As part of a process of decluttering my home space I brought all of my books together and started throwing away those that I didn’t need. In this process I found a stack of books about running or Triathlon training and it occurred to me that I would find it useful to reflect on these books. Whether I got any insight, whether there was value in these and how they might help going forward. At the very least the process would act as a revision activity. So here you go.
- Marathon : The Ultimate Training Guide – Hal Higdon – 2020 – 5th Edition, Rodale Books New York
- Complete Training Journal – Lauren Flesman & Roisin McGettigan-Dumas – 2016 – Velopress, Boulder Colorado
- Fast 5K : 25 Crucial Keys and 4 Training Plans – Pete Magill – 2019 – Velopress, Boulder Colorado
- Strength and Conditioning for Endurance Running – Richard Belgrave – 2020 – The Crowood Press Ltd, Malborough
- Daniels’ Running Formula – Jack Daniels PHD – 2014 – 3rd Edition, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois
- The Brave Athlete : Calm The F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion – Simon Marshall PHD & Lesley Paterson – 2017 – Velopress, Boulder Colorado
Notable mentions, I have previously read or listened to Chrissie Wellingtons books, Ben Greenfields Beyond Training, Primal Endurance, Mark Sisson & Brad Kearns amongst others.
In no particular order – it is just the order in which I dumped the books onto the book shelf and then retrieved them.
From the title it should be obvious which discipline and audience this book is aimed at. Hal Higdon’s insights felt very useful during the first few chapters and he sets out this out along with the resulting principles in an easy to understand manner. However, I found his repeated fall back on (self admitted/self aware) anecdotal evidence from Twitter straw polls and historic discussions off putting. Many of the truths that I saw I began to question because it just wasn’t backed up. I was set to jump into this and follow his guidelines as it was what I saw as my first academic commitment to running and potentially coaching others for marathons. It put me off enough to stop reading it. I will probably go back to it as a reference in the future.
Fleshman & McGettigan-Dumas’s Complete Training Journal is one of a set of journals. All of which are aimed at Runners of different experiences. The blurb for each gives you an idea whether you are its target audience. There is one for beginner runners and this is focused on runners looking to seriously race. However, each one takes you through a journey of knowledge and expert advice articles, self assessments and stories much of which is at the start but some are placed mid journal. This has the effect of feeling like a journey. It worked up until a point but I found some vital points and advice that I felt I was ready for hidden near the back of the journal schedule. However, I felt it was a good guide and I only stopped completing it when lockdown happened and put an end to most of my races in the spring of 2020. I would recommend this to a someone starting their competitive career but not to seasoned runner.
Again, Pete Magill’s book is aimed for those taking running to another level. It is divided into 25 key points. I really enjoyed exploring this book. I don’t think I learned anything radically new but it did reinforce and remind me of some of the things that I had forgotten.
Blagrove’s book was bought on recommendation by a Bristol and West Coach. During Lockdown he had provided a S&C zoom session that overflowed into a few training webinars. My questions about S&C led to a session where he suggested that I read this book.
I haven’t completed it. It is a wealth of knowledge, science and practical exercises for budding coaches and athletes. It is very detailed and a great starter for me. I doubt it would be anything new for a S&C specialist coach or physio; it was just what I was looking for. I have learnt more about training from this book than any of the others so far. It has sparked an interest in coaching and helping others that I had long since forgotten as a student back in the 1990’s. Whether that develops into anything concrete in the future is yet to be seen but I hope so.
The negatives: for a training book it is very dry and focused on a very specific group of athletes. Its hard to read and takes time, without doing the exercises or having the right kit when you need it can feel like blockers to reading it in full.
Jack Daniels book is probably had the most of my attention. I have used it twice for preparing for two separate marathons and followed it as much as possible. I see the ideas backed by a good understanding of training for marathons.
Like the other it has a set of training plans to follow for a variety of distances, athletes with differing time to devote to training and specific outcome goals – e.g. sub 3 hour marathon finisher.
mindandbodycoordination 
You must be logged in to post a comment.