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Date Posted: 21:26:58 05/11/01 Fri
Author: Moulton
Author Host/IP: d150-30-254.home.cgocable.net / 24.150.30.254
Subject: Gerry Lindgren

I just thought it might be intersting for people to read about probably the hardest worker in North American high school running history.

---------------
Gerry Lindgren by Don Kardong

In his senior year (1963-64) at Rogers High School in Spokane, Wash., Gerry Lindgren emerged as the original teen
distance running phenomenon. In three successive indoor meets, he lowered the high school two-mile record from 9:26
to 8:40.0. Lindgren also ran a 13:44.0 5000-meters, which is still the high school record, and won the 10,000 meters in
the US-USSR Meet, beating two seasoned veterans in an electrifying victory. After winning the U.S. Olympic Trials
10,000, he went to the Tokyo Olympics as a favorite, but an untimely injury and a spectacular performance by Billy
Mills kept him off the medal stand. While Lindgren's stories of those days can be wildly embellished, there's no doubt
that his high mileage training and no-limits attitude helped usher in a new era for U.S. distance running. Today
Lindgren lives in Hawaii, where he runs with the "Coconut Road Runners Club." RW Daily caught up with him at the
25th running of the Lilac Bloomsday Run in Spokane, where the 55-year-old ran a creditable 46:25 for 12-K.

Runner's World Daily: What do think about the current resurgence of U.S. distance running, especially among high
school kids?

Gerry Lindgren: It's good -- I've been waiting for this. Some of the records they're going after and breaking are mine,
and they should have been broken a long time ago. It's the process of record-breaking that gives us strong teams
coming up. We need to have those records broken, and for mine to last all those years is a sad thing.

RWD: Why do you think there was such a long dry spell?

GL: First, we changed to the metric system, so we didn't have the same goals as before. I ran two miles and three
miles, and Ryun ran one mile. Now races are all in meters, so runners have to develop new thinking. We lost
something in that transition.

Second, there have been a lot more programs that people have written telling you what you should do and what you
shouldn't do. I think people need to do it on their own. It has to come from your heart, not from somebody else's book.
Otherwise you put too many limitations on where you should go and what kind of thing you should be doing.

RWD: What was your training like in high school?

GL: During seasons, the coach set workouts and different tasks for us to do, and we just tried to do it all as hard as
we could. During the off-season, it was more of a social thing. There was nothing really to do except run, so we would
run all day, sometimes all night. We'd get fabulous miles in during the off-season. 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.

RWD: Did you really do 200-mile weeks?

GL: When I was running it, we never tried to figure out our mileage. Now everybody keeps track of every mile. We
figured out later I'd go out and get 25, 35 a day. We were thinking in terms of just doing it, just having fun -- there's a
mountain out there, and we're going to go climb it.

RWD: What do you remember about the 13:44 you ran?

GL: It was at the Compton Invitational in California and it was a war. One of the guys I was running with, from New
Zealand [Bill Baillie], was elbowing me the whole way. So I was trying to defend myself, not even thinking about the
race. Every time he'd go by and hit me I would think I was going too slow, so I'd pick up the pace, and when I'd run by
him he'd hit me again. So I was thinking about his elbows rather than how fast I was going. We led the field around to
an awesome time. Bob Schul won the race in an American record (13:38.0) within a few seconds of the world record.

RWD: Dathan Ritzenhein has run 13:51.69. What do you think it would take for him to break the high school 5000
record?

GL: He's good -- I know he could get it. I think he just has to have a good meet, go out hard.

RWD: He hasn't met the standard to get into the Nationals, but he's close. Do you think they should give him a bye to
get in?

GL: I would bye him in. I think we need the distance runners more than we need the standards.

RWD: Any last words of advice, for high school runners in particular?

GL: 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

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