RUNNING is the most aggressive sport

Gerry the Jogger wrote:

In my days there were sports scientists too. They told us not to start distance running until you are at least 24 years old. They told us to take plenty of salt.

And they probably told you to eat lots of red meat and drink lots of whole milk.

The sports scientists have always lagged the best athletes and coaches. My advice is to read everything and listen to everyone, but pay special attention to the people who have actually overcome serious challenges and achieved great results.

I like the broom-mates joke, Gerry.

Totally agree!

Just bags of guts, determination,committment,goals,aims and hard work for hours every day- Its a total lifestyle that only certain individuals can adjust to.

The loneliness of the long distance runner comes to mind.

Non athletes cant understand why we run 100 niles plus per week, morning and nights, over hills in mud rain and cold wearing tights! or run all out on a dark night doing track reps till 9pm with a coach screaming at us.

Welcome to the real world of distance running- what joy!

Some of us live and thrive on it!

Enough said eh?

Living in the Past wrote:

The results speak for themselves. He had an incredible career in high school and college. But Gerry's post-collegiate career is a story of decline. Like Jim Ryun, he wasn't the same runner after graduation.

That's not a hard one to figure out - there were NO post collegiate opportunities in Lindgren's or Ryun's day. When you were done from college you were done with running.

Broken link wrote:

[quote]Living in the Past wrote:

That's not a hard one to figure out - there were NO post collegiate opportunities in Lindgren's or Ryun's day. When you were done from college you were done with running.

Not true. There were plenty of road races up to the marathon. The # of runners in these races were small but the times were often very good. Many of the top collegate runners kept running many years after college. They merely held full time jobs, married, had kids AND ran. Today over 1/2 of the people running in road races are fat! Of course the fat runners have full time jobs, have kids...etc, so I guess it's all good.

Broken link wrote:That's not a hard one to figure out - there were NO post collegiate opportunities in Lindgren's or Ryun's day. When you were done from college you were done with running.

But Ryun competed until he was 25. Lindgren until he was 26.

Gerry, have you been eating paint chips again?

I'm not saying that you have to have been really fast to know something. Heaven knows that would make me stupid. What I'm saying is that there is a certain mentality here that tends to look at what an athlete hasn't accomplished and then use that as a reason to dismiss their advice.

When someone looks at Lindgren's comemnts and says, "I'll stay with what's been proven to work" what is he thinking?

Lindgren is one of the most successful runners the US has ever produced. Ok, he doesn't have an Olympic medal and he didn't run as well after college as he did while he was in school.

Despite that, what he did has in fact been proven to work and to work very well. It worked for him which proves that it "work." Might something else have worked better? Who knows. But there is a mindset here, not exhibited by everyone but by some posters, which almost automatically assumes that something else would have worked better and that the poster knows what it is and rarely, very rarely, do those people trot out anything that supports their ideas.

They're basically armchair quarterbacking.

Yeh I remember those salt dispensers. Ridiculous!

First time I met you was in 1965. We were in the tunnels under White City stadium in London. Mick Beevor and I were kinda fond of Linda Knowles the high jumper. You could say putty in her hands. And here she comes in the company of Gerry Lindgren. I must say you were very cordial.

I do not know who the first person was who said it but it goes something along the line of "There is one magic formula for running, the problem is that it is different for everyone".

so the broom mates joke does work...