Oldhalfmileguy that was a GREAT post. It got me wondering, what do you think your limit was? What did the limits seem to be for most team mates? Could you handle 100 miles with little quality? 120? What could most people do? What about the elites? And then when you added hard workouts, how many? Could you do high miles, 3 hard track workouts a week, and not break down? I think many things in the 70's were done right, and we need to get back closer to that. Thanks
Living in the Past - We are still waiting for your P.R.'s and MPW you ran.
I'm still waiting to find out whether Lindgren's 2:30 as a 9th grader was for the 660 or the half mile.
1 mile 4:48, set in 11th grade
2 mile 10:21 set in 12th grade
5k 15:37 set as a junior in college
10k 32:35 set as a 25 year old
marathon 2:48 set as a 26 year old
unfortunately I peaked too soon and burned out too young. When I think of my career I mostly think about what "could have been".
he told me 660 years ago, pretty sure on this one. maybe gerrythejogger can confirm
afasdsfasd wrote:
Living in the Past - We are still waiting for your P.R.'s and MPW you ran.
I am still waiting for bowerman's. and daniel's. and lydiard's. because if their PR's don't come close to Gerry Lindgren's, then I can discount what they say too.
Those are guru's of this sport, their PR's do not matter. This is some random guy on the internet with very mediocre PR's telling people like the legend Gerry Lindgren he 'burned out'. It's laughable.
afasdsfasd wrote:
Those are guru's of this sport, their PR's do not matter. This is some random guy on the internet with very mediocre PR's telling people like the legend Gerry Lindgren he 'burned out'. It's laughable.
in case this is your first exposure to 'living in the past'; he pops up on threads with the sole objective of bashing American greats like: Ryun, Lindgren, Prefontaine, etc., don't waste your time engaging the guy, he doesn't deal in reality, only abstracts of what should happen in a perfect world, where all you had to do was run and never got injured. If you didn't improve every year from 16 to 30 and set your prs in your last year at age 30, before retiring, then you peaked too soon and were a burned out failure.
From an article by Paul Boxshall in Australian Athlete (July 99)
On the eve of the 98/99 domestic track season, Craig Mottram was relatively unknown in T&F circles. That was until the Associatied Public Schools championships in October. Competing in the 3000m, Mottram destroyed the field, and in doing so, almost captured one ofthe oldest school records in the book set in 1974 by Xavier runner Robert de Castella. Mottram missed the record by only 1.5 seconds, running 8.22 at Olympic Park. Since then, Mottram has emerged as the future star of Australian distance running.
...From Geelong, Mottram is coached by Bruce Scriven, the same man that guided Paul Byrne to become World Junior champion. Scriven has a highly talented training group, that includes brother and sister combination, Tim and Georgie Clarke.
Recently turning 18, Mottram's times compare with the all time greats of the sport. At the Melbourne Grand Prix meeting, Mottram slashed 6 seconds of his personal best to run 3.43.88, finishing .10 seconds behind Martin Keino. His personal best in Melbourne compares with the likes of Nourredine Morceli,Said Aouita, Steve Cram, Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and, to some extent Herb Elliott, at the same age
... Throughout the summer season Mottram was only averaging around 70km per week compared to the 160km a week of his older, more experienced competitors. Despite this, Mottram is extremely cautious towards anincrease in milesand careful not to overtrain to fast track his success."You can't just up the miles straight away, you'll just get injured. Slowly I'll get up to 140km per week next year, which hopefully will bring me up to be more competitive. It's better to be safe than sorry."...
We had a few main mileage trails that most HS, College & Club runners would cross paths on, so you could see how everyone was doing, sometimes by trailing them for 5 miles or so :) One of those was a hilly 17 mile course, that was a Sunday staple, but i used to do it 3-4 times a week my Junior year while on my easy days i did a five Mile course with 2 miles at 5 min pace the other 3 at 6. That was in the morning and i did hard intervals on the track in the afternoon on the easy days. That was as far as i could push things so i guess that was my limit. No such thing as a rest day. As i was "tapering" i backed off all slow work except my Sunday 17 Miler, kept up the 5 mile early morning workout and cut my track workouts to quarters and halfs for pacing, followed by 220's for speed.
2x440 @ 60 jog 60 2x880 @ 2:02 jog 2min 8 x 220 @ 27 jog across infield
In college they had me back way off mileage & intensity and i really improved, but in high school i did 220 repeats and hill sprints within 24 hours of big races
My teammates did more 7 to 10 mile runs, my coach told me anything less than 6 miles was a waste of time. With the 17 mile runs saved for the weekend. Then they skipped the two a days that i did, so they ran intervals on Monday
usually half mile reapeats, then quarters, then a mile at race pace maybe a couple of 220's at the end. Tues lond run x country Wed more intervals, thurs easy recovery run 7 miles, fri race, sat 12 mile flat, Sun 17 mile hard
That was a pretty typical schedule lots of guys were sub 4:30, sub 2 half, sub 10 2m on that .
malmo wrote:
Actually, when I was in high school I wanted to be part of the "California Syndrome." Those kids were other-worldly fast. They were demigods to me. When ever I'd see a national high school list it would be loaded from top to bottom with Spanish sounding high school names, almost all of them Southern California. The times were so fast that it was beyond my comprehension. I mean, 8:50 two miles, how can anyone run that fast?
Good thing I didn't grow up in SoCal, I'd probably be living in a panel van and surfing every day today.
Hey Malmo, that "California Syndrome" reference was a quote from you in "Over Hill and Dale" a book by Ted Banks from 1978. It was a little confusing. Answering the question, what made you good in high school, you stated I trained through competition & worked out very hard. Over 100 miles a week including a lot of slow 12 milers in parks.
The next question, what advice would you give high schoolers you answered,"I would not recommend high school runners to train hard. They are too young. They should just build a sound base, otherwise we see the "California Syndrome".
Do you feel you trained too hard in high school???
Did you invent the term "California Syndrome"???
Cheers
seen it before wrote:
In case this is your first exposure to 'living in the past'; he pops up on threads with the sole objective of bashing American greats like: Ryun, Lindgren, Prefontaine, etc., don't waste your time engaging the guy, he doesn't deal in reality, only abstracts of what should happen in a perfect world, where all you had to do was run and never got injured. If you didn't improve every year from 16 to 30 and set your prs in your last year at age 30, before retiring, then you peaked too soon and were a burned out failure.
Interesting, and very entertaining. I've been reading "Living in the past" a while and wonder if what starts out as a bunch of rather tame comments escalates into the banter that sets everyone on the post reeling is due to attacks that are a bit unwarranted. I recall Living as being very complimentary of Ryun, less so of Pre because he wanted to paint the legend in the light of European reality. What he wrote about Gerry was certainly not "bashing." I think he is in awe of the greats, and just wants to talk about training realities. His PRs don't interest me, and shouldn't interest the post. You can't assign an across-the-board worth to someone based on the clicks of the chronometer with which all runners become obsessed. What's wrong with talking about what possibly could have been? Does it have to be read as bashing? But heck, what do I know? I can't even recall half the runners you guys bring up!
Great post! I'm glad someone sees my comments in the light that they were intended. I really do just like to discuss the training, the talent, and the results.
I seem to get people foaming at the mouth over my comments about certain topics, like the coaching of Timmons or Dellinger or the hyped-up legend of Prefontaine, but I don't go out of my way to start fights.
And lest some think that I am a totally negative person who needs lessons from the dare-to-be-great guru, Glen Turner, let's not forget that I've been very complimentary towards many runners such as Mohamed Gammoudi, Klaus-Peter Hildenbrand, Ian McCafferty, and Juha Vaatainen. (Not that any of these guys would give a rat's ass what I think or that they should.)