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

I ran a 8:58 and probably averaged about 80 MPW my senior year. My highest was 95 in the summer with most around 85. Once the season started it was about 75 MPW.

We did doubles about 3-4 days a week and a long run of about 15 on the weekends. Also, my senior year I went about 4 months without taking a day off.

Tom K. , how ya doing? You still have the 2 mile record at Bosco.

MikeM you really think swimming really made that much difference with Webb? Sure it had to help, but he would have run sub 4 minutes without swimming in his youth.

Also, running 100mpw is feasible for a lot of people. Most runners don't try out of fear of injury or have the low mileage is better mindset.

I'm sure any type of strong, aerobic activity during one's youth, can only make the lungs and oxygen uptake operate bigger, better and more efficiently, when you are older. btw; age group swimmers hammer out long, grueling workout; worse than distance running.

Yes, and try running those times on a cinder track, in the Pacific Northwest for Lindgren. Anything that occurred back in those AAU, amateurism days is ballsy. Today's training conditions are ideal for elite runners to succeed: from altitude tents to massage to heart rate monitors. Come on, Lindgren was balls to the wall.

inquiring minds want to know wrote:

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.

In the 70s, to hear that one of your peers was putting in 90-100mpw wouldn't raise an eyebrow. I remember reading an article in some running magazine about Craig Virgin that went something like this "Virgin, who runs 85 miles a week, low by some standards...blah, blah, blah..."

High mileage, by default, is low impact training. Low impact, aerobic training isn't a high risk for injury, it's that fast, high impact running that is at risk. Remember the forces on your bones and tendons increase by the square of the velocity.

For me, I put in on average 50-70 miles per week in the Summer, while managing swimming pools in the Summer (comedian Martin Lawrence was one of my knucklehead kids). So I was very active, swimming a lot, and spent long days under the hot sun. Usually, I'd get in at least one or two big weeks in August (up to 151 miles) where I test myself to see how much I could run.

Here is my actual in season log summaries from my senior year in high school and my senior year in college. Only "burnies" burn-out.

Senior year high school

9/2 23

9/9 33

9/16 64

9/23 110

9/30 108 3 mile XC 16:34(1)

10/7 104 2.75 XC 13:51(1)

10/14 106 3 mi XC 16:18(1) 3 mi XC 16:25(1)

10/21 86 3 mile 15:54(1) 2.5 mile 12:39(4)

10/28 87 3 miles 15:18(2)

11/4 79 2.7 mile XC 13:56(1)

11/11 72 2.5 mile XC 12:55(3)

11/18 10

2/17 75

2/24 86

3/3 99

3/10 103

3/17 87

3/24 109

3/31 79 1 mile 4:23.5(2)

4/7 95 2 mile 9:25.1(1) 2 mile 9:17.1(2)

4/14 76 2 mile 9:27.1(1) 1 mile 4:21(1)

4/21 85 2 mile 9:18.2(2)

4/28 86 1 mile 4:17.9(1)

5/5 100 1 mile 4:24.0(1)

5/12 91 2 mile 9:30.6(1)

5/19 82 2 mile 9:10.2(1)

5/26 76

6/2 47 2 mile 9:15.0(3)

6/9 41 1 mile 4:16.4(5)

6/16 0

Senior year College

9/4 52

9/11 110

9/18 116

9/25 116 5 mile XC 24:21.6(1)

10/2 130 5 mile XC 24:39.2(1)

10/9 125 6 mile XC 29:01 (1)

10/16 145 5 mile XC 24:01(1)

10/23 130 5 mile XC 23:54.7(1)

10/30 103 5 mile XC 24:19(1)

11/6 131 5 mile XC 24:03(1)

11/13 130 6 mile XC 29:34(1)

11/20 82 10k XC 29:07(20) [dislocated shoulder]

11/27 77 10k XC 30:44(12)

1/1 104

1/8 97

1/15 94 2 mile 8:39.8(6)

1/22 89 1 mile 4:06.7(5)

1/29 76 2 mile 8:43.8(1)

2/5 95

2/12 89 1 mile 4:02.7r(2) [Strained peroneal longus]

2/19 52 2 mile 9:04.8 (10)

2/26 0

3/5 81 [Strained peroneal longus better]

3/12 80 1 mile 4:04.8r(3)

3/19 120

3/26 62 [stress fracture, 4th metatarsal]

4/2 42

4/9 57

4/16 77 1 mile 4:09.1r(8)

4/23 94 1 mile 4:16.0r(5)

4/30 60 1500 3:47.7r(2)

5/7 90 1500 3:42.2(1)[stress fracture better]

5/14 96 3 mile 13:28.0(1)

5/21 85 1500 3:46.6(1)

5/28 89 SC 8:48.6(2), 1500 3:43.7(2)

6/4 81 5000 14:03q

6/11 87 SC 8:35.0q SC 8:22.5(2) AR

6/18 84

6/25 66 SC 8:28.4(1), SC 8:36.1(2)

7/2 61 SC 8:29.5(2)

Thanks for the data points, Malmo. Now, could you please post your mileage in your sophomore year of high school and your junior year of college?

see, guys; Malmo had 100 mile weeks +/- , in high school. He didn't burn out, but improved all the way into the mid 80s when he retired; after running track in Europe, running in the World X-C meet and finishing his career, battling on the roads with the likes of Lindsey, Meyer, Rodgers, Hodge, Thomas, etc....the top guys of the day.

Now, of course what works for one guy won't necessarily work for tne next. Some guys can handle it, some can't. You experiment, live and learn. Malmo has even said that there was nothing magical about 100.

has anyone else noticed that "living in the past" always seems to pop up on threads and is always bashing the former greats like Ryun, Lindgren, etc? I wonder what THAT is all about?

noticed a pattern wrote:

has anyone else noticed that "living in the past" always seems to pop up on threads and is always bashing the former greats like Ryun, Lindgren, etc? I wonder what THAT is all about?

His other pseudonym is Davebedfordwannabe." Davebedfordwannabe starts Pre bashing threads at least 2 or 3 times a year.

right. it seems to be former American greats. Pre, Ryun, Lindgren, etc. He always claims they were 'burnouts'.

It is pretty sad they when ever people leave the sport for whatever reason people say they 'burn out'. Sometimes life gets in the way (family, money, career) or athletes simply move on.

pyrah ran a 4:03, 1:51, 9:05 triple in high school off of 25 miles a week. i'd say he was capable of sub 9 if he hadn't beeng going for sub 4 every meet by going out in 55

Malmo trained hard but smart, a lot of slow 12 milers in parks. He did not want to succumb to the dreaded "California

Syndrome".

WHO sold you all that FEAR? There ain't no such think as a runner "breaking down" because he runs long miles. YOU break down because you FEAR running those long miles, not cos you run them. You break down because you only know how to time your workouts and keep track of speed.

Why not try running towards a destination instead of running workouts? Run to the mountain. Run to the beach. Run to Claudia's house on the other side of the valley; But stop running for 50 minutes or keeping track of each mile you run. You gotta LET yourself run rather than MAKING yourself run. And loose the fear, o.k.???

noticed a pattern wrote:

has anyone else noticed that "living in the past" always seems to pop up on threads and is always bashing the former greats like Ryun, Lindgren, etc? I wonder what THAT is all about?

You have your facts wrong. I actually praised Jim Ryun as being the greatest American distance-running talent of all time. What I argued was that he was prematurely burned out by the type of training that his coach, Bob Timmons, subjected him to. Some of Timmons's supporters on that long Ryun thread a few months back described Ryun as a whiny prima donna.

As for Lindgren, I merely pointed out that he started going downhill right after college. Call it bashing if you want, but it's a fact that it happened. I was just stating the obvious. Some would say his decline was because he struggled financially, some would say it was because he had run too many 350-mile weeks.

As for Pre, I simply wanted to point out that his legendary status was based on his dominance of U.S. runners and that his greatest international victory was a 3,000 meters at the Bislett Games in 1972 against Anders Garderud in 7:44 and that his greatest international performance was a third-place finish in a two mile race behind Rod Dixon and Emiel Puttemans in 8:18 in 1974. Pre's international career seems to be a very emotional topic for some people.

There are many former great runners that I've praised like Miruts Yifter, Ian Stewart, Malmo, and Rick Wohlhuter (who I have described as the most underrated American of the 1970s).

Of Malmo, I once wrote something to the effect that he beat a lot of runners who had more natural talent and that he was rarely, if ever, beaten by a runner endowed with less talent. I was paying tribute to his tenacity and intelligence. But I guess you missed that comment.

dwigt schrude wrote:

pyrah ran a 4:03, 1:51, 9:05 triple in high school off of 25 miles a week. i'd say he was capable of sub 9 if he hadn't beeng going for sub 4 every meet by going out in 55

he was a good one; but, again; another exception to the rule. Not many guys are going to do squat, let alone national class times off of 25 miles a week.

you can (and did) push your body to do alot more than people said you could because you BELIEVED in yourself. If people aren't constantly in your ear telling you 'you can't do that', 'it's never been done', etc, etc., a person can do more than they realize. Of course, every body has their individual physical limits, based upon heredity and their own training; but the limits are farther out than most of us will ever get to.

Guys like Lindgren, Pre, Ryun, Salazar are guys who pushed themselves into that "red zone" where most of us back off, but they kept pushing.

Some of us are ashamed that we didn't have the guts to push it like they did and thus, want to make excuses or put them down. "Yeah, Ryun/Lindgren/Pre/Shorter/Salazar was great, BUT "

Sour grapes by alot of wannabees that never were.

my freshman year in college, I was running along in a race with a guy I didn't know and we had broken away from the field. I felt great and was gliding along in his wake. I was 'in the zone'. With about 2 laps to go some guy yelled at me "you can't run with Smith, he was the conference champ last year"; thanks to that a-hole putting a seed of doubt into my mind, I started to doubt myself and started getting tight. I drifted back the last lap and a 1/2 but still had a big PR, finishing 4th. I always wonder if my 'zone' wouldn't have been broken or I would have had the strength to throw off that negative comment, if I could have stayed with the 'conference stud' closer to the finish.