Top five Best Books About Running, Runner's World Magazine

Top three Best Books About Running, readers of Runner's World Magazine
(December 2009)

A phenomenal portrait of courage and desire that will do for college cross-country what John Feinstein's A Season on the Brink did for college basketball.

You can add Running With the Buffaloes to the short list. Lear was shrewd, talented and lucky in writing this book: shrewd because his main subject is Olympian Adam Goucher, the strongest and boldest American distance runner since Bob Kennedy; talented because he has a clear, interesting, energized writing style; and lucky because his nonfiction, real life drama has a happy ending after an all-out struggle.

The core of the book is a daily description of cross country practice at the University of Colorado in the fall of 1998. For most people, reading about cross country practice would seem to fall somewhere between drudgery and torture, but Running With the Buffaloes is actually thrilling. Goucher's intensity, his coach's counsel and depth, his opponents' strengths and abilities and his teammates' successes and failures all weave together in a completely gripping tale. Lear keeps his chapters short, resulting in a pace that moves urgently. He assumes a level of awareness about running that is refreshing. For once, reading about running is like talking to someone who cares as much as you do, someone who is excited and knowledgeable.

When the Colorado team returned to campus for fall classes in 1998, they had two goals: win the NCAA championship and have Goucher win the individual title. Championships are built deliberately, with passion and anxiety. Goucher faces this with more than a little Prefontaine running through his veins. Describing him and his teammates, the Colorado coach observes:

"In football, you might get your bell rung, but you go in with the expectation that you might get hurt, and you hope to win and come out unscathed. As a distance runner, you know you're going to get your bell rung. Distance runners are experts at pain, discomfort, and fear. You're not coming away feeling good. It's a matter of how much pain you can deal with on those days. It's not a strategy. It's just a callusing of the mind and body to deal with discomfort. Any serious runner bounces back. That's the nature of their game. Taking pain."

In Running With the Buffaloes, Lear makes this wonderful, alive and memorable. Reading it, you are actually a part of every step, every run, every test and every triumph.

27 of 34 found the following review helpful:


Interesting for what it reveals  Jul 06, 2006 By Analog Bubblebath "The world spins at 33.3"
The writing could be better, but Lear does provide a fairly unvarnished look at CU's nominally successful runners--a scrappy program with comparatively little scholarship money to pull in nationwide high school talent. And while many reviewers below have (gushingly) noted how inspirational this book is, I found it had some curious gaps.

For instance, very little is noted about the interactions of the runners outside of workouts. Cursory mention is made of get togethers, but what about the burden of being a full-time student? Romance? Drinking and drugs, of both the entertaining and performance enhancing variety?

Most interesting, yet unnoticed by the players themselves, is the very obvious reason for CU's relative lack of success: extreme overtraining.

Though he claims to think long and hard about what works and what doesn't, coach Mark Wetmore's dogmatic inflexibility and lack of insight is frankly stunning. It is crystal clear that he is overtraining his runners, both with volume and intensity, and builds his training around his senior star, Adam Goucher. Wetmore claims to be a Lydiard advocate, yet rather than focus on building the deep reserves of endurance Lydiard preached, it seemed to me that Wetmore emphasize a lot of lactate work and allows each workout to become a competition. Furthermore, as the book relates, no less than three of his runners came down with stress fractures over the course of 12 months. On a squad of 40, that amounts to an epidemic. Stress fractures are overuse injuries, folks, plain and simple.

One need only look at the post-collegiate careers of many of his stars for further evidence: the Gouchers (Kara particularly), the Torres twins, Dathan Ritzenheim. Though they would probably be loathe to admit so, none thrived until they found new coaches, left Colorado, and basically unlearned the terrible habits ingrained by Wetmore.

The most tragic case of all may be Adam Goucher. His spotty, stress fracture riddled career since graduating makes it clear that even under the guidance of Alberto Salazar, he has been unable to train smart. He seems unable to escape the obssessive and excessive work ethic encouraged in the CU program.

The other disturbing trend (and it's interesting that none of the other reviewers note it) reported is the racism displayed toward foreign runners. The resentment is curious. One runner refers to an African runner as a "fuzzy headed foreigner." In another instance, a CU runner actually yells at the white crowds at a finish line for cheering on an African. Goucher is miffed that Meb Keflezghi, by then a US citizen, is treated as the hometown favorite at a San Diego race. Interesting to see who went on to win a silver at the Olympics.

So--overall a decent but incomplete book, notable mostly for being the only one out there which goes behind the scenes. Interesting? Somewhat. Inspirational? I am scared to think who to.

9 of 10 found the following review helpful:


A must-read for cross country runners...  Sep 03, 2000 By Katie Clagett
I was lucky enough to go to the second and third weeks of Green Mountain Running Camp in Lyndonville, VT. Both weeks I heard Chris Lear speak of Adam Goucher and I also heard my coach praise this book so I decided that I had to read it for myself. I have to say it truly captures the essence of distance running and the pain involved. It really inspired me to run my hardest on every run and proved to me that natural talent has nothing to do with success, it's how hard you train and how good your coaching is. I am lucky enough to have an excellent coach who has coached through 5 undefeated seasons and I can see that I have a chance to improve significantly if I just stick to it and believe in myself. Anyone who runs, especially anyone who runs cross country must read this book in order to fully appreciate what real champions are made of. You may think books like this would be humbling for people like me since the men consistently run 5:00 minute miles in workouts and I have yet to break 6, but instead it looks beyond the times to the personal accomplishments of these men. (long live chis severy in our minds)

16 of 20 found the following review helpful:


Excellent! A fine tale of competitive cross country  Oct 01, 2001 By Timothy R. Sullivan
Finally, someone gets it right when explaining the world of cross country, and that would be author Chris Lear. The diary format takes the reader through the ups and downs of one riveting colleigate cross country season. Having been a former high school and college cross country runner, I always had a difficult time explaining to my baseball-playing friends why I ran so much, and why did I compete in something as whacky as cross country. This book is a perfect explanation. He explains that there's more to just going out and running, that it takes discipline, stamina, strength (man, lots of injuries in this book!) and courage. Lear also shows how runners bond together through the miles and miles of training and racing.

His last piece on the NCAA championship, a play-by-play of Goucher and his teammates, is poetic. I've never read a better race description ever.

Why four and not five stars? First, I'm picky and think five starts should be saved for truly epic sports books like "Friday Night Lights." That said, Lear could've improved on some things. First off, the author was at his best when diverting from the diary format and going into the lives of Goucher, Ponce and Severy. We didn't read enough detail about their lives. Apparently they hang out and are revered at a local coffee shop. We never got more than they just hang out there. I wanted an explanation of this place and why they love steeplechasers so much. Also, the CU runners go to a party, we get a paragraph on it. Do they date, study, hang out, do anything but run? Every little injury is described into minute detail, and that gets old.

Also, the photos are horrendous. It's as if Lear took a point and shoot to practice. On one they twice had "Goucher in full flight" as the caption. A fuzzy picture with the same person in the background -- it was weak. Lear could've hired the photographer from the local paper for chump change and had done better.

But those are just some things to improve on. Truly this is a great, great book and I recommend it to all runners and those wanting to understand cross country.

This is Lear's first effort and I hope it's not his last.

10 of 12 found the following review helpful:


a fascinating look into a top cross country team  Jul 28, 2003 By Joe Sherry
Running With the Buffaloes chronicles the 1998 season of the University of Colorado Men's Cross Country team. As a former collegiate cross country runner (NAIA Division II), I am very interested in any book that focuses on cross country, and the fact that this is of an elite squad filled with interesting men makes the reading all the more entertaining. While the subject of the book is the entire team, Chris Lear focuses the most on Coach Mark Wetmore and Senior Adam Goucher. Chris Lear follows the team from their arrival on campus for preseason practice all the way through injuries and tragedy up through the NCAA National Championship meet.

Adam Goucher is the elite runner of the men's squad. He placed second at nationals as a freshman and has spent the next two years trying unsuccessfully to win the race. This season is his last chance at winning the National Meet and is one of his last chances to ensure financial security through running (winning the National Championship will all but ensure major sponsorship so that he can be paid to continue running at the elite level). While Goucher trains with the team, he also trains at a higher level than the cross country team, so much of his training is by himself because of the intensity of training. We see Goucher progress through the season, tested by Wetmore's high mileage training and by the high cost this training is taking on his body as the season wears on.

Mark Wetmore is the coach of the Colorado Cross Country team, and ever since he first started coaching at Colorado, he has preached a high intensity, high mileage regimen for his men. He trains them hard so that when it comes time to race he knows that their bodies are capable of what they will have to do. He is tough, but effective. He demands discipline as there are many who want to be in contention for the National title, but they must be willing to put in the work.

While Goucher and Wetmore are given extra attention, Chris Lear gives sufficient time to the other runners on the squad. We get to get a glimpse of who these men are and their personalities start to shine through. The season starts with so much promise, but injuries start getting in the way, and late in the season one of the runners dies in a biking accident. Lear shows how everything affects the team and how they deal with the season and the loss of a friend.

I don't know if Running With the Buffaloes would be interesting to everyone, but I found this book to be fascinating. It gives a very good look into an elite collegiate squad, and for anyone interested in running or just reading a very interesting story that happens to deal with sport in general and cross country in specific, this is the book to read.

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