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

It is kind of sad to read all this arguing about whether what Gerry says is factually correct. I don't know the guy, but from what I have read and the videos I have seen it does not take a PhD in psychology/psychiatry to know that he is on the spectrum of schizophrenia. He is an inspiration as a runner and for some people as a human being, regardless of his past. I don't know if he has a formal diagnosis or if he has any interest in getting one. I have dealt with enough patients (yes, I'm an MD) to know this guy has some cognitive processing issues.

So, to answer "the 6th beatle"'s question, No. Jerry is not lying. But that doesn't mean everything he says is true. Is that really so hard to understand?

HRE wrote:No, they're not "just lies, plain and simple." They MAY be lies but he may genuinely believe he ran 4 miles in 16:08 because that was the distance the race was advertised as. Obviously, he did not run 88 miles every Sunday while in high school. But he may have had a stretch where he did that for a while.

Going back to the literature of the time and what Lindgren's contemporaries observed at the time, we can somewhat shake off what Lindgren's current recollections are now, whether true or not.

Jack Daniels used Lindgren as a test subject in the early 1970's and has stated that Lindgren's highest mileage week was 373 miles. He also said that Lindgren had a 6-week total once of close to 50 miles a day.

According to Lindgren's high school coach, Gerry ran about 150 miles a week in high school, and 200 miles a week for a few weeks just after graduating in preparation for the Olympics. Also, it was stated that Gerry sometimes did 45-mile training runs near Mt. Spokane.

cashing_in wrote:

250 mile weeks. Hmm.. overtraining is just as bad as undertraining.

BTW, is he promoting a book or something?

Tired of these anecdotes or rather tall tales.

He's a good runner and didn't he beat Pre once in Hawaii? No mention of that? Instead stories about running at night and running with jean shorts? And how he couldn't open a door on his own? Come on!

Frankly, Shorter's story is much more interesting.

Pittsburgh Joe wrote:

It is kind of sad to read all this arguing about whether what Gerry says is factually correct. I don't know the guy, but from what I have read and the videos I have seen it does not take a PhD in psychology/psychiatry to know that he is on the spectrum of schizophrenia. He is an inspiration as a runner and for some people as a human being, regardless of his past. I don't know if he has a formal diagnosis or if he has any interest in getting one. I have dealt with enough patients (yes, I'm an MD) to know this guy has some cognitive processing issues.

So, to answer "the 6th beatle"'s question, No. Jerry is not lying. But that doesn't mean everything he says is true. Is that really so hard to understand?

OK, I'll agree with what you're saying. I don't think he's lying in a willfully malicious sense, and agree that he deserves sympathy and some lenience for his personal issues. So I apologize if I came across as callous.

But what I will stick to is this: there is a fairly common image of Gerry Lindgren as this sort of mythical figure who not only ran some great races, but did some pretty unbelievable things on top of that. I think it's safe to say that a lot of people believe the whole package. All I'm trying to do is correct the record. His actual record is highly impressive - best HS runner ever, NCAA championships, Olympic team, national records, etc.

But there is also a lot of other stuff that is clearly not true. So when mythology gets written as fact (i.e. the section on Lindgren in the book by Bloom or whoever that states unequivocally that he ran 88 miles each Sunday) I think it is almost one's duty to correct the record if possible, just based on the principle that in general everybody should be as well-informed as possible. It would seem obvious to me that in an activity like competitive running, those who want to improve would do well to study what those who were successful in the past did to reach that level. Pretty much everybody does that. Well, it won't do them much good if they start thinking they need to be striving for 350 mile weeks and 88 mile long runs at an astonishing pace each weekend.

In January 1980, Gerry Lindgren ran again.

He and Betty already had their issues. There was the woman who filed suit for child support in California. There were the times that Gerry disappeared for weekends or for weeks.

But they also owned a business together, Gerry Lindgren's Stinky Foot, a running-shoe store in Tacoma. They had a home together. And three young, beautiful and healthy children who now have only fleeting memories of their father.

In the Queen Anne coffee shop, Lindgren says he went to Hawaii to help a friend start a business. He never told his ex-family that. In fact, he never told his children he was coming into town in September.

Betty asked their daughter if she wanted to go and meet him, the same way his former classmate did. By just showing up, unexpected, unannounced. Her response?

"Why would I want to?"

"He's been back several times since he left," Betty Lindgren says. "He just never contacted us. That part's tough. He's pretty much in denial about what he did. Well, I don't know if he's in denial. Maybe he just doesn't want to tell the world about it. I don't really blame him."

The ultimate low. Where's the courage and strength in that?

Seattle Times

yesstiles wrote:

12:53.0 converts to 13:20.9 per T&F News.

It's a good 1.5 seconds slower than that. If you assume that someone who runs 12:53.0 can run to 5K without slowing down at all, he would hit 13:20.53. The T & F News conversion tables are not so generous as to "dock" a runner less than 0.4 seconds after extending the distance by about 3.6 percent. Try more like 13:22.4 to 13:22.6.

Lindgren was a beast in his day as some have said. No way of knowing how much faster he's have been had he been born 40 or 50 years later but all we have to go on are his known times and a lot of his bogus accounts.

I think that's fair. The guy did some amazing things, due in part that he didn't put limits on himself. But obviously taken to an extreme.

Ignatius Reilly wrote:

yesstiles wrote:

12:53.0 converts to 13:20.9 per T&F News.

It's a good 1.5 seconds slower than that. If you assume that someone who runs 12:53.0 can run to 5K without slowing down at all, he would hit 13:20.53. The T & F News conversion tables are not so generous as to "dock" a runner less than 0.4 seconds after extending the distance by about 3.6 percent. Try more like 13:22.4 to 13:22.6.

Lindgren was a beast in his day as some have said. No way of knowing how much faster he's have been had he been born 40 or 50 years later but all we have to go on are his known times and a lot of his bogus accounts.

I'm just going by what T&F News converted his race to in their magazine. They addressed his very race when comparing it to the WJR for 5000m about 10 years ago.

Also remember, Lindgren ran that 12:53.0 on a dirt track. And T&F News commented in their May, 1966 issue that it was a cold and windy day in Seattle, where every performance but Lindgren's was sub-par.

yesstiles wrote:

I'm just going by what T&F News converted his race to in their magazine. They addressed his very race when comparing it to the WJR for 5000m about 10 years ago.

Also remember, Lindgren ran that 12:53.0 on a dirt track. And T&F News commented in their May, 1966 issue that it was a cold and windy day in Seattle, where every performance but Lindgren's was sub-par.

Agreed, amazing performance. But T & F News messed this one up. If I asked Gerry Hill if he converts from 3 miles to 5K by multiplying by 1.036, he's probably laugh in my face and dump acid in my eyes.

Ignatius Reilly wrote:

yesstiles wrote:

I'm just going by what T&F News converted his race to in their magazine. They addressed his very race when comparing it to the WJR for 5000m about 10 years ago.

Also remember, Lindgren ran that 12:53.0 on a dirt track. And T&F News commented in their May, 1966 issue that it was a cold and windy day in Seattle, where every performance but Lindgren's was sub-par.

Agreed, amazing performance. But T & F News messed this one up. If I asked Gerry Hill if he converts from 3 miles to 5K by multiplying by 1.036, he's probably laugh in my face and dump acid in my eyes.

Well even converted to 13:22.4, it still beat the current May, 1966 5000m WR by almost 2 seconds. Imagine if it had been a 5000m race instead of 3-miles; Gerry Lindgren would be so much more revered by those who don't know the details.

And don't forget, Gerry actually did get a World Record, something even Pre never did. Gerry set the 6-mile WR in June, 1965 with a 27.11.6 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. That mark too was superior to the then-current 10,000m World Record of 28:14.

Which would have been smashed by Ron Clarke a few days later down to 27:39.

Jerry is someone who abandoned his wife and children and refuses contact with them even when he returns to WA. Plus, he's a know lair about everything in his life, including his running. These are not exactly attributes of someone wanting to be "revered."

upthewsu wrote:

Which would have been smashed by Ron Clarke a few days later down to 27:39.

Jerry is someone who abandoned his wife and children and refuses contact with them even when he returns to WA. Plus, he's a know lair about everything in his life, including his running. These are not exactly attributes of someone wanting to be "revered."

God you are a pretentious, self righteous pr/(k. Maybe you need to go for a long run to get away from your current situation. You harbor an awful lot of hate.

Peace and love.

upthewsu wrote:

Which would have been smashed by Ron Clarke a few days later down to 27:39.

Jerry is someone who abandoned his wife and children and refuses contact with them even when he returns to WA. Plus, he's a know lair about everything in his life, including his running. These are not exactly attributes of someone wanting to be "revered."

People here are revering the young runner Gerry Lindgren. There's a difference.

And yes, Ron Clarke ran 27:39 just 2 1/2 weeks later and the world marveled.

I'm not seeing this "reverence". Most people are calling him a liar, a wife and child abandoner, and an under performer considering the talent displayed in his youth. No one accepts his boats about his training because they aren't reflected in his racing.

Those bashing Gerry have issues themselves. The things I have read about Gerry's childhood are horrific and led him to great running and poor parenting. I've spent enough time in Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings to know how insideous being beat and tortured by your drunk father can affect the rest of one's life. Any ACOA needs ongoing professional help and they still have difficulty making a satisfactory adjustment to life. Gerry's personality is classic ACOA and I wish him and his kids the best.

Quit judging.

This^

I first met Gerry in 1970 and expected a serious guy, one who took on the Russians and beat them. As a symbol of the Free World winning against the Communists so I though he had to be a man of steel, a John Wayne type, few words and power and strength. But when I met him I found he was not what I had expected.

He is not the John Wayne of running, but the Woody Allen. He is comedy, stand up, improv, and willing to say anything to get a laugh. He is very funny and very good company. You should be so lucky as to have Gerry Lindgren pull your leg.

Lean back, have a laugh. Everybody lies. Giggling is the best medicine.

Tom

Yes, he deserves a pass for abandoning his wife and children and for lying about his running career because he was fast in high school and college.

Thanks, long tough road and Tom.

Envious and hypocritical hobby joggers who're also A-holes just can't keep their mouth shut. What can you say?