’s workouts, and said their motivations ranged from admiration to criticism. The latter may be “out of control,” he said, adding that he sometimes receives dozens of weekly text messages from anonymous social media and email accounts complaining to the school and CIF officials, stemming from his team’s success and overwhelming athletes. He denies such allegations. He recalls how his wife and athletes pledged to pay for the team’s month-long summer training at Big Bear, the alumni’s collegiate success, and Sahlman’s weekly march, which was never more than 64 miles. Chrystall Sahlman was obliged to be a professional – for the leadership that brought the Brosnan people to a strange situation when Jolie joined Space ten years ago.
Sahlman said he was ready to fulfill his commitment to run with Nico Young in Northern Arizona next year, and that he believed it was the most rewarding route for his latest professional career, citing coaching and training at heights.
“I just feel like they’re a professional team in college,” he said.
He is in the middle of perhaps the most dominant Southern California season known to few, in order to focus all his attention on the long-distance run. This mile was a chance to spread his name to a wider audience, as the intercultural name is known in a sport where the sheer number of events and the technicality of each can seem daunting. Anyone who has run a mile in the gym can feel the countdown from the four laps to the last sprint, the burning of lactic acid accumulation.
He said Drew Hunter, a former life-changing star-training runner who gained the “life-changing” fame he gained when Webb broke his closed-mile training record in 2016, was not only driven by track obsessives who knew everything about his training.
Do you get a mile in four minutes? “Any Joe Schmoe can be involved,” Hunter said.
Aaron Sahlman, Leo Young, Colin Sahlman and Lex Young from Newbury Park start the boys’ 3,200-meter dash at the 2022 Arcadia Invitational.
(For Michael Owen Baker / Michael Owen Baker / The Tim)
Sahlman’s family knows him as a teenager who took old photos of his friends on the beach. Thinking it’s a good afternoon, throw the ball to the family’s dogs, Riggs and Harbor. Who is so interested in aviation that he can be recognized by the sound of the plane passing over him. Who went to the prom last weekend.
Sahlman still sees himself in such a normal state, sometimes shaking his head for attention. But he is also a teenager with ambitions to be of that height. Binder says Sahlman’s big season is at least equal to any other season in the history of U.S. training distance, from Webb to Ryun, Dathan Ritzenhein and Hobbs Kessler.
Although Crystal Sahlman tells family members who are stunned by Jolie’s fleeing celebrity, “this is the new norm,” she’s here because it’s a sign of the way she’s always been – an independent and competitive guy from the start. son.
“It simply came to our notice then [Young] Although people said, “Oh, he’s running so fast, no one will touch him,” even though I was a little freshman, I said, “Well, I want to beat him when he’s there.” It was like paying attention to what your limitations are or whether you can overcome them. I feel like I’m really perfectly drained here. ”
The perfect side of Sahlman’s personality went hand in hand with the coaching of Brosnan, whose parents saw him as a child, which, based on Sean’s experience as a professional for some time, creates an essentially flawless problem: You can always run faster.
During last month’s Big Bear retreat, Sahlman recalled Sean Brosna asking why the Panthers couldn’t break the 5,000-meter training record. In December, Sahlman broke the record by 7 seconds – which was also broken by Leo and Lex Young, who were just two seconds behind him. Entering the race on Saturday, Sahlman described the “magic” he thought would be possible to create. Sean Brosnan, Sahlman’s goal in the big season is to demonstrate a distance of 800 meters to 5,000 meters, he said.
“I think this range shows how great an athlete he is and I think this mile lifts him there,” he said. “It’s Bowerman, my friend. Miller at all levels wants that. ”
Becoming a family tradition, Sahlman talks to his parents before and after each race, practicing visualization and analysis. But when invited to the Prefontaine Classic race earlier this spring, Sahlman accepted it quickly without consulting his parents, Chrystall Sahlman said. His mind was fixed.
“Because the team is so good, everyone expects them to be better than they were last time, and that’s not just a reality,” he said. “We wanted to make sure he was ready to try it. It’s a big burden to carry, waiting for everyone to be on it, can he do that?
“He said with his hands down, ‘Yeah, if I don’t compete for the best, I won’t be the best.’
Sean Brosnan felt that Sahlman was a bit nervous due to the surroundings of the Diamond League, which is the highest cycle of the sport, but he left a message for him before the race, he said.
“I gave him a punch pump,” Brosnan said, “and said, ‘Today is your day.’
Reaching the finish line twice after the last lap of 61 seconds, Sahlman was hugged by the Olympic gold medalist and runner Ingebrigtsen, whom he said he admired the most. Exhausted, Sahlman raced in the interview tent and then said he fell ill in the cooling zone before recovering. We used to show the races easily, he said it was “difficult”.
“[Webb and Ryun] are two giant names, “he said,” and it’s great to be behind them. “