Hot Shot: Oak Lawn's Lindelsee Honored as Athlete of Week

Oak Lawn junior runner Eric Lindelsee is not satisfied with mediocrity. He’s not even satisfied with breaking meet records. No, he wants even more.

On Saturday, March 12, Lindelsee was a speed demon at the Argo Indoor Invitational. He broke the meet record in the 3200-meter run with a time of 9:56. As a result of the record-setting performance, Lindelsee is honored as Patch’s Athlete of the Week.

Lindelsee, however, is not content with his time.

“I still have a lot more goals ahead of me,” he said. “It’s a good time, but I’m not satisfied with it yet.”

He hopes to eventually qualify for state in the 3200, and he'll have to cut down to 9:28 to reach the qualifying mark. In order to get there, his coach, Chris Repa, is working him hard.

“The training’s been tough," Lindeless said. "Coach has been doing a good job of giving us tough reps. I give him props. He carries me where I’m at right now.”

The Oak Lawn school record is also in reach, which stands at 9:49.

Repa, however, says that Lindelsee does most of the hard work without much motivation from any coaching.

“He’s very aggressive with the workouts in terms of doing the maximum that he thinks his body can handle at the time,” Repa said. “So, a lot of times it’s me trying to pull him back.”

Lindelsee has a chance to succeed running both the mile and two-mile events at meets. He says he greatly enjoys running the mile, which has been his favorite since eighth grade.

However, Repa saw potential in Lindelsee to be a two-miler this past cross-country season. Now, he wants Lindelsee to be both a mile and two-mile competitor, a difficult task for any runner.

“A lot of runners can’t handle the 2-1 combo," Repa said. "He’s one of the few that probably can do it and do it well."