12:53 for 3 miles is worth 13:20s for 5000m = B-level pro nowadays
12:53 for 3 miles is worth 13:20s for 5000m = B-level pro nowadays
conversion wrote:
12:53 for 3 miles is worth 13:20s for 5000m = B-level pro nowadays
What does that have to do with the fact that 12:51 is still the current record? Fifty years from now, Bekele's time will be equal to the b-level pros too. Why is it so hard to understand for a short period of time Gerry Lindgren was one of the best runners in the world?
To insinuate Lindgren was a b-level pro is no different that me insinuating he is only 2 seconds slower than the 5,000m record.
ray wrote:
Those that bring up his family are the real sickos.
One of the things I like about the running community is that most runners DON'T buy into to the idea that if someone is a good athlete, they should be respected regardless of what they do outside of the sport. I will leave the worship of absentee fathers, rapists, and thugs to the football fans, and I'll continue to think poorly of such characters in my sport regardless of their athletic performances.
You are confusing my knocking all those nut jobs who think their perfect, with worship of those who aren't.
Gerry has been known to exaggerate to prove a point. He has also been known to be quite the practical jokester and have people on. Regardless, he was a phenomenal runner and trained as hard as anybody had before him and probably most who came after him. If he's a B level runner, then Zatopek and Nurmi must have been low C or possibly D level right?
nice try at idiocy wrote:
conversion wrote:12:53 for 3 miles is worth 13:20s for 5000m = B-level pro nowadays
What does that have to do with the fact that 12:51 is still the current record? Fifty years from now, Bekele's time will be equal to the b-level pros too. Why is it so hard to understand for a short period of time Gerry Lindgren was one of the best runners in the world?
To insinuate Lindgren was a b-level pro is no different that me insinuating he is only 2 seconds slower than the 5,000m record.
First off, what are you talking about 12:51 being the current record? The 3-mile isn't run any more, so there is no "current record". People run the 5000m now, and anybody that runs low 13:20s or better would beat Gerry's best 3-mie time of 12:53.
The point about Lindgren being equivalent to a current modern B-level pro is that there is no need to attribute mystical powers to him as far as the ability to run super long distances is concerned. There is no need to assume he would have broken all the ultra records, when it hasn't been established that he ever actually ran any ultra distance runs. The top ultras (Comrades, etc) attract runners of that ability level and better (i.e. 2:10+/- marathoners), and those runners specialize in ultra running, so why assume that some guy with no proven ultra experience could better their records?
conversion wrote:
12:53 for 3 miles is worth 13:20s for 5000m = B-level pro nowadays
Gerry's 12:53 3-mile race was done in 1966 on a dirt track in a regional college meet on a very windy day. It was amazing. 1.6 seconds off the current WR.
It remains the closest any American has ever gotten to the 3-mile/5000m World Record.
Who ever said anything about Lindgren breaking ultra records?
Running 7 minute pace for 60 miles wouldn't break any records if he did that today. Ann Trason ran 6:46 pace for 100k.
It's comical when posters on here say C-level runners would crush all the ultra records, but a B-level runner would have no chance.
Make up your minds!!
nice try at idiocy wrote:
To insinuate Lindgren was a b-level pro is no different that me insinuating he is only 2 seconds slower than the 5,000m record.
Did you fail to see the word "nowadays" in his post or did you just think it was a typo?
nice stab at reading wrote:
nice try at idiocy wrote:To insinuate Lindgren was a b-level pro is no different that me insinuating he is only 2 seconds slower than the 5,000m record.
Did you fail to see the word "nowadays" in his post or did you just think it was a typo?
Of course I did. It's not Lindgren's fault (or Pre who has the official American 3 mile record at 12:51) that they don't contest it anymore.
That means Lindgren is 10 seconds/mile off the current American 5k record. The current 100k record on the roads is 6:00 pace. You don't think Lindgren could run within a minute/mile of that?
Running close to the 3 mile world record does not mean squat when the rest of the world had switched to the 5000m a decade before.
the naysayers are out again wrote:
Who ever said anything about Lindgren breaking ultra records?
Running 7 minute pace for 60 miles wouldn't break any records if he did that today. Ann Trason ran 6:46 pace for 100k.
It's comical when posters on here say C-level runners would crush all the ultra records, but a B-level runner would have no chance.
Make up your minds!!
A poster named Ray on post #67 (approx):
"...The point is, the man was an exceptional runner who did things in training that no one had done before him. In talking with those that did run with him and train with him, I would have to believe that Gerry would have shattered any ultra records kept at the time...."
So based on his track times, it seems likely that he could possibly have run a good ultramarathon if he trained for it. No more or less likely than anybody else at that level. It's not hard to imagine him being able to run sub-7 pace for 60 miles - just like it's not hard to imagine, oh, I don't know, Nick Arciniaga or Jason Hartmann being able to do so if that was something they chose to pursue. But on the other hand, if they said they routinely did that in training for their Sunday run, during heavy training, week in and week out, when they were like 18 years old, without aid, etc, you'd find it a little questionable.
I'm saying the whole idea that "he did things in training that no one had done before him" is flawed. It's based largely on Lindgren's word, which has been shown to be completely unreliable. I see no reason whatsoever to believe his training was fundamentally any different to countless other people who have run the times he ran.
Where did you see that Lindgren said he did 50-80 mile runs routinely? It's not in the article and I've never seen that claim anywhere else.
upthewsu wrote:
Running close to the 3 mile world record does not mean squat when the rest of the world had switched to the 5000m a decade before.
The 3 mile & 6 mile was regularly contested into the '70s by international athletes.
HRE wrote:
Where did you see that Lindgren said he did 50-80 mile runs routinely? It's not in the article and I've never seen that claim anywhere else.
"Almost every weekend as a HS senior, and about once a month throughout his career, Lindgren ran 88 miles round-trip on Sunday to the top of Mt Spokane.
He´d start out at 5:00 in the morning and try to get home by 4:00. Once, he got back around 2:30 pm, better than 7 min/mile all the way. "Those last 5 miles were hell," he says." (Marc Bloom "Run with the champions" p. 114)
upthewsu wrote:
Running close to the 3 mile world record does not mean squat when the rest of the world had switched to the 5000m a decade before.
Sorry bub!
At the time (May, 1966) the World record for 3-miles was 12:51.4 and the World Record for 5000m was 13:24.2. That 3-mile WR was superior to the current 5000m WR. Why? Because 3-miles was still run more often! It wasn't until the 70's that the 5000m superceded the 3-mile.
Gerry Lindgren's 12:53.0 3-mile in 1966 was also a superior mark to the 5000m WR of 13:24.0. 12:53.0 converts to 13:20.9 per T&F News.
How about this for a great idea...we start a thread with a survey about who sucked more. First let's get the names for the list. I'd start with Clayton, Shorter, Pirie, Kuts, Zatopek, Thomas, Clarke, Bikila, Gamoudi, Hill, Mills and Nurmi. Not sure if we should throw in some middle distance guys like Landy, Jazy, Hagg, Elliott, Cunningham, Keino, Delany and Bannister. Surely we could expand it to 100 names easily. First guy I would knock off his pedestal would be Zatopek. I mean not only wouldn't he be allowed in a major meet today, he would tell us stories about running in place for hours and wearing boots to run 400's! I once heard Cunningham tell a group of us that he ran a sub 4 minute mile in practice!
Surely he's a bigger putz then the rest of the guys on this list. But wait! The stuff Cerutty told me about Elliott, Thomas and Landy......
ray wrote:
How about this for a great idea...we start a thread with a survey about who sucked more. First let's get the names for the list. I'd start with Clayton, Shorter, Pirie, Kuts, Zatopek, Thomas, Clarke, Bikila, Gamoudi, Hill, Mills and Nurmi. Not sure if we should throw in some middle distance guys like Landy, Jazy, Hagg, Elliott, Cunningham, Keino, Delany and Bannister. Surely we could expand it to 100 names easily. First guy I would knock off his pedestal would be Zatopek. I mean not only wouldn't he be allowed in a major meet today, he would tell us stories about running in place for hours and wearing boots to run 400's! I once heard Cunningham tell a group of us that he ran a sub 4 minute mile in practice!
Surely he's a bigger putz then the rest of the guys on this list. But wait! The stuff Cerutty told me about Elliott, Thomas and Landy......
Nobody in this thread said that Lindgren sucked. We´re discussing som of his ridiculous training and racing claims.
Reading comprehension doesn´t seem to be your strong side.
huh?? wrote:
ray wrote:How about this for a great idea...we start a thread with a survey about who sucked more. First let's get the names for the list. I'd start with Clayton, Shorter, Pirie, Kuts, Zatopek, Thomas, Clarke, Bikila, Gamoudi, Hill, Mills and Nurmi. Not sure if we should throw in some middle distance guys like Landy, Jazy, Hagg, Elliott, Cunningham, Keino, Delany and Bannister. Surely we could expand it to 100 names easily. First guy I would knock off his pedestal would be Zatopek. I mean not only wouldn't he be allowed in a major meet today, he would tell us stories about running in place for hours and wearing boots to run 400's! I once heard Cunningham tell a group of us that he ran a sub 4 minute mile in practice!
Surely he's a bigger putz then the rest of the guys on this list. But wait! The stuff Cerutty told me about Elliott, Thomas and Landy......
Nobody in this thread said that Lindgren sucked. We´re discussing som of his ridiculous training and racing claims.
Reading comprehension doesn´t seem to be your strong side.
Sorry I thought you actually read the posts on the thread before you commented about me not reading the posts on the thread.
We become obsessed with the stopwatch, the heart rate monitor, the GPS trackers, the pace. You can't watch a five second clip of Ryan Hall without seeing them habitually check his watch. Gerry Lingren is the antithesis of this. He's a hippie dreamer jokester that has trouble understanding the difference between dreams and reality. He's a spiritualist and believes that if we all collectively think something to be true, we can make it true. He thinks the Soviets arrested him, he inspired Steve Prefontaine to start running, he's going to live for 750 years, that if we think about curing the ozone layer that it will just be cured. If you drill him on the details, he'd probably just smile and walk away.
But next time you are about to go for a run and you tell your Mom and Dad or wife and kids when you'll be back and they moan that you're going to be gone so long, realize this: Nobody cared about Gerry Lingren being gone when he was growing up. To him, running was his family, his identity, his career, and superpower. A wimpy nerd backing down from challenges but a fearless competitor on the track. Running was all he knew. It's no surprise he had trouble acclimating to suburban life. Living in Hawaii without his family allows him to live more or less in a permanent vacation state because that's where he mentally is. But put that scrawny kid on the track and he was truly something special.
Like him or hate him, that's Gerry. Questionable person, great runner. I think it's quite a Tinseltown friendly story myself.
Thanks. I do have that book somewhere but haven't looked at it in ages. Derek Trunbull of the 2:38 marathon in his 60s used to do a similar thing on Sundays. He'do "adventure runs" of various distances that lasted all day.