Jeff Nelson and Gerry Lindgren, former prep record holders weigh in-MORE MILES

[quote]Evil wrote:

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My freshman year of college went and ran 100-115 miles a week and was hitting my 2 mile and 5k pr in 10k XC races. Went from 20 to 100 within one week of training over the summer.

I had the exact same thing happen. I was coming by the 2 mile mark in 4 to 6 mile X-C races my freshman year (in October), close to my 2 mile PR on the track from just the year before. It was a surreal feeling and made me wonder why in the hell I couldn't do it 5 months earlier....lol..

i ran 8:46 in 2miles with only 30MPW. I went peak of 70MPW and I havent been able to sub 9 2miles again, went back down to 40MPW...got 8:53 in 2miles! Mileages are depend on what kids's body!!!

right...."one training plan does not fit all"; but, generally speaking, more mileage will help more runners improve than the very few gifted runners like yourself who obviously have alot of God-given talent, that doesn't take alot of mileage to 'tap into'.

done wrote:[quote]Gerry was in the top few Americans for the 5k, still, in 1971, when Pre was the top guy.

Lindgren was on the way down. In 1971, Steve Stageberg finished second to Pre in the AAU three mile by a couple of seconds. Lindgren would regularly beat Stageberg in NCAA cross country. By 1971, Stageberg was beating Lindgren.

In the AAU three mile that year, Pre won in 12:58, Stageberg was second in 13:00, Shorter was third in 13:02, and Lindgren was fourth in 13:04.

Fourth is not bad. But it was part of a steady downward trend.

i see wrote:

i ran 8:46 in 2miles with only 30MPW. I went peak of 70MPW and I havent been able to sub 9 2miles again, went back down to 40MPW...got 8:53 in 2miles! Mileages are depend on what kids's body!!!

No shit shirlock. You cut your mileage so the times dropped. It's called peaking!

Living in the Past wrote:Lindgren was on the way down. In 1971, Steve Stageberg finished second to Pre in the AAU three mile by a couple of seconds. Lindgren would regularly beat Stageberg in NCAA cross country. By 1971, Stageberg was beating Lindgren.

In the AAU three mile that year, Pre won in 12:58, Stageberg was second in 13:00, Shorter was third in 13:02, and Lindgren was fourth in 13:04.

Fourth is not bad. But it was part of a steady downward trend.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/tfn/archive/results.jsp?sex=M&disciplineId=9&id=1

Stageberg? Who? He may have been beating Lindgren in 71, but Lindgren is the one everyone remembers.

A lot of it has to with your how much natural talent you have, the less natural talent you have means you have to work harder (run more) to be successful. This is no different than it is in sport or anything else.

Btw, I would not call Webb's H.S. mileage low, it was not as high as some, but 60mpw for HS athlete who was primarily a 800/1600 runner is by no mean low. Webb trained hard, lots intevals and qualily milege.

Ryun and Webb are examples of the perferct intersection of hard work and natural talent.

Natural talent??? What's that.

I had none of what you would call natural talent when I was a kid, now I have lot's of it.

Good coaching is what everyone "who really wants it" really needs.

I ran 70-80 miles per week in high school. I knew some good local college coaches who warned me to lie about my mileage on recruiting trips. I had coaches - top ten DI xc - flat out tell me they didn't recruit runners who ran more than 70. I 100% agree that 100+ miles per week is the best way reach your potential but to think a career is lost because a kid didn't do it in high school is silly. I guarantee the majority of success stories - all-Americans, Olympians, etc - are 30-70 in high school and 100+ in college and beyond.

Evil wrote:

Webb is an incredible exception to every single rule and using him is a poor example.

Why is it that Webb -- and all other legends who ran relatively low mileage in HS then bumped it up as they got older, like Bob Kennedy -- are the "exceptions"? You could just as easily say that Lindgren and Nelson are the exceptions, since they were the freaks who could handle 100+ mpw in pubescent bodies and run well off it. (Though both of them, of course, were subsequently unable to significantly improve on their HS times.)

It's easy for both sides of the debate to say "this guy is the rule, and that guy is the exception." Neither side has more than anecdotal evidence to back them up. And for that matter, people are often defining "success" differently. Is the goal to be famous at some point in your career (like Nelson), or is it to put all your marbles into the hope of being a great Olympian in your twenties? No right answer -- depends on what you want.

stater of the obvious wrote:

Stageberg? Who? He may have been beating Lindgren in 71, but Lindgren is the one everyone remembers.[/quote]

People remember Lindgren for his performances during high school and college, not his post-collegiate career.

why is that no one has mentioned the real mileage that Gerry did. he ran 350 miles a week for almost two months at one point, he routinely was over 200 in high school. he should'nt even be compared to hs athletes. the kid got up and ran 15 mile runs at 1 a.m on somedays, then got up before school and ran an easy 20, then after shcool would do interviews and tempo runs of 15-20 miles. I can't even beleive it but he says its true. he wanted to disprove doctors that said he would die if he did that kind of running. Gerry I beleive is 1. One hell of a runner 2. One hell of a liar 3. One of my heroes of the sport

Living in the Past wrote:

stater of the obvious wrote:

Stageberg? Who? He may have been beating Lindgren in 71, but Lindgren is the one everyone remembers.

People remember Lindgren for his performances during high school and college, not his post-collegiate career.[/quote]

His performances in high school and college are so far beyond almost everyone's post-collegiate career! He was a favorite in the Olympic 10,000 in 1964 until he twisted his ankle! He was world-class then.

Webb is the exception to every rule because his talent was so great. 3:53 in HS. The pure raw talent - running a 4:20 mile and 9:20ish for two miles I believe his FRESHMAN year of highschool off very little training and running background. Webb is a one in a million athlete. He would have been great no matter what he did training wise, understand?

The same goes for all the other elite HS runners. The talent is so immense that they respond to lesser miles run. Bob Kennedy or any other super talented athlete may have run 40 miles a week in HS but they had that talent to back it up. We are talking about athletes who run times their freshman year of highschool that would be excellent for senior class runners.

Take a regular athlete and have them train 40 MPW. Now build them up to 75-80 MPW. 99.9& of the time they will run better long distance races with the additional aerobic conditioning.

As for the super talented ones who run 100 MPW - look at the record books because their names are still there or up on the lists. As a poster mentioned above Webb ran what would be considered high miles - 60 MPW - for a 800/1600 HS runner.

Dan Onymous wrote:

His performances in high school and college are so far beyond almost everyone's post-collegiate career! He was a favorite in the Olympic 10,000 in 1964 until he twisted his ankle! He was world-class then.

Yes and by a couple of years past college he was done. Which brings us back to the original point of how all those miles he's telling the high schoolers to do just wore him down by the time he was 26 (earlier actually)

worn down; how do you know it was the miles? Did Gerry say that? I don't think so. Infact, he says the opposite.

Maybe it was that he had to work shit jobs after college? Or that there was no pro circut or road racing money to win? It's kind of hard to run big mileage and train at the level needed without finacial support, food on the table or driving a truck across the country.

Evil wrote:

worn down; how do you know it was the miles? Did Gerry say that? I don't think so. Infact, he says the opposite.

Maybe it was that he had to work shit jobs after college? Or that there was no pro circut or road racing money to win? It's kind of hard to run big mileage and train at the level needed without finacial support, food on the table or driving a truck across the country.

Quite a few other people managed to do it. Guys who had it just as hard as or harder than Lindgren.

Nobody knows what got Lindgren, (least of all Lindgren, probably, based on his rantings here). But given his steady decline, mileage sure is a prime suspect.

I want to hear from Malmo on this topic. As a high school, college and post collegiate star, I'd like to know what he did and what he thinks.

btw....we can keep trading examples from the "was great on 50 mpw and the was great on 110 mpw....and get nowhere. These are the exceptions, that rise to the top on both ends of the spectrum.

The proof is in the 'middle', not the extremes. Guys like me who ran 4:30/9:50 mile/2-mile in high school, off 40 mpw and mostly intervals. Then, when we went to college and got a full fall X-C season under our belts, of 80-100 mpw; were astonished when we ran a 4:17 mile and a 9:20 2 mile in the 'indoor intra squad time trials in December.' You tell me what the difference was between my senior year in track and the indoor track time trials 6 months later?