gerry lindgren

ah joober great minds think alike hehe

Spider where are you from? GL lived on my street for many years in Honolulu. I don't recall ever seeing him overtrain during those years(80s).

Bump

Everyone should get another chance to read about a great before the site closes

Hmmm, a thread that we haven't seen in about 10 months is resurrected, and the last thing on the thread before resurrection is a (now 10 month-old) question to me.

I grew up in Tacoma, which is were Gerry had his store, which is how I met him. It turned out he also lived in my neighborhood at the time. I saw him frequently for about 9-12 months, roughly '79-'80. Haven't seen him since.

I think that we had another thread on Gerry a few months ago (and a few months after this thread died) which centered on the RW article on him; the focus on that thread was Gerry's personal deamons, abandonment of his family, and mental stability.

I have not read the whole thread...

but I am helping Gerry with his book, we are almost done...I have produced a little Web site...

www.gerrylindgren.com

where you can read some more, see some pictures and some stats...

We are interested in finding other pics./clippings from T&F, Gerry does not have a lot (only the pictures you see on the site)...so if you have anything please let us know...and also look for the book coming soon...

Sincerely,

Christian

TomM sounding off like an asshole again! Fuck him and his "I'm better than you and my dogs will run wherever the f*** they want attitude." Dickhead.

TomM sounding off like an asshole again! Fuck him and his "I'm better than you and my dogs will run wherever the f*** they want attitude." Dickhead.--Shane Paul

Asswipe: I never claimed to be better than anyone. How does anything I posted imply that I think I'm better than anyone? I know exactly what my PR's are, and I know exactly where they fit in the grand scheme of running, so I'm under no illusions of being better than I am. If you mean I think I'm a superior person in general, f*** you, you're wrong. Also, I never claimed my dogs can run anywhere they want. I don't even take them running, and when I do take them out, it's either on a leash or in a designated off-leash area. So kiss my ass, you whiny f***!

Tom who gives a flying f*** how many miles he trained? The real question is how fast did he run..very fast back in the day. Tom how many miles did you run before some of your pRs? I'll share, if you do..?

jtupper, great post! I really enjoy the stories that you share on the boards. Thanks!

As for TomM, I bet Lindgren would say he's an asshole with a f***ing bad attitude as well.

Peace

Tom who gives a flying f*** how many miles he trained? The real question is how fast did he run..very fast back in the day--jzstiner

First off, Shane Paul, whoever the f*** you are, why don't you go f*** yourself until you actually have something to contribute to the discussion? Calling me an asshole because I don't share your opinion--you're a real genius. Remind me to call you next time I need some brain surgery, shiteater.

jzstiner--in principle I totally agree with what you're saying. As a runner I find Lindgren's performances impressive and inspiring. However, the fact remains that this thread started off giving all these amazing training feats of Lindgren's, many of which I find doubtful. I have little doubt that most of the feats were do-able, but I doubt they could be done on a constant basis. I've heard of various runners who tried doing 200+ mile weeks, such as Ron Hill, Bill Rodgers, Dave Bedford, even Arthur Lydiard, and the conclusion I get from their experiences is that the body of even an extremely fit, talented runner breaks down at that mileage. Their experiences definitely don't suggest someone (a high schooler) could maintain 350 miles per week. I'm not concerned with how crazy Lindgren might have been; I just believe he would have suffered a physical breakdown.

Also, that 88 mile run is almost definitely bogus. According to that Marc Bloom bit, it said he once made the trip in 9 1/2 hours. It says that is sub 7's, but it actually works out to sub 6:30's. Now, I know most posters have little if any respect for ultramarathoning records, but consider the 100-mile record of one Donald Ritchie which was just recently broken. Ritchie ran 100 miles on the track in 11:30 back in the early '70's, which works out to 6:54 pace or thereabouts. Donald Ritchie was definitely not some nobody plodding along; he was an incredible performer who once broke 6-minute pace for 100k (6:10:xx). Anyway, that 100-mile was on a track, so there was all the aid he needed right there, and he didn't have to run up or down any mountains. His record stood until this year, when 2 Russians went 11:28 and 11:29 while going for a $10000 WR bonus. And I'm supposed to believe that a high school senior ran 88 miles significantly faster, on harder terrain, without support--in other words, a far superior performance--just as part of his regular training. Sorry, but that's just insulting to Donald Ritchie and other world class ultra guys.

Anyway, I'm not trying to disparage Lindgren as a person. I don't know all that much about him, but it sounds like everybody liked him, and of course his documented running perfomances speak for themselves. It sounds like he was a little loopy and also he kept saying that mileage totals didn't really concern him, so maybe his claims shouldn't be taken so seriously?

Calvin Klein:

I think part of the problem is that I'm perceived as attacking an American myth. Maybe people love the idea of Lindgren as a sort of Paul Bunyan or Daniel Boone of the running world. He was one of the top runners in the world, but it's even more romantic to think of him as this wildman who didn't care that much about the "establishment" of running, who was really better than anyone else in the world but was always exhausted from unfathomable training sessions. It's sort of like the Pre myth: they're both guys who were great runners, but an aura has grown up around them to suggest that they were capable of much more, that they were much more interesting than their competitors. Whatever. I'm just interested in the truth about them. I don't look down on them at all; most of the myths about them were presumably not of their own making.

Yes, I do get tired of attacks on ultrarunning. I think the degree to which top ultra performances are dismissed is a travesty to those who ran those races; many of the top ultrarunners are every bit as wild, crazy, stubborn, and sometimes even talented as famous elite runners. I'm not talking about my own performances, I'm talking about genuinely talented runners like Don Ritchie.

Shane Paul--you're a despicable little pussy. I know you're the same guy who pops up under different names from time to time with your stupid shit like "oh, we should kill all the dogs" or "oh, vegetarians are assholes". Your motto is, "My God! That person is different to me in some way! Kill them!" Your statement about me trying to be part of the "cool" crowd is illustrative of your pathetic mentality; you want to be part of the mob, and you don't like any interlopers who you don't think belong. If you're as tough as you imply, why not identify yourself? I don't think you'd have the balls to say a word of what you write to my face. I don't claim to be a tough guy--I'm a typical, 150lb runner--but by the same token I figure you're the same, and if you dared say that kind of crap to me, I'd kick your f***ing teeth in, because you're too much of pussy to stop me.

Let's not turn this into a debate about whether ultrarunners are worth a competitive damn compared to the best "conventional" racers. They aren't. Granted, not all of them are unwashed, hirsute, cult-propagating serial freaks like that f***er out in Boulder. In fact, most of them are pretty normal, at least on the surface. But if the world's best marathoners moved up to the 50K, 100K and 100-mile distances the "great" ultrarunners like Don Ritchie would suddenly find themselves losing races by amounts best measured in large fractions of whole hours. This is not in dispute, but it's worth pointing out occasionally.

He wasn't just some "free spirit" that was joyously running and living life. He had an extreme set of circumstances with many problems at home and his own mental problems. Basically, you can't apply "normal" training to this guy because he is not "normal" by any means. Only someone crazy would do this stuff and that's exactly what he was.

bump

I came across this thread by accident a few hours ago --- while I can't offer any proof that gerry ran 350 a week for 6 weeks back in his college days I can tell you why I believe that if gerry says he did then he did --- back in the fall of 1986 I decided that I would try to break the worlds age record for the mile -- ( I had been a very good HS miler and had run7/8 mile at a 4:07 pace in practice as a college freshman before suddenly dropping out for what now seems foolish reasons) ---I hired a coach (Brian Clark a nationally ranked 5,000 m runner in the 70's and a wonderful man) who introduced me to Kenny Moore a Bronze medal winner in the '72 olympics and a writer for sports illustrated --- Kenny and Brian knew that a local runner was really gerry lindgren and they set up a training session for me with gerry--- gerry and I became training buddys --running several times a week together for 5 months -- when I told gerry my dream he became excited for me and worked hard with me -- never giving up on me always encouraging me talking me through the rough patches --- I never asked if he was gerry lindgren I just assumed he was and would ask all about his race against the russians in the LA coliseum or against Pre. and we would talk about it -- a few months later Kenny wrote the famous story in sports illustrated reintroducing gerry to the world -- the gerry lindgren I knew in '86/'87 was a wonderful kind hearted non egotistical giving man who had the most increadible ability to train at an unbeleivable rate for a man his age -- if gerry says he ran about 350 miles a week for 6 weeks then he did

I came across this thread by accident a few hours ago --- while I can't offer any proof that gerry ran 350 a week for 6 weeks back in his college days I can tell you why I believe that if gerry says he did then he did --- back in the fall of 1986 I decided that I would try to break the worlds age record for the mile -- ( I had been a very good HS miler and had run7/8 mile at a 4:07 pace in practice as a college freshman before suddenly dropping out for what now seems foolish reasons) ---I hired a coach (Brian Clark a nationally ranked 5,000 m runner in the 70's and a wonderful man) who introduced me to Kenny Moore a Bronze medal winner in the '72 olympics and a writer for sports illustrated --- Kenny and Brian knew that a local runner was really gerry lindgren and they set up a training session for me with gerry--- gerry and I became training buddys --running several times a week together for 5 months -- when I told gerry my dream he became excited for me and worked hard with me -- never giving up on me always encouraging me talking me through the rough patches --- I never asked if he was gerry lindgren I just assumed he was and would ask all about his race against the russians in the LA coliseum or against Pre. and we would talk about it -- a few months later Kenny wrote the famous story in sports illustrated reintroducing gerry to the world -- the gerry lindgren I knew in '86/'87 was a wonderful kind hearted non egotistical giving man who had the most increadible ability to train at an unbeleivable rate for a man his age -- if gerry says he ran about 350 miles a week for 6 weeks then he did

Indeed he did.

I bought some shoes from his store. If I remember correctly, he encouraged people to try them out first. In fact, I think he had a little running area/faux track outside his store on which you could test out the shoes.