Riverbank runner looking forward to healthy junior year at Oklahoma State

By Ron Agostini[email protected]

last updated: August 01, 2010 12:50:15 AM

If German Fernandez believes in sophomore slumps, he's not letting on.

We'll just assume he's glad he's a junior at Oklahoma State.

"I'm back to myself now," he said this week.

For much of the 2009-2010 academic year, Fernandez — the 2009 NCAA 1,500-meter champion out of Riverbank — wasn't himself. Injured, disgruntled and ill, he and others wondered if one of the nation's top young distance runners already had peaked.