February 15, 2004

I recently had the pleasure of meeting and running with Gerry Lindgren in Kaipolani park in Honolulu on the 40th anniversary of his lengendary indoor 2mile mark which still stands at 8:40.00.

We walked from the beach to meet Gerry for our run. We couldn't see him from the spot so rang his cell phone, whenever someone calls him he pretends to not know who Gerry is, he's defiantly a joker. When we did see him he pretended to not see us, he is quite a comedian. We took a few pictures and then we followed the master for a jog that lasted about 15mins around a grass loop with him and a few of his friends/athletes from the coconut running club. As we jogged he was full of jokes the whole way "Nolan, you see that tree over there that's a hibiscus, what do you call the tree below it? me finally catching on to his humor, "its a lowbiscus Gerry" and he starts laughing again, he is a funny runner guy that Gerry. I found out he does claim to have run those 350miles for 6 straight weeks and also a 46min training 10mile run. He talks about them both like they are no big deal and he can't understand why people find it so hard to believe. I filled him in on the Letsrun debate about the mileage and if it was really possible. He laughed and told me that people are just too lazy and would never try and attempt that kind of mileage these days; therefore they would rather write it off as impossible. He told some funny stories about Prefontaine. He credits himself for getting Pre involved in running and away from softball. He also stressed how cocky Pre was; he did back it up most of the time though. He said sometimes Pres head was so big that he had to leave him to himself and go off before it really bothered him. He told me about NCAA x-county titles and beating Pre, his legendary 8:40.00 2mile indoor National High School record. He also spoke of racing some big races in Europe and USA and about his world record 6 mile run with Billy Mills. He said that Jim Ryun was very down to earth and a well mannered chap, not that anyone would disagree. He said jokingly how Jim Ryun was tall and powerful looking well he on the other hand was short and geeky looking. He explained to me why he ran so much, his main reasons were that: Seattle was a boring place in the 60's, he didn't have TV and he wanted to prove to everybody that the little skinny mite could succeed, "I was a social outcast with no friends or girls to chase around, so I ran a lot" he is defiantly motivating to a runner, even my brother Ryan was a bit inspired I think. On the 2^nd loop he said that we would pick up the pace a bit so I said sure and went with him, it was a lot faster than I had thought, the old guy surges and he was really moving for a 58 year old. Lots of spring and life still in him. I was thinking how cool it was to be sprinting with a former Olympic Gold medalist hopeful. He told the story of the 64 Olympics like it was yesterday. He said that he had been one of the favorites for the 10km building up to the games. Billy Mills was very confident when learning that Gerry had ankle troubles in the build up to the 10k @ the Tokyo Olympics and said now I can win�, he did end up winning. He speaks of the Olympics as if he would have won, I and many other people would probably not argue that. He asked why a kid my age knew so much about all the greats form the 60's and 70's, I told him that I wanted to know about everyone who had made noise in athletics and how they got there and what drove them to succeed. After the pick up was finished we did about a 10min cool down and finished off the run at about 42 mins. He had said 6miles on the phone the night before and that was about what we ran. I guess after running so much he must have a pretty good sense of pace judgment. I asked him about the marathon and if he had ever run one, he told me of his major attempt on the distance. He was in peak shape and was on a pace just over 2hrs and leading the field by a fair bit; he then collapsed about 300m's from the finish line and could not get back up. (This is the only story I have trouble believing because it seems almost impossible, I think he may have told the story wrong, his athletes looked at me when he was telling it and grinned at me) He thinks that the marathon world record has not improved as much as it should have by now. He really stressed that the mind can do great things for you once you fully know how to use it to your advantage. We had a quick stretch but he told me that too many people waste valuable training time stretching and doing drills. I'm not totally sure about that. If you're injured from lack of stretching you won’t be doing any running at all. We shook hands and exchanged e-mail addresses with him and he was off just like that. So there I was standing just like he never came…oh by the way Gerry drives an older Mercedes for you car lovers.