Lindgren's Interesting Interview: Percentage of Truth

Just read the interview and that guy sounds crazy. Yeah. Let's just all go out and run 350 miles a week, I'm sure that'll work. What an ignorant bastard to insult American distance runners for not running an insane amount of miles. And he even insulted them for doing weight training and cross training! He makes it sound like every elite American is just sitting on their couch watching TV and eating mcdonalds and... oh yeah, occasionally they race. This guy sounds like an arrogant, self-centered know-it-all. Just by reading that article I have lost all potential respect for him.

It's not the past, get the f*ck over yourself, times change. Not everyone can be as great as you, ya know, now that you're an old bag who can't even run 40 miles a week cause you f*cking screwed yourself over by running 50 miles a day you f*cking moron.

we're not talking about going from 15:10 to 14:45 for 3 miles. that's a 25 second difference on a cross course and that could happen. we're talking about a guy who runs 15:45 for 5K and then runs 14:15 for this "5K" and then telling people that's his pr. HUGE DIFFERENCE.

for lindgren to say that he ran 16:08 for 4 miles is absolutely ridiculous. An average of 4:02 for 4 miles, so he should be able to run 4:00 pace for 5K if that's the case for sure. So we're talking about a 12:30 5K and in this race coming through in 12:40ish and finishing up another .9 at the same pace. Are you going to tell me that he wouldn't have known for certain that the course was short? Again, that's like me running my aforementioned 3:30 mile on a flat road course that someone said was a mile and automatically assuming that I took 50 seconds off of my mile and in the process shattered the world record.

Don't try to justify that, you just can't. You're 25 second 3 mile PR when it's not that fast is much different than a minute PR through 5K and continuing on for nearly another mile at the same pace. That is simply a lie.

Here's the bottom-line: Lindgren likes attention. He likes to make stupid, outlandish statements in interviews to garner some kind of reaction from his audience. He never ever ran 16:08 on a legitimate 4 mile course. Never. He never was on sub 2 hour marathon pace with a few miles to go. I doubt he ever ran 350 miles for 6 weeks in a row. I'm sure he ran 200-250 miles per week, but my gut instinct is telling me it was more realistically around 200-250 per week (a lot of miles nevertheless).

I'm sure he acted like a wild man in practice - probably because (just like now) he liked the attention for doing wild man things. His answer to American distance running is two-fold: Tons of miles & Courage. Well, tons of miles and courage don't equal sub 12:50 - it takes proper training with a boad load of talent. it takes more than running away from your ghosts, and mixing up your training speeds.

People like Gerry, deep down, don't like to see Americans succeed. They're basically uncomfortable with times being broken that he once considered too difficult for him to break. So when Americans start running well (as they have in the last few years), he is...out of his cave of silence...more vocal than ever with advice on why American distance runners aren't running 12:44 in high school. (yet another absurd statement)

The bottom-line really, honestly is: Gerry doesn't want to be forgotten.

Eddy H. ran 16:02 for 4miles on the first leg of Hood to Coast which is down Mt. Hood. He did that during the old Nike Adidas duels when Hood to Coast actually helped out the elite teams.

All I'm saying is that if I go to a race that's advertised as x distance I'm likely going to believe that's how far it was.

Glenn Cunningham lived out his days believing he had run the first sub 4:00 mile in a time trial. The story cropped up for decades afterward, was generally questioned, but never disproven. You simply can't prove or disprove something like that so we're all left to make our own decisions.

What Lindgren has said lately has rubbed a lot of young guys the wrong way. He hasn't come out and said, "Gee those Africans are so good that there's really nothing you can do other than what you're doing and that's great." He's said that you should do more and aren't aggressive enough. Because many people don't like that message they'll look for some reason to disqualify it. Lindgren certainly gives them reasons with some of what he says. But he also gives people some real insights into the mental approach he took to the sport, which had more to do with his successes than anything.

Do you really think Lindgren's mental state was more important to his success than his natural ability? If a high school runner of modest talent adopted Gerry's mental approach, would he likely run 8:40 for the 3200?

Absoluely. I think we way overvalue "talent" and undervalue the whole mental side. Unquestionably I held myself back because I didn't think of myself as able to do more than i did. I wasn't 8:40 material, but I've only begun to understand the sorts of ideas people like Lindgren and Cerutty have said.

I don't think anyone is doubting the value of a positive mental approach toward training and racing. And no one (I think) is doubting Lindgren's psychological strength during training and racing. Where he gets into trouble with "young people" is when he makes radical claims that couldn't possibly be true, in an effort to shock or pad his already fantastic reputation. Claims like: i ran 4 miles in 16:08, and 350 miles per week, high school kids should be running only 7 seconds off the world record, etc, etc, etc. And when he makes these claims and then at the same time purports to be an authority on distance running training and coaching, AND a critic of how current US runners are training/racing- it becomes a little much to stomach.

Now, if he came out and offered instructive, critically constructive advice compiled from the time he trained and raced, the experiences he endured, and the moments he experienced as an athlete - then I would listen, and learn from what he has to offer. But as far as I can tell, and from the multitude of articles and conversations and interviews I've heard from him, he seems to offer nothing but stupidity bordering on lunacy.

But hey, this is Letsrun.com - Anything is possible. (almost anything)

hmmmm wrote:

we're not talking about going from 15:10 to 14:45 for 3 miles. that's a 25 second difference on a cross course and that could happen. we're talking about a guy who runs 15:45 for 5K and then runs 14:15 for this "5K" and then telling people that's his pr. HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Dude, I think you need to go back and re-read what that guy posted. He isnt pretending to have ran 14:15. He isnt attempting to pass it off as his PR. He clearly said that when people asked him how he ran in THAT race, he tells them 14:15. So calm down a second and realize the guy isnt trying to slip one by anybody. Just be patient and read carefully what he is saying and not what you are trying to read into it.

I think "run more" is constructive.

HRE wrote:

I think "run more" is constructive.

Well, that all depends now doesn't it. If only running were that simple. Bob Smith from Idaho would be challenging Ryan Hall in Houston next year...he runs 300 miles per week, why not?

"Run More" is what you say to a runner if you don't know what you're talking about.

obviously his talent was a huge part because unlike more people he had the natural ability to run those crazy amount of miles without getting injured.

If Bob Smith from Idaho ran more he would be closer to Ryan Hall than he is now. Overcomplicating things and nitpicking is what you do if you want to act like you're a serious runner but don't really want running to get in the way of anything else in your life. You could also add "run harder" to the advice that would bring old Bob closer to Ryan Hall.

Lindgren's talking about passion and commitment. We've lost those things among all the clever and cautious training formulas we've created now.

Does anybody still have the VIDEO INTERVIEW of him they had on the web about 2 years ago? That shit was NUTS.

He came off extremely weird and... weird. The best part was when he said that he was on pace for a 1:59 marathon and collapsed 200 meters before the finish line. The interviewer called him out saying that a half marathon in under one hour was near, at the time, the WR. His face looked like it was about to explode. Haha. I would never trust ANYTHING he has to say.

HRE wrote:

If Bob Smith from Idaho ran more he would be closer to Ryan Hall than he is now. Overcomplicating things and nitpicking is what you do if you want to act like you're a serious runner but don't really want running to get in the way of anything else in your life. You could also add "run harder" to the advice that would bring old Bob closer to Ryan Hall.

Lindgren's talking about passion and commitment. We've lost those things among all the clever and cautious training formulas we've created now.

HRE is totally right here. I bet if everybody here read the interview with Lindgren and the other documents about his training and looked to absorb some of his training advice and not just bash him that everybody could learn something. Im not saying to do exactly what Lindgren did, but to take some of his principles, namely "run more. don't worry about what everybody else is doing. If you want to be good run more miles then you think you possibly can" 99% of runners here would get better.

You don't have to over-complicate things by doing more than just a lot of miles. Running 350+ miles per week is counter-productive - and what bothers me most about Lindgren's so called advice...is that he, like so many others, disregard that each runner is unique and requires different kinds of training. Just because Runner A can absorb 350+ miles per week and still compete well doesn't mean that Runner B could do the same. And yet they both have similar levels of talent and their times are similar.

run more and run harder is the equation for people who don't have the imagination to do otherwise. the biggest mistake runners make is that they don't mix it up enough, try new things; they get stuck in a rut of junk miles and some Sunday 3 years later they wake up to realize their legs are dead and over-trained.

don't be afraid to experiment. I wonder if Lindgren would have raced faster if he took a day off during his high mileage escapades? I wonder if he was really training to be better runner or he was just training to be a better runner in training. people lose focus on why they train. you train to race well. period.

I mean...running 350+ is counter-productive for some (I would guess, most)

"I bet if everybody here read the interview with Lindgren and the other documents about his training and looked to absorb some of his training advice and not just bash him that everybody could learn something."

I did that in HS as Lindgren was 2 years older than me. I figured that if Lindgren could take on the Russians I could at least train more than anyone in my conference. People in my town told me I would "burn out" but if Lindgren and my pen pal in New Zealand didn't, I wouldn't either.

Also a sign on the wall of my HS locker room read, "Toughness is a quality of the mind. Without it physical fitness is a mockery."

Tom

this guy has real psychotic features