gerry lindgren

yea, he is hardcore. is it true that he ran a 300mi. week in high school?

How about the time he wrote the city newspaper in Honolulu to complain that the sanitation dept were wasting money when they picked up his garbage each week -- "They don't give me back my plastic bag." Basically he ran when he was awake. If he had to get up at 2 in the AM to go to the bathroom he would often figure, " I may as well get in 10 miles now that I am awake," and he would. 360 one week

360? ya right. That is impossible for anyone in HS to run that much. It has never been done and never will.

Why is that impossible for someone in highschool? What's the difference between an 18-year-old the day before he graduates and the day after? Running under 4 minutes was impossible, too...until Bannister did it.

im pretty sure the 300 mi. weeks is ture. I mean he did go crazy and leave his whole family behind. I guess that much running would make anyoone go crazy.

according to one article he never kept track of his mileage, he just would run and not worry about it.

does he still run road races?

where is he living?

what is he doing?

true that wrote:

im pretty sure the 300 mi. weeks is ture. I mean he did go crazy and leave his whole family behind. I guess that much running would make anyoone go crazy.

Actually I would tend to believe that the craziness existed first, helping the 300 miles a week to be possible.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a little crazy.

It can help a lot in this sport.

Good interview, yes he ran 350 miles in a week. And yes he always ran 88 miles on sunday

Yes, and Gerry ran all the way up to the top of Mt Spokane road and back on Sundays which is about 35-45 miles each way depending upon where you start in the Spokane area. Gerry's dad was an alocoholic ass.... who made Gerry wanting to get out of the house and get his energy (anger) out. Gerry ran at Stanford's old cross course after at teh end of his senior year in track, recording a 4:20 mile average for 4 miles. Yes, 4:20 per mile. The Standford coach swore up and down that the course is accurate and nobody else had ever run under 19:50 on that course. Friends of mine from Pullman said that in college he regularly ran the 10 mile route in the canyon under 48 minutes and one day did it under 47 (in training). That is the same course that Samson Kimombwa and Henry Rono ran in 48-50 minutes.

Chris Lear needs to make a bio on this guy, I am very curious on his specific training methods.

"During the season we would run regular workouts, but because I was so slow or, I guess, didn't have confidence in myself, I would do extra workouts. Nothing really hard, just like an extra 10 miles in the middle of the night or an extra 6 miles in the morning before school.

."

"Run with your heart instead of your mind. When you think with your mind, you think of the things you can and can't do. But when you run with your heart you forget about what you can't do, and you just go out and do it. "

"There was nothing really to do except run, so we would run all day, sometimes all night."

That guy used to do three or four runs a day, including one in the middle of the night. He would do a night run, go to bed for four hours, wake up, do another run, go back to bed for a couple hours, and wake up for his morning run. Then, he would run after school. These runs were not short, either. Even if they were all three miles long, that would be 84 miles a week. I would guess they were between 8 and 12 miles, on average.

It worked for him... at least for a little while. I mean, if you're running 300 miles a week in high school, where do you go from there?

I heard that sometimes he would sleep in foxholes and that is how he met his training partners for his senior year. Rumor has it he had be-friended a family of deer that he trained with all spring.

is there a biography or anything written about him?

I feel fortunate to have tested Gerry on numerous occasions, both when in his 20s and again at age 50. Never a dull moment when he was the subject. I remember asking him what his 400 PR was and he told me, "53, on the first lap of a high-school mile." "Man, did I die - ran 4:36." 25 years later when I reminded him of that story he said, "I beat that with a 52 one time, on the last lap of a 5k." A reporter once informed him that he had been under world record pace for at least the first half of 36 consecutive races. He didn't realize it, but really didn't care. Often a runner who goes out too fast will figure that a good time was just ruined; not Gerry, to him he was on his way to a good time.

One problem with running 300 a week is coming up with new routes to run. I don't know that many 25-35 mile loops!

Gerry is simply a great guy and simply unique.

Gerry was my neighbor for a while many years ago. I never knew him to be anything but friendly. He would even jog with slowpokes like me, though occasionally he would say "why don't we run a little faster now" and just drop a hammer -- he was in his 30s and I was a high school x-country runner. I think he couldn't quite comprehend how anyone who seemed to enjoy the sport could be as completely mediocre as I am, but he was always sweet about it.

I don't doubt that he ran 300 a week (though probably not for too many weeks). Don't forget, he still holds the indoor 2mile record (8:40, which was better than the outdoor record was for a lot of years) and 5k (13:44).

If anyone knows how to get ahold of him, I'd love to drop him a line.

so... how did he survive doing 200 to 350 mpw? When did he recover from those crazy long runs? I know he ran some amazing times, but it's mind boggling.

Once Gerry became a devoted runner, he never stopped doing workouts, never backed off and so built up an incredible tolerance to do heavy loads. A lot of people can't handle what he did because they don't have his dedication to doing every single day, every single week. People asked the Russian Popov (world record holder by a big margin in the 5k swim and 400m at one time) how he could handle doing 20,000m of swimming per day (same as running 80kilometers per day, time wise). He said that it was not magic, he just did it every single day of the year. Meaning: It didn't seem that much to him because it wasn't something new. Same with Gerry.