David Bedford

I meant that he didn't get very far with the training 50 miles a day , that would have been crazy. I'm aware of his achievements which were great for his age, but he wasn't running 50 miles a day.

I think it was from Kenny Moore's Bowerman book that Jerry Lindgren had been training 250-300 miles per week before the 1972 Olympic Trials. Maybe it was a little crazy. He lead the 5000 for a few laps and then faded back through the field.

Djwalk,

If you are interested in selling the Dave Wottle booklet written by Jim Ferstle, I am willing to make an offer, dependent upon condition.

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We all know people who say they "ran 5 miles per day." Or "7 miles per day, 10 miles per day, 100 miles per week, and so on into infinity. I am fairly sure that Gerry Lindgren ran 50 miles per day, for one day. Beyond that is guess work. He also has a serious mental illness. Perhaps autism?

He said he was training fifty miles a day. How do you know he wasn't?

A day in the life of Dave Bedford 1971.

From a Runners World.

Open image

The book is in excellent condition, it's just been sitting in my bookshelf. The only thing is I wrote my name in marker on the in side cover. The book has some sentimental value because it mentions a coach I had in high school in it who passed away at a young age.

Thanks Djwalk. Please remember this thread when you are willing to let it go.

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We don´t "know" he wasn´t, but we know he has told a lot of stories that are hard to believe.

True. But sometimes stories are hard to believe but true anyway. The fifty mile a day idea really came from a conversation he had with Ron Clarke where each of them was describing what they did to the other. Evidently Lindgren never really counted how many miles he ran and told Ron what he did most days. Ron just started totalling up the distances of each run and came up with fifty as the number. Of course Lindgren could have been exaggerating or outright lying to Ron but I'm more inclined to believe a guy like Clarke, who actually knew and talked with Lindgren, than some guy who forms an opinion sixty years later.

Another thing to consider here is that I don't believe we've ever heard exactly how many fifty mile days he did. I could legitimately tell you that I did fifty miles a day because I had A day when I did. Journey runners often maintain days of fifty or so miles for weeks. For what it's worth, Lou Scott said he was doing fifty miles a day before making the '68 team at 5,000 meters.

Agree. I’ve told people I’ve run 100 mile weeks. I ran 6, 100 mile weeks in 49 years of consistent training

50 miles a day makes no sense for a 10,000 meter track runner. Even if he averaged 6 minute miles, that's over 8 hours a day of running. It would be impossible to do any quality track workouts running that many miles. I've read about people doing over 50 miles a day while running across the country but they are going at a much slower pace, more like walking speed. Plus they are dealing with constant injuries from running so much, even at a slow pace.

At six minutes a mile, it would take 5 hours to run 50 miles.

You're right. My math was off.

What makes sense for one person may not make sense for another. If fifty a day makes no sense for a 10,000 meter track runner like Lindgren it would make even less sense for a 5,000 meter track runner like Lou Scott. To me, if you can do something like that for a while it can make sense. You can do quality track workouts later, once your mileage has dropped.

I absolutely believe Clarke. What I wonder about was what Lindgren told Clarke.

Feller, you don't show up often, but when you do you really bring something to the table.

That's reasonable to wonder. But it was an era when some people did things along those lines. One of Lydiard's lesser known guys was Jeff Julian. When Lydiard's guys were doing 1,000 miles or so in their ten week build up Julian would do 2,000. He was a banker and would run a full marathon before work every day and then do another fifteen miles after work. And if Lou Scott was running fifty a day it makes the idea that Lindgren was seem a bit more likely. But there's no way to know what someone is doing with their training unless you're right with them as they do it.

I watched a Lydiard documentary where Lydiard said he almost said to Julian, why not run 3000 miles in 10 weeks? Then, Lydiard thought better of it because Julian was so sincere that he would probably try to do that.