Running Book Review: Running with the Buffaloes

Last fall during marathon training, my running buddy Chris lent me Running with the Buffaloes after I mentioned that I wanted to read it but my library didn't have it. Of course, he lent me a copy that was signed by both Chris Lear AND Adam Goucher. He's clearly not a librarian; you do NOT lend out signed book copies! Because of that I only read it at home, keeping it next to my bed so it wouldn't get damaged. Thus it took me FOREVER to read it. It was really great to pick it up when I needed extra running motivation.

I finally finished it during my coaching certification weekend, and it 100% lived up to all the hype. It also desperately makes me wish I had ran cross country in college, and also makes my mind spin as to how a coach would coach that many runners and be able to get them all the peak during the national championship while also managing all of the injuries along the way. I would love to be in Wetmore's brain for a season, that's for sure.

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from Amazon:

In RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES, writer Chris Lear follows the University of Colorado cross-country team through an unforgettable NCAA season. Allowed unparalleled access to team practices, private moments, and the mind of Mark Wetmore--one of the country's most renowned and controversial coaches--Lear provides a riveting look inside the triumphs and heartaches of a perennial national contender and the men who will stop at nothing to achieve excellence. The Buffaloes' 1998 season held great promise, with Olympic hopeful Adam Goucher poised for his first-ever NCAA cross-country title, and the University of Colorado shooting for its first-ever national team title. But in the rigorous world of top-level collegiate sports, blind misfortune can sabotage the dreams of individuals and teams alike. In a season plagued by injury and the tragic loss of a teammate, the Buffaloes were tested as never before. What these men managed to achieve in the face of such adversity is the stuff of legend and glory.
With passion and suspense, Lear captures the lives of these young men and offers a glimpse of what drives a gifted runner like Adam Goucher and a great coach like Mark Wetmore. Like Lance Armstrong's It's Not About the Bike, RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES is at once a glowing celebration of a sport and an inspiration to anyone who has ever had the courage to beat the odds and follow a dream.

Weekly Reads: The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer

I received an e-ARC of The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer, co-authored by running folks that some of my friends have been coached by. I'm always excited to get my hands on a new book about running and training, and this one blew me away. As I was reading it, I was writing myself notes of who I needed to gift this book to. I was also reading this at a time that I definitely needed the perspective that the book shared. I would highly recommend this to all runners out there looking to enjoy theirselves more on every mile.

My rating: 5 VERY ENTHUSIASTIC STARS. <--that's said in my best Addie dog voice.

Summary from goodreads:

Is your daily run starting to drag you down? Has running become a chore rather than the delight it once was? Then The Happy Runner is the answer for you.

Authors David and Megan Roche believe that you can't reach your running potential without consistency and joyful daily adventures that lead to long-term health and happiness. Guided by their personal experiences and coaching expertise, they point out the mental and emotional factors that will help you learn exactly how to become a happy runner and achieve your personal best.

Following the "some work, all play" approach, The Happy Runnerintroduces the three commandments of happy running and teaches you how to balance the effort of running with the simple joy of the activity:

- Learn how to run fast, run long, and stay healthy with proven training methods.

- Read real stories from professional and recreational athletes who have had personal breakthroughs as they learned to love the process of running.

- Understand how to adapt your running based on your personal lifestyle and goals as well as avoid setbacks from injury.

- Develop your self-belief and make positivity your default setting so you can reach your goals.

Whether you're battling burnout, are returning after an injury, or are new to running and want to enjoy a 5K or an ultramarathon, the science-based training guidance in The Happy Runner will help you get faster, go longer, and live stronger--all with a smile.

Training Book Review: Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance is by Alex Hutchinson and has been on my to-be read pile for months. Alex made the rounds on all of the running/training podcasts I follow, promoting his book, and being a total training nerd, I was really excited to learn some things! It's a really intriguing book, split into chapters of focus. The studies and examples used were sometimes hit or miss for me, as I have a hard time relating to some of the extreme examples of mountain climbing and similar scenarios, but it was really intriguing and I learned a few gems.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

The capacity to endure is the key trait that underlies great performance in virtually every field--from a 100-meter sprint to a 100-mile ultramarathon, from summiting Everest to acing final exams or completing any difficult project. But what if we all can go farther, push harder, and achieve more than we think we're capable of?

Blending cutting-edge science and gripping storytelling in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell--who contributes the book's foreword--award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson reveals that a wave of paradigm-altering research over the past decade suggests the seemingly physical barriers you encounter as set as much by your brain as by your body. This means the mind is the new frontier of endurance--and that the horizons of performance are much more elastic than we once thought.

But, of course, it's not "all in your head." For each of the physical limits that Hutchinson explores--pain, muscle, oxygen, heat, thirst, fuel--he carefully disentangles the delicate interplay of mind and body by telling the riveting stories of men and women who've pushed their own limits in extraordinary ways.

The longtime "Sweat Science" columnist for Outside and Runner's World, Hutchinson, a former national-team long-distance runner and Cambridge-trained physicist, was one of only two reporters granted access to Nike's top-secret training project to break the two-hour marathon barrier, an extreme quest he traces throughout the book. But the lessons he draws from shadowing elite athletes and from traveling to high-tech labs around the world are surprisingly universal. Endurance, Hutchinson writes, is "the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop"--and we're always capable of pushing a little farther.