Chris Lear

I like this kind of reporting. It reminds me of "A Season Inside" John Feinstein's inside account of a college basketball season from inside the perspective of a number of teams and coaches. Of course, it isn't nearly as good as Feinstein's work, but there really is only one John Feinstein. The technique of 'embedding' a journalist (please forgive the term) with a team for a season works and I really like the personal perspective that we get on Colorado's 1998 Cross Country season.

I'm a running geek (but I like to read about it more than I like to do it) so I really liked some of the insight into Coach Mark Wetmore's approach to training his athletes. I like that they explain the influence of Lydiard on his training philosophy and especially the question of talent versus preparation in achieving the highest levels of success. These are really the strength of the book.

Where it starts to break down is in how the author presents the runners' personal thoughts and statements. For whatever reason, these come across as flat and boring, its as if the journalist paid too much attention to reporting their words and not enough to communicating the experience of being on an elite team of runners. On the other hand, I don't know how to really convey what it means to run multiple 100+ mile weeks in singles other than to do it, and that will never happen. Still, that is what I expect from a journalist or a running writer and this book did not really deliver that.

Overall though, I'm very happy to have read this book. I wish there was more out there, since I think cross country is a fabulous sport that deserves close attention and there is drama and meaning in the life of a runner that the literature has yet to capture. Running with the Buffalos has the advantage of being a non-fiction account, but still lags behind Once a Runner as a capturing of the essence of distance running with pen and ink.

I hope more people continue to contribute to this neglected field of literature.… (más)

This book's behind-the-scenes look at elite collegiate runners is interesting even to a non-runner. It's fascinating to read about what people will do to achieve athletic greatness. That said, many segments of this book are repetitive and uninteresting, merely describing the team's daily workouts and listing the runners' goal times and actual times. Maybe serious runners find this information interesting, but laypeople do not.

In addition, this book is one of the worst-written books that I have ever read. The writing ranges from sophomoric to downright wrong (typos, grammatical mistakes, etc.). The writing is so bad that it actually hinders understanding or enjoyment of the story.… (más)