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Running with the Buffaloes: A Season Inside with Mark Wetmore, Adam Goucher, and the University of Colorado Men's Cross-Country Team
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.
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.
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews
August 28, 2008
If I were a high school cross country coach, I'd gather my perspective team in the spring and tell them to read this book over the summer before practice begins. Come fall, few would accuse the coach of pushing them too hard. A non-runner probably won't appreciate this book at all, but a competitive runner -- one who's competed at the high school or college level, or even in local races -- gets the message loud and clear: If you're going to win, you're going to have to work -- hard.
Mark Wetmore's tactics involving heavy mileage will be disputed by many coaches, but his Colorado Buffaloes have often been ranked nationally and he has coached many individual champions.
Chris Lear spent a season with the team in 1998, when the team's top runner, Adam Goucher, won the NCAA national championship.
This isn't a book for the average reader, but coaches and runners will love it and marvel at the dedication it takes to truly strive to be No. 1.
Mark Wetmore's tactics involving heavy mileage will be disputed by many coaches, but his Colorado Buffaloes have often been ranked nationally and he has coached many individual champions.
Chris Lear spent a season with the team in 1998, when the team's top runner, Adam Goucher, won the NCAA national championship.
This isn't a book for the average reader, but coaches and runners will love it and marvel at the dedication it takes to truly strive to be No. 1.
August 23, 2010
This book was actually not very good. There were a number of typos and grammatical errors in the book. The chapters were short and choppy, and in many cases the chapter titles were quite juvenile. Also, the layout was strange: there were black and white photos dispersed throughout the book, rather than one section of colored photos in the middle.
The actual story is that of the 1998 University of Colorado Cross Country team, of which a friend of mine was a member. The first thing that I can say is that now that I've taken up running, I have a much greater appreciation for how hard the team worked. That being said, though, the team was plagued by injuries, and there's only so much complaining about being tired and hurt that I can read about when the men are running 80-100 miles a week. Part of me sort of went, y'think?
The actual story is that of the 1998 University of Colorado Cross Country team, of which a friend of mine was a member. The first thing that I can say is that now that I've taken up running, I have a much greater appreciation for how hard the team worked. That being said, though, the team was plagued by injuries, and there's only so much complaining about being tired and hurt that I can read about when the men are running 80-100 miles a week. Part of me sort of went, y'think?
May 8, 2011
This book is a Boulder classic. I tweeted that I was reading it, and unlike most of my tweets, which go out into a great black hole of no response, this one got an enthusiastic reply. And today, while shopping at our new Alfalfa's grocery store, the cashier noticed it tucked under my arm. "Great book," he said. "I read it years ago."
The book details (and I mean details!) every day in the life of the 1998 University of Colorado men's cross-country team. It starts in the hot summer months, when it wasn't clear who the season's ultimate stars would be, and culminates with the team's third-place finish at the NCAA championships, a race that CU's star runner, Adam Goucher, won in spectacular fashion after long years of striving. The testosterone is so thick at times you can almost smell it--these aren't the gentlemen athletes of Chariots of Fire. The reader goes along on tough runs ranging from lung-burning long ones at 8,000 feet to puke-inducing track intervals, and also on all the team's meets. You meet Mark Wetmore, the program's idolized coach, getting his impressions and worries as the season unfolds. And you're there when a beloved senior team member dies in a biking accident, plunging the team into grief.
The book reads like the author's journal. This is good at times, because it all feels immediate and intense, but also bad, because anyone's personal journal could use an editor. A steady editor here would have excised or explained jargon, cleaned up sentences and smoothed out transitions. I love good narrative non-fiction and would have liked more narrative flow here. Also, to me as a woman and a decidedly average runner, Wetmore's fretting about his runners "getting fat" and his disparaging remarks about average folks who come out each year to run the big local race, the Bolder Boulder, were disheartening (I hope he doesn't talk about his female runners' weight like that).
But overall, I enjoyed this unique book and learned a lot from it about competitive running, about the town I live in and about young and talented athletes. They are, as one team member put it toward the end of the book, "incredible people with the incredible and audacious agenda to discover their own talents," who "run our asses off and do what we do so well that we defeat all kinds of people that are supposed to be better than us."
Hopefully Wetmore won't begrudge some of us average folks (who may also be a little fat!) adopting just a smidge of that attitude, toward running and life.
The book details (and I mean details!) every day in the life of the 1998 University of Colorado men's cross-country team. It starts in the hot summer months, when it wasn't clear who the season's ultimate stars would be, and culminates with the team's third-place finish at the NCAA championships, a race that CU's star runner, Adam Goucher, won in spectacular fashion after long years of striving. The testosterone is so thick at times you can almost smell it--these aren't the gentlemen athletes of Chariots of Fire. The reader goes along on tough runs ranging from lung-burning long ones at 8,000 feet to puke-inducing track intervals, and also on all the team's meets. You meet Mark Wetmore, the program's idolized coach, getting his impressions and worries as the season unfolds. And you're there when a beloved senior team member dies in a biking accident, plunging the team into grief.
The book reads like the author's journal. This is good at times, because it all feels immediate and intense, but also bad, because anyone's personal journal could use an editor. A steady editor here would have excised or explained jargon, cleaned up sentences and smoothed out transitions. I love good narrative non-fiction and would have liked more narrative flow here. Also, to me as a woman and a decidedly average runner, Wetmore's fretting about his runners "getting fat" and his disparaging remarks about average folks who come out each year to run the big local race, the Bolder Boulder, were disheartening (I hope he doesn't talk about his female runners' weight like that).
But overall, I enjoyed this unique book and learned a lot from it about competitive running, about the town I live in and about young and talented athletes. They are, as one team member put it toward the end of the book, "incredible people with the incredible and audacious agenda to discover their own talents," who "run our asses off and do what we do so well that we defeat all kinds of people that are supposed to be better than us."
Hopefully Wetmore won't begrudge some of us average folks (who may also be a little fat!) adopting just a smidge of that attitude, toward running and life.
October 18, 2024
I like this format of book a lot. It is sort of a documentary or journal style approach. Some big things happen (Adam’s result at the end of the season, a tragic death along the way), but it’s mostly interesting just to follow the day to day trials and tribulations of ordinary people working toward a goal. It reminded me a bit of Hoop Dreams even though the subject matter is totally different. And it also reminded me of lightweight rowing � high volume, skinny boys, injuries, team antics, etc.
Some reviews criticize Wetmore for the high mileage and the fat-shaming. The high mileage leads to a lot of injuries (especially given the amount of hard days they do) but I don’t know that that necessarily means it’s a bad strategy if your goal is to win NCAA’s as a team. The fat shaming is not a great look. But the book isn’t endorsing it or rejecting it, just presenting the reality of how it was. Clearly he also had a big positive impact on many of the runners, as evidenced by how many of them credit him for their success in the sport and in school or life in general. I liked how he let the athletes set the goals for the season so they can’t complain when he runs them ragged.
I read this because it was briefly mentioned in Kara Goucher’s book The Longest Race and seemed interesting. The author is PU �96. I read (in the PAW online) that he couldn’t find a publisher (one even laughed at him on the phone while he was pitching it) so he initially self-published it. Then it eventually became a cult classic.
Some reviews criticize Wetmore for the high mileage and the fat-shaming. The high mileage leads to a lot of injuries (especially given the amount of hard days they do) but I don’t know that that necessarily means it’s a bad strategy if your goal is to win NCAA’s as a team. The fat shaming is not a great look. But the book isn’t endorsing it or rejecting it, just presenting the reality of how it was. Clearly he also had a big positive impact on many of the runners, as evidenced by how many of them credit him for their success in the sport and in school or life in general. I liked how he let the athletes set the goals for the season so they can’t complain when he runs them ragged.
I read this because it was briefly mentioned in Kara Goucher’s book The Longest Race and seemed interesting. The author is PU �96. I read (in the PAW online) that he couldn’t find a publisher (one even laughed at him on the phone while he was pitching it) so he initially self-published it. Then it eventually became a cult classic.
March 21, 2010
The author Chris Lear very effectively captures and conveys the unique milieu of the competitive runners' world. From the pre-season workouts through the NCAA finals, Mr. Lear experienced an entire season with the University of Colorado men's cross country team. Enjoying boundless access, he attended practices, team meetings, meets; listened in on telephone calls; read the runners' personal journals; and interviewed the coaches and team members on a regular basis. Mr. Lear presents the story of this team like a diary. The reader comes away from this book with a deepened respect for the competitive runner --- who perseveres despite pain and isolation, competes with injuries the average person would find debilitating, engages in daily workouts of herculean proportions, sacrifices personal comfort and pleasures--- all for a sport that garners little publicity or interest. These runners amaze the reader with their unwavering devotion, courage and toughness. I recommend this to anyone interested in the triumph of the human spirit.
January 20, 2021
I wonder how you would feel if you read this book while running for your college team.
Chris Lear is able to perfectly translate the motivation Wetmore is able to infringe to his team. Mark Wetmore is more than a coach to his athletes, he is a true source of inspiration and leads by example in regards to commitment to the job.
Wonderful read to get you fired up for your next runs and makes you value the incredible bond that surges from sharing pain, tears and joy with your team!
Chris Lear is able to perfectly translate the motivation Wetmore is able to infringe to his team. Mark Wetmore is more than a coach to his athletes, he is a true source of inspiration and leads by example in regards to commitment to the job.
Wonderful read to get you fired up for your next runs and makes you value the incredible bond that surges from sharing pain, tears and joy with your team!
September 13, 2020
Running with the Buffaloes is an honest and authentic account of college cross country runners. It is simple, and didnt need to be anything more. I enjoyed learning about some of the theory behind running, and the delicate balance between drive and injury
May 31, 2020
Loved it, but definitely different from what I typically read. Favorite parts were Batliner’s journal entries.
August 24, 2024
2.5/5. This is one of the top books in the pantheon of distance-running literature—such that it is—so it’s shocking that I’ve never actually read it. Concurrently, I think that my perspective and review would differ had I read this in high school; as a “real adult,� albeit one who runs 100-mile weeks, the Colorado Buffalo XC team’s “the next cross-country race is everything in life� is hard to relate to. Still, it’s almost impossible to capture the hard work, sacrifice, and camaraderie of distance running through the written word, and Lear did an excellent job of that.
Why I really struggle to award this more than 2.5 stars is the attention paid to coach Mark Wetmore’s caustic view of his athletes and their weight. Regularly calling young men running dozens of miles per week “fat;� publicly shaming them for gaining any weight; famously telling them that they should look like “a skeleton with condom pulled over its skull;� restricting a top male runner to a 2,000-calorie diet � I shudder to think of how many young runners this book negatively influenced. It’s presented as some great mystery why no fewer than four athletes suffered stress fractures during the 1998 season covered in the book. Gee, I wonder that could be?
Why I really struggle to award this more than 2.5 stars is the attention paid to coach Mark Wetmore’s caustic view of his athletes and their weight. Regularly calling young men running dozens of miles per week “fat;� publicly shaming them for gaining any weight; famously telling them that they should look like “a skeleton with condom pulled over its skull;� restricting a top male runner to a 2,000-calorie diet � I shudder to think of how many young runners this book negatively influenced. It’s presented as some great mystery why no fewer than four athletes suffered stress fractures during the 1998 season covered in the book. Gee, I wonder that could be?
July 2, 2024
Phenomenal. I read this sophomore year of high school and it’s what initially got me into running. Reread it as training motivation for the Peach Tree Road Race on Thursday morning 😁
August 8, 2023
Good book
June 3, 2021
This book has a pretty narrow purpose: it describes, in detail, the training of a collegiate cross country team. I could only see it appealing to people who are specifically interested in that subject. For a general running audience, however, there isn’t a lot here. I was surprised by this, because the book does show up in a fair number of “best books on running� type of lists.
The author doesn’t really add a lot of extra color to make it more interesting. There isn’t much about CU or Boulder. There isn’t even any context about the sport of cross country running itself.
As a training book, it feels quite dated. The coach believes in a high volume, threshold type of training, without a lot of anaerobic until the last minute. And guess what, much of the team ends up dealing with stress and overuse injuries that puts their season in jeopardy. There isn’t a lot of reflection in the book itself on the merits of this.
Also, perhaps because of the fact that the story is told from the perspective of a team of college runners in the late 1990s, I also felt that the way the book talked about some of the African runners they competed against was a little problematic.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend this as a running book to most people.
The author doesn’t really add a lot of extra color to make it more interesting. There isn’t much about CU or Boulder. There isn’t even any context about the sport of cross country running itself.
As a training book, it feels quite dated. The coach believes in a high volume, threshold type of training, without a lot of anaerobic until the last minute. And guess what, much of the team ends up dealing with stress and overuse injuries that puts their season in jeopardy. There isn’t a lot of reflection in the book itself on the merits of this.
Also, perhaps because of the fact that the story is told from the perspective of a team of college runners in the late 1990s, I also felt that the way the book talked about some of the African runners they competed against was a little problematic.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend this as a running book to most people.
March 4, 2010
I run on a college team. I am far from good, but I think that's what makes this book better for me. It's a great look into one of the best teams, and it allows the normal runner, like me, a glimpse into what makes an amazing runner. It allows the reader to connect with the team and see that national class athletes aren't really different then us regular people. For someone with an interest in cross country the book is interesting, exciting, sad and inspiring.
May 29, 2020
In Running with the Buffaloes, Chris Lear follows the University of Colorado's Men's Cross-Country during their 1998 season. I pecked at the first third of this account months ago before picking it up again yesterday and reading through to the end. There is something exhaustive about the repetitive workouts and worries and times, though no account of the season would make sense if it didn't feel like a grind. By the time I'd got to the finish, I was most struck by how odd our relationship with our body is. The runners constantly worry over their energy level. Even when they put up amazing times, they complain that they didn't feel great while doing it. They are forever attempting to interpret the aches and pains their body communicates, though at times it feels palm reading might be more accurate.
August 16, 2021
Absolutely amazing book. This book embodies everything I love about cross country, provides interesting and enlightening theories behind the training of one of the nations best teams, and is something I can always turn to to get me hyped up before a race. On top of that am awesome story. 5 stars
August 22, 2024
DNF- not a fan�
January 1, 2025
Loved this book. One of my favorites of all time and probably on my top 3. Would recommend to anyone interested in cross country or running in general.
December 5, 2011
Laid out day by day through an entire season, this is a great story that is seen and felt as it unfolds. With an author who is also a runner, the fly-on-the-wall perspective you get is more like a fly on the shoulder of a runner, taking you on the course during workouts and seemingly during the races as well.
The runners and coaches don't seem to edit themselves too much for Lear, and when they might, he is be able to read their moods for us. Still, one of the jewels of the book is when he includes some portions of the journals the runners kept the last week before the national tournament. The writings of their top runner, Adam Goucher, aren't that insightful, other than revealing that some people just aren't into deep writing as a way to prepare for a big event. But the reflections of Adam Batliner, another senior who leads by example, capture the mood of the entire season. At 22, we may not have the broadest perspective on life, but to able to express a perspective bigger than ourselves at that age says a lot.
The runners and coaches don't seem to edit themselves too much for Lear, and when they might, he is be able to read their moods for us. Still, one of the jewels of the book is when he includes some portions of the journals the runners kept the last week before the national tournament. The writings of their top runner, Adam Goucher, aren't that insightful, other than revealing that some people just aren't into deep writing as a way to prepare for a big event. But the reflections of Adam Batliner, another senior who leads by example, capture the mood of the entire season. At 22, we may not have the broadest perspective on life, but to able to express a perspective bigger than ourselves at that age says a lot.
This team knows what it is to be invested in a plan, to be dedicated to a system that simultaneously scares the hell out of you and makes you so excited you can barely hold it in.... These are some of the greatest moments of our lives. We may not see it yet, we may not even know it yet, but I think that we will look back as withered elderly men upon these times as some of the most profound of our lives. And if I don't, that's even better, because it would take a hell of a life to cloud over the shining, glistening days of collegiate cross country.
February 2, 2019
One of the better books I've read about running. Has twists, turns, a lot of dirt paths, and tragedy but stops short of being enveloping. Like most running books, or, by nature, anything dealing with running, it's not going to appeal to those who haven't participated in the sport at a semi-serious level. It's easy to rip through the pages of this book like sheets of one of those daily calendars. Character development is attempted valiantly but its hard to differentiate the team members when any serious runner will already have the mental image of his own team which probably was a lot slower but acted just as weird and had shadows that looked the same.
The book could be used to study incidences of overtraining among runners and different coaching philosophies. I have heard that collegiate runners tend to have the most distressed mental states of any college athletes. I don't know how true that is. Just imagine participating in a non-contact sport for tens of hours every week and frequently developing season-ending injuries. Cruel and unyielding!
--
It turns out that Mark Wetmore and I both fell in love with reading after encountering Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I found it amusing, in a nerdy way, that Chris Lear highlighted this but then failed to pick up on Wetmore's usage of the phrase "The Right Stuff" probably stemmed from Tom Wolfe's novel of the same name.
The book could be used to study incidences of overtraining among runners and different coaching philosophies. I have heard that collegiate runners tend to have the most distressed mental states of any college athletes. I don't know how true that is. Just imagine participating in a non-contact sport for tens of hours every week and frequently developing season-ending injuries. Cruel and unyielding!
--
It turns out that Mark Wetmore and I both fell in love with reading after encountering Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I found it amusing, in a nerdy way, that Chris Lear highlighted this but then failed to pick up on Wetmore's usage of the phrase "The Right Stuff" probably stemmed from Tom Wolfe's novel of the same name.
September 1, 2018
This book was awesome. Told in a style that reminds me of my xc coaches post race emails, this book took us through a crazy season with the CU xc team. Since most of the workouts and races were at altitude, the pack times were eerily similar to my own during my freshman xc season. And the amount of adversity these guys pushed through was frankly incredible.
I am however taking a star off for the strange way the women's team is treated in this book. They are tangentially mentioned many times, but never really talked about. I found this kind of weird/sexist and would have much rather they weren't talked about at all.
I am however taking a star off for the strange way the women's team is treated in this book. They are tangentially mentioned many times, but never really talked about. I found this kind of weird/sexist and would have much rather they weren't talked about at all.
September 9, 2016
A very cool insider look into one of the best running programs in the country. A distance runner's dream. This team has grit, sass and an unbelievable and at times insane work ethic. Lots of injuries make you wonder about the huge mileage numbers they put in but Wetmore is relentless.
January 10, 2008
Interesting story about running, though on a 4th grade reading level.
November 16, 2017
Loved playing basketball and soccer in college. If I could go back and do it again, I also would have run cross-country. Making up for it late in life. Great read.
January 8, 2019
More like 3.5 due to the uncomfortable sexism and racism throughout the book.
February 24, 2021
Writing is iffy, but that’s not the point. Can’t help but get motivated to run after reading!
February 5, 2024
Chris Lear has a journalistic commitment to detail that I find impressive, and writes with a clear outsider’s perspective- although he knows enough about running to be let into the team’s world. He follows the boys� (women are rarely mentioned) workouts (and occasionally personal lives) with excruciating detail and cleverly plucked quotes, providing a window into the minds of the runners. I did find the chronicling of each workout detail of each day monotonous sometimes, though I know some running nerds love getting their hands on that Coach Wetmore training.
Speaking of Wetmore, he’s a difficult character to read about sometimes- and that unbiased journalistic perspective gets a bit tiresome when you want him to be called on his BS, such as telling his athletes they need to lose weight to run faster, or the xenophobic and frankly racist perspectives that rear their heads not only from Wetmore, but the team as a whole. Whether these comments illuminate an ugly side of the running world that needs to be exposed, or are not taken seriously is difficult to tell given Lear’s lack of personal opinion throughout the book. I certainly think it’s worth discussing racism in the running world, and toxic coaches who encourage disordered eating, but is the unbiased journalist the best narrator for this? I lean towards no, but Lear’s writing does illuminate both the beautiful� achieving lifetime goals, overcoming grief, and finding a family within one’s team� and brutal sides of the sport.
What I’m missing from this book is the perspective of the athletes who are facing racism, have battled and recovered from eating disorders, and can tell their own stories� obviously not the objective of a book that only followed one team for one year, but perhaps a better one.
Speaking of Wetmore, he’s a difficult character to read about sometimes- and that unbiased journalistic perspective gets a bit tiresome when you want him to be called on his BS, such as telling his athletes they need to lose weight to run faster, or the xenophobic and frankly racist perspectives that rear their heads not only from Wetmore, but the team as a whole. Whether these comments illuminate an ugly side of the running world that needs to be exposed, or are not taken seriously is difficult to tell given Lear’s lack of personal opinion throughout the book. I certainly think it’s worth discussing racism in the running world, and toxic coaches who encourage disordered eating, but is the unbiased journalist the best narrator for this? I lean towards no, but Lear’s writing does illuminate both the beautiful� achieving lifetime goals, overcoming grief, and finding a family within one’s team� and brutal sides of the sport.
What I’m missing from this book is the perspective of the athletes who are facing racism, have battled and recovered from eating disorders, and can tell their own stories� obviously not the objective of a book that only followed one team for one year, but perhaps a better one.
June 18, 2019
My rating is based on being a runner myself and as someone who has recently become more interested in following the sport. If you're not either, then this book is probably not good for you. Chris Lear gets Coach Westmore to agree to letting him live at CU and follow the cross country team over a few months in their pursuit of a national title for the team and one for Adam Goucher. There are quite a few characters so that is a bit confusing, I should have written out a list of who's who to help. And, there's quite a bit of training lingo. But, I enjoyed the book because it gives good insight into who each of these athletes are, what drives each of them and how they have ups and downs in their training and lives. And, what it takes to be at that caliber. I knew the overall outcome of the National Championship but didn't know the details on getting there so that kept me really engaged. On the other hand, there are grammar errors (extra words) which annoyed me.
January 8, 2025
I’ve never read a running book until I picked up this one. The audiobook was free on Spotify so it was an easy listen to and from work. Mark Wetmore, the coach of CU-Boulder’s cross country team during the 1990s, was the reason I read this. My coach utilized most of Wetmore’s training and it’s funny to pick out all of the similarities between their philosophies.
I found myself engaged 95 percent of the runtime from the team arriving on campus until the end of Nationals in Lawrence, KS. I did however lack the emotional attachment to the characters. An event happens at the climax of the book but I felt nothing when occurred. When reading I seem to find the smallest things to complain about so I’m not going any further.
I have not read anything that displays the college athlete experience as a runner so I am glad I was able to read this. Most of you who follow me are in the same boat as me should read this too.
I found myself engaged 95 percent of the runtime from the team arriving on campus until the end of Nationals in Lawrence, KS. I did however lack the emotional attachment to the characters. An event happens at the climax of the book but I felt nothing when occurred. When reading I seem to find the smallest things to complain about so I’m not going any further.
I have not read anything that displays the college athlete experience as a runner so I am glad I was able to read this. Most of you who follow me are in the same boat as me should read this too.
February 6, 2024
I LOVE this book. I am a college freshman who runs cross country and track at the division 2 level and was given this book by my high school coach. I have never been a big reader, but this book actually got me excited to read, I made time almost every day to read a little of this book and would find myself thinking of it throughout each day since i’ve started reading it. I cannot recommend it enough. This book gives me, as a runner, more motivation to read and increase my knowledge along with my fitness. Striving to be a renaissance man, just as Coach Wetmore tells his runners to be. I will forever remember this book as the first one I read on my own and hope that it will be the first of many.
March 20, 2022
Great birds-eye view of the training philosophy of one of the greatest DI Track and Cross Country coaches of all time, I had no idea that Mark Whetmore was such a big believer in both volume, and large amounts of intensity in training. I also really enjoyed getting to learn more about Adam Goucher and his mindset while at Colorado and the culture that has been created there generally. Really enjoyed this book.
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