Olympic silver medalist, Mebrahtom Keflezighi, is one of the best, if not the best distance runner that the US has produced in the last few years.
This weekend, he’s going to be trying to defend his New York City Marathon title, as he joins up with some of the best runners in the world. It’s a stacked field, and it’s going to be a great race.
Along with the race, he’s also just released his new book, “Run to Overcome”. I was sent an advanced copy that I got to take a look at over the past week or so, and it’s a great story!
It follows Meb’s journey from his native Eritrea, through Italy, and to the United States where he started running out in San Diego. It follows his entire career right through UCLA and into his professional career.
The book is organized chronologically by topic. So it starts out with stories from Africa, and then it moves on to UCLA, the Athens Marathon, the New York City Marathon, and it just goes from one topic to the next.
So while the book itself isn’t 100% chronological, the general topic for what’s getting covered in each chapter is.
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There’s a lot that you can get from the story.
First, it’s just a fun read! You get to learn about one of the better runners in the country right now. What makes him tick. Why he does what he does. It’s just enjoyable to just sit down with the book.
It has also got some great training advice in there. He talks about what he does as an elite athlete, to try and keep at the top of his game. How he deals with injuries, and the sorts of training that he does.
So not only can you follow what Meb does and why, but you can also get some good tips that you can apply to your own training.
One of my favorite tips that I got out of it was that just because something is on paper, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to follow that exact workout, especially if you’re using just a regular canned training schedule. You always have to build in some flexibility.
So if you’re feeling really good or if you’re feeling really bad, if might be cause just to change your workout around, and to do something that’s a little bit more tailored to what you’re capable of on that day, as opposed to what’s on the piece of paper that was written a week ago, a month ago, or a year earlier.
Some of my favorite stories from the book probably have to be the stories about different races, such as the Athens Marathon and the New York City Marathon.
I think that these are my favorite stories not only because I’m a runner and I enjoy reading about running, but also because I was watching those races when they happened.
In Athens was when that crazy priest went out and jumped the course. And then in New York City as Meb went on to be the first American to win it in 27 years. It’s just kind of cool to see how those races unfolded from the front of the elite pack.
It’s also kind of neat to read about some of Meb’s failures. In the London Marathon, before he won New York City, it was just kind of silly that after he drops out of the races and manages to avoid all the volunteers trying to push him back in, he gets on the bus to get back to his hotel. And then the bus stops, and Haile Gebresellassie gets on the bus, and then it stops again, and Khalid Khannouchi gets on the bus. There’s a whole cast of characters, where even though there was a lot of great performances that day, there’s a lot of top tier athletes that just weren’t able to finish the race and had one problem or another. It was kind of funny the way he shared that story.
So if you want to learn more about the book, you can go to www.RunToOvercome.com, and that will give you all the information you want. They are running a contest, so they are giving away a book a day.
You can also get the book at your favorite book seller, or at Amazon, or any number of other places. I’m sure if you’re going to be at New York City that there’s going to be places that you can pick up a copy at the expo. And you might even be able to get it signed if you see Meb before the race.
I recommend giving it a read. It’s not super long; I was able to read it in a couple of days. So I hope that you enjoy it if you do pick it up.
I was provided an advance review copy of this book by the publisher. More info: www.RunToOvercome.com
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