Audiobook10 hours
Running With the Buffaloes: A Season Inside With Mark Wetmore, Adam Goucher, and the University of Colorado Men's Cross Country Team
Written by Chris Lear
Narrated by Adam Verner
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
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.
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.
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Reviews for Running With the Buffaloes
Rating: 4.063636316363636 out of 5 stars
4/5
55 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great story, tragic, triumphant. I will read it again soin
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent real life look into collegiate cross country and the Colorado system.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I 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. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book chronicles a season with the University of Colorado Men's Cross Country team and their pursuit of the NCAA National Championship. While the events of this book are now nearly ten years ago, the story is still very compelling. Author Chris Lear spent the entire season with the team, including coach Mark Wetmore and All-American Adam Goucher. It is a fascinating read that delves into the personal dynamics of a team made up of individual performances and how the team comes together during the worst kind of adversity during their season. One of the truly enlightening things from a runner's perspective is just how close to the physical edge runners at this level live and train - constantly walking a tightrope between doing everything they can to reach their maximum potential without incurring a season-ending injury. The frustration of poor runs and the exuberance of breakthrough performances exist in the same race. It is a seldom-seen look inside a very tight knit group that doesn't let outsiders in. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in competitive running or sports in general.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A real page-turner, this book was fun, sad, heart-warming, and very interesting. It follows the day-to-day trials and training of the team, giving just the right amount of detail. Lear's descriptions gave the season a lot more body then a simple training schedule or calendar would. An easy read. Recommended.