gerry lindgren

"350mi/wk for 9 straight weeks"

That is beyond insanity, that is in another realm. Absolutely out of this freakin world. He is no doubt the god of distance running.

Notice in those interviews he often said "we."

running all these miles a week is impressive, but my question is what and when did he eat? i am sure he ate anything and everything, but really, did he take food on runs? 88 miles is a lot without food, any insight to this would be interesting, thanks in advance

yeah, who is we?

The "we" referred to may be his baggy white cotton shorts. Gerry loved to make himself look like he had no clue about running. When he ran 12:53 for 3 miles (going out in 4:14 in a pretty strong wind) he was asked how the wind affected him. "Oh, it was great, it gave me something to run against." By the way that same week Ryun went out in 4:16 while setting a record in the 2mile. Last few times I have visited with Gerry he was still in Hawaii. Look him up at Kapiolani Park, next to the zoo and Waikiki Beach. He has "Gerry's Joggers" who run in the park with some regularity. His early-years weight was 124 (one reason he could handle the high mileage -- a 124 pounder doesn't hit the ground too hard), when I re-tested him at age 50 he was in the 150s, but last time I saw him he was back under 130. I don't know what he used to eat, but in our last visit he made it quite clear he was on a very strict vegetarian diet (I think he got it from some eastern culture ties he has)

jtup, right you are about Gerry in Hawaii and finding him in Kapiolani Park.

Interestingly...he and Don Kardong swapped hometowns and opened up specialty running stores 'back in the day' w/cool names. Gerry owned The Stinky Foot in Tacoma and Don owned The Human Race in Spokane.

Lindgren owned a store in Tacoma? I'm from the area and never heard of it. I'm sure one of my coaches would have had a story about.

does an 88 mile run really help you? if your body could handle that much, in what ways would it help your fitness?

Running 4 times a day is not strange, Daniel Komen used to do this regularly during his world-record setting days in the late 90s. Matter of fact, i bet a lot more kenyans follow the Gerry-method to success than any of you care to believe.

"Bad berries man! Bad berries!"

Gerry heard after finshing a rather nasty 50 miler.

Spider,

I have an e-mail address for Gerry. If you send me an e-mail I'll pass it along.

Years ago, in Runner's World in 1973, I believe, Rick Riley, Lindgren's roomate at WSU, wrote that in college Gerry only trained about 65 miles a week. I don't know if that's true or not, but it was in print.

Does anybody know what was the longest race he ran in? Did he ever run a marathon when he was at his best? I'm sure he could of easily ran 2:10.

I know he ran 10 milers in Pullman that were typically always fast: 48 minutes or faster in training. According to a guy who ran on the WSU team that I met in Spokane, Gerry's fastest 10 miler in training ws 46:10. I don't know who timed him. He said Gerry didn't know how to train slowly, ever. He also ran a lot 20 x 440 in about 60 seconds, but I know a lot of guys who have done that.

I did hear another fella at last years PAC 10 meet in Pullman say that Lindgren ran 350 miles per week for several weeks because some exercise physiologist on campus told him that a person couldn't handle anything over 90 miles per week without getting injured. I know another guy in Spokane who said that they would be coming home from the bar on Friday or Saturday nights and see Gerry hammering away at 2 in the morning.

He never ran one when he was at his best. He did one in 2:27 in the early 70s.

polevaulter wrote:

Lindgren owned a store in Tacoma? I'm from the area and never heard of it. I'm sure one of my coaches would have had a story about.

Gerry owned his store in the late 70's. Not sure how long Don Kardong owned his but they were open about the same time, taking advantage of the growing number of runners.

I'd have to say, I find most/all of these mileage stories about Lindgren to be unlikely. I mean, just because someone says they ran 350 miles a week for 9 straight weeks doesn't mean they actually did it. When you consider the logistics of running 350 miles a week while attending college, it is only natural for doubts to creep in. Where did he find the time, for one thing? Didn't he have classes? How did he get enough food to eat? 50 miles per day would amount to roughly an extra 5000 calories burned per day on top of the 2000-3000 calories an average person that age needs. Anyway, the most convincing criticism of such claims is the most obvious one--it would have been too exhausting. How come everybody else--including numerous world class athletes who have tried--seems to break down around 150-200 mpw, but this young guy can supposedly run twice as much as them? And, if some of these other posts are to be believed, much of it at breakneck speed. And he was supposedly running 350 mpw before he even got out of high school--I think the chances of him not getting injured (stress fractures seeming highly likely) are almost nil, even if he had the time and energy.

I realize that it is possible to run 350 miles in a week. The world record for a week (actually 6 days) is about 640 miles. But keep in mind, guys putting in that kind of mileage are doing it for one maximum effort where they spend the entire day for 6 days trying to cover mileage any way they can--walking, jogging, etc. They have all their other needs met by people giving aid. They don't have to attend college classes or run races for their team or anything like that during the day, and they don't keep it up for weeks on end, because they can't.

I find it surprising that everybody except one other poster seems to be ready to take all the claims about Lindgren at face value. Maybe the whole thread is a joke, and if so, I'm sorry I didn't get it. But I get the impression people really believe it. I realize that Lindgren was an absolute top-notch runner and probably a bit of an unusual guy, but that doesn't mean all the rumors are true. It even says in the Runner's World interview that somebody provided a link for that his claims for the old days were "wildly embellished" or something like that. Lingren says something along the lines of he didn't keep track of his mileage totals, but when guys he knew would total it up, they figured out he was running 25-35 miles per day, or about 200mpw (in high school). That sounds like a pretty vague claim--somebody else's rough total of your typical daily mileage. Maybe he ran some days like that, but not all days, and ran something more believable, like 150 mpw? Anyway, it all seems a bit sad to me, because it seems clear that he WAS a very impressive runner and probably did train recklessly, but I'd be more interested in knowing what his actual training was rather than some strange collective fantasy.

He ran weeks over 300, and he ran a 80+ mile long run every sunday. No joke, he was crazy, thats why he was his best in high school.

u think he ran 13:44 running galloway style in hs? dont doubt, he really did run 350. That is why he is considered a distance god. He ran at all times, plus school/college schedules were different in those days. he truly is the best distance runner ever in US history (atleast in hs). He even whooped Pre's ass, 'nuff said.

timo--that's not really a convincing counterargument; all you did is restate things that have already been made. Where did this claim for an 80+ mile long run every Sunday come from? Did he run with a pack of food? How did he stay hydrated during the run? How did he recover to run another 220 miles in the other 6 days of the week? He may have been crazy, but that doesn't mean you don't run into physiological difficulties when you do massive amounts of mileage.

Bottom line: give some convincing evidence to support the belief that he did these monster weeks. Just repeating that he did it isn't helpful. And the fact that he was very fast doesn't support the argument in my opinion; lots of other people have run as fast on much fewer miles, and several noted top runners have attempted to run insanely high mileage (when they were more physically mature than GL) and have found their bodies unable to handle it.