Gerry Lindgren opened up 10 mile training run with 4:08 mile

well.. wrote:

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)

Thanks for looking that up.

And HRE - don't you get it? Just because it's written in a book doesn't mean it happened. Just consider it for a little while...could a HS senior really run an 88-miler every weekend under any circumstances, let alone whilst in the middle of intense training for track races? Just a casual 11-hour run! Except one time he made it back around 2:30pm, so 9 and 1/2 hours that day for his 88-miler, or right around 6:30/mile pace. Yeah, sure, no problem. Never mind that the world record for 100 miles on the track (11:28) is at about 6:52 pace - and those races presumably provided aid whenever it was wanted. But of course, those boring ultrarunners were probably limited by what they thought was possible, unlike Gerry the Magic Elf.

Another thing to think about: have you ever tried an 88-mile run or thereabouts? Well, for one thing, if you have, you'll realize that you don't just hit the road with a devil-may-care attitude. You're going to need a lot of fluids and fuel at a bare minimum. You can't carry it all with you. Where was he getting all this? He doesn't mention that part at all, because he hadn't thought his little fib through carefully enough.

For the people who take the attitude that "that's just Gerry, he's a little crazy, but he was a good runner nonetheless", I can relate to that approach. But people like HRE, you seem to be just as crazy as Gerry. You think these things actually took place in reality, rather than just in Gerry's imagination. All he has to say is that you've gotta drop your preconceived notions like I did, and you're like, yeah...that's true! I believe you!

HRE has a belief system in written material that varies according to the subject.

I'm calling BS on the 3 mile being still a regularly contested international event up to the 1970s. Post the results of an international 3 mile race not held in the US in the 1970s if you want to be believed.

p.s. Gerry couldn't even come close to running running two miles at 4:08 mile pace, so I'm calling BS on the 4:08 opening mile of a ten mile training run.

The 6th Beatle wrote:

Just consider it for a little while...could a HS senior really run an 88-miler every weekend under any circumstances, let alone whilst in the middle of intense training for track races? Just a casual 11-hour run! Except one time he made it back around 2:30pm, so 9 and 1/2 hours that day for his 88-miler, or right around 6:30/mile pace. .

!

Dude, you have just proven what Gerry says is wrong with a lot of runners. While you are debating all of his paces and distances and whether they are possible, you are missing the fact that he was out running 11 hours one day every weekend and when he really ran hard, it was only a 9.5 hour run.

upthewsu wrote:

I'm calling BS on the 3 mile being still a regularly contested international event up to the 1970s. Post the results of an international 3 mile race not held in the US in the 1970s if you want to be believed.

p.s. Gerry couldn't even come close to running running two miles at 4:08 mile pace, so I'm calling BS on the 4:08 opening mile of a ten mile training run.

cool

we get it. you don't like gerry and don't believe what he says and nothing anyone says will change your mind.

you can leave now.

Not many people like lairs. Get used to it.

You. like many people here, don't read very well. I've never said that I believe everything Lindgren claims to have done. I've said that I allow for the possibility that some of them could be true, some may be one off events that people are taking as regular occurrences, some may be mostly untrue, and that what any of us believe or don't is irrelevant because it doesn't change what happened or didn't.

For example, I can believe that he ran some 350 mile weeks. I don't think he routinely did that much but I can see where he MAY have had a couple, that's all he needs to make it "weeks," not "week," or more.

I know that Max White, who had the US 50 mile record for a while, once set off for a track session in Charlottesville, Va. on a Saturday morning and decided as he started the session that he'd rather visit his parents that day. They lived in Richmond and he simply ran there on the spur of the moment. Tom Osler sometimes ran from his house in Camden or maybe Trenton to Atlantic City. He'd take some money to buy drinks and snacks along the way and a few hours after he left his wife would stick the kids and a change of clothes for Tom into the car and drive to Atlantic City where they'd hang out at the beach, have dinner, and drive home. It was about a 60 mile run. So I'm not convinced that Lindgren couldn't have done a similar thing on occasion.

But again, I don't know and likely never will. Nor will you but you, and others, seem to think that you do know because you have a really definite opinion. The point Lindgren is trying to make is to get over the obsession with details and formulas because they limit you. Try stuff that seems fun or challenging or impossible because what's really nest in this sport is the time you do something that once seemed. impossible to you.

callerouter wrote:

Not many people like lairs. Get used to it.

We love lairs. Speak for yourself.

Dragons love lairs.....

The three mile was regularly contested in English speaking countries until the mid 70s. The US had 3 and 6 mile, not 5,000/10,000 ones champions except in Olympic years until at least 1973. Ron Clarke set an indoor WR at 3 miles in Oakland in 1969.

Obviously you're not likely to find three mile races outside of English speaking countries. That was always true, not just since the 70s.

If he's trying to get away from details and formulas, why the hell does he state his opinion in the form of details and formulas. Sub 2 hour marathon, 4:08 opening mile on training runs, 5 mile cross country races at 4:02 pace. It's all bullsh*t and detracts from his real performances. His reputation as a bullsh*tter is quickly overtaking his reputation as a runner.

Like I said, post the results of one international 3 mile race outside of the US in the 1970s.

You can't because the 3 mile race was not a race run internationally, making a near world record at the distance worthless at the international level.

Ron Clarke won a three mile in Melbourne on Jan. 31, 1970 in 13:30.0. Prefontaine was the last US three mile champion in 1973 in 12:53.4. Again, you'll only fin d the distance run in countries that use or used the Imperial System but there were international meets in those countries. The meet in Oakland in 1969 had Clarke, an Aussie, in it making it an international meet.

Probably because people ask him about it. If you ask me my longest training run I will say 32 miles. I didn't measure it exactly and don't think it matters if it was exactly that distance. It was a long run, well beyond the marathon. The sport is about times and distances so naturally you can't avoid talking in numbers.

the height of idiocy wrote:

The 6th Beatle wrote:

Just consider it for a little while...could a HS senior really run an 88-miler every weekend under any circumstances, let alone whilst in the middle of intense training for track races? Just a casual 11-hour run! Except one time he made it back around 2:30pm, so 9 and 1/2 hours that day for his 88-miler, or right around 6:30/mile pace. .

!

Dude, you have just proven what Gerry says is wrong with a lot of runners. While you are debating all of his paces and distances and whether they are possible, you are missing the fact that he was out running 11 hours one day every weekend and when he really ran hard, it was only a 9.5 hour run.

Height - maybe you are joking? But if not, isn't that kind of circular reasoning in which you indulge? Gerry says he used to fantastically long, fast runs. He says he was able to accomplish this because he didn't set mental limits on his abilities like other people. Somebody questions the veracity of his claims, because they don't match up with his actual abilities or what would have been logistically feasible. You claim that proves his point, because the doubters are setting artificial limits, just like Gerry said they would.

Like I said, you can't post an international meet outside of the US that had a 3 mile race in the 1970s. None event!

HRE - the details matter, though. Running is a sport of relatively small differences in ability - the WR for 5k is 12:37, and an average HS boy can run 3-5 minutes off that. So you have to be fairly precise for statements about running times/distances to have real meaning. You can't go around saying "I ran 5 miles and it took me about 20 minutes" You say it took 25:57 or something precise like that.

So I'm not buying into this "you've just got to accept the general gist of what he's saying". No. If someone says they ran 88 miles in such-and-such a time, it's got to be something pretty darn close to that to have any meaning. Now I have no problem with your stories of other guys who went on casual ultra runs with some money in their pockets for refreshments, because the claim didn't include anything unbelievable - these were experienced ultrarunners running believable distances, presumably not particularly fast. Easily believable.

But when someone says they ran 4 miles in 16:08, what else can it mean other than they really want you to believe they ran 4 miles at 4:02 pace? If they say they ran 88 miles every Sunday in high school at a certain pace, why should I infer that they mean anything else? These are just lies, plain and simple.

callerouter wrote:

the 3 mile race was not a race run internationally, making a near world record at the distance worthless at the international level.

What are you not understanding?

I already proved that the 3-mile World record in 1966 was a superior mark to the 5000m World record in 1966.

So if Gerry Lindgren was less than a second from the 3-mile WR in 1966, then that makes his 12:53.0 quite significant.

Track & Field News converted his 12:53.0 3-mile to 13:20.9 for 5000m. The 5000m WR was 13:24.2

Get it now?

yesstiles wrote:

Track & Field News converted his 12:53.0 3-mile to 13:20.9 for 5000m. The 5000m WR was 13:24.2

The funny thing is, if Lindgren's race had been a 5000m that day in May, 1966 he would have beat the World Record by 3 seconds. You would then call it amazing, yet his time would have been slightly inferior to Ron Clarke's 12:52.4 3-mile World Record and you'd say "not important.....the 3-mile is an insignificant event."