Favourite Sport-Related Books

As a diversion from endless race reports, I thought I'd kick off another thread to the blog, so here goes...

These are a few of the best sports-related books I've read, in no particular order. Clicking the titles will take you to Amazon where you can read some proper reviews, or buy the book. Does anyone else have any recommendations?

Can You Make a Living Doing That?: The True-life Adventures of a Professional Triathlete

This book is written by ex-pro triathlete Brad Kearns. It's an account of his career from joining the pro-ranks through to throwing in the towel at the end. Brad is a real character, and the book is both funny and enlightening. His unconventional views on training really struck a chord with me, and some of the stories had me laughing out loud.

Rough Ride

This book is written by Irish ex-pro cyclist Paul Kimmage (I believe he has a column in one of the broadsheets now), and he tells the warts-and-all story of what it's like to be a pro cyclist at the middle to back end of the professional peloton, exposing the pressure cyclists are under from management and sponsors alike to succumb to taking drugs. I defy anyone to read this book without concluding that pro cycling is the toughest sport out there!

Feet in the Clouds: A Story of Fell Running and Obsession<

The only book I know about Fell Running, and as such an obligatory read for fell runners. It'a about one mans obsession with the Bob Graham round. It gives a lot of information about the history of Fell Running in this country, and about the top runners past and present. The author, Richard Askwith, would probably describe himself as a middle-of-the-pack standard, although I've seen his name in the results in a few races, and I'd say he was better than that. I know Steve Moss has competed in the same races as the author and they were not far apart in the result I saw.

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Lance Armstrong's story about his fight against cancer. It's totally inspirational, the guy is absolutely driven. I came away from reading this book with a huge respect for Lance, although he never came across as being particularly likeable character in my eyes. Still, if you have any doubts about what can be achieved in the face of adversity, then this is bound to make you think again. The sequel to this book (every second counts) was pretty dismal reading.

Touching the Void

Sheffield climber Joe Simpsons book about how he survived a climbing disaster in the Peruvian Andes. To call this a near death experience would be doing it an injustice, he was a hairs breadth away from death. It's a really moving story, and one that has since been made into a documentary style film. The film was good, but the book is better.

Survival of the Fittest: Anatomy of Peak Physical Performance

Dr Mike Stroud, probably best known now for his 7 Marathons on 7 continents in 7 days with Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Examines the effect on the human body whilst taking part in extreme events. He switches between an account of the event (in which he is himself is taking part) and the medical parts. The evnts themselves include such things as the Marathon de Sables, Antarctic Crossings, Adventure races in South America, and even the London Marathon. Really interesting stuff.

The Escape Artist: Life from the Saddle

A very moving, human story about a passionate amateur cyclist, who's world is turned upside down when his wife develops a terminal illness. I like this book, because the author is very much an amateur, like all of us, with the same training obsessions etc. and it shows how fragile we all are. A bit glum, but a great read.

The Flying Scotsman: The Graeme Obree Story

The now well known story of the maveric Scottish cyclist, and manic depressive Graeme Obree, and how he because world pursuit champion, and twice holder of "the hour" record, which used to be the holy grail of cycling. The story is a mix of tragedy and comedy in equal measures, and has now been made into a film, but again, the book is better.

the rider

This is a bit different, it's actually a short novel written from the perspective of a cyclist taking part in a cycle race. It's complete fiction, but captures the sort of thoughts that go through your mind when racing. A bit hard to describe really, but I did like it a lot.

More are cycling related than running, but running books seem to be thin on the ground, and have a tendency to be rubbish when you do find one (yes I have read Paula Radcliffe's biography).
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South Leeds 5 Mile Road Race

Antony Bradford and Keith McGhie were both burning the tarmac in this race, and Antony has posted a review on his blog.

Keith was the winner of his age category, and Antony was second in his. Excellent run guys!

Spen results
9  Antony Bradford MV40 29:13
19 Keith McGhie    MV45 30:58

239 runners

Full results are here.

Spen 20 Road Race (20 miles, 1150ft)

Despite this being one of our own clubs 2 road races, I must confess that I've never really had the desire to enter it myself. This is for 2 reasons, (a) It's too far for me (b) Road running hurts my knees. However, having marshalled it for the last few years in conditions ranging from freezing cold to outright blizzards, and with the 3 peaks looming ever nearer, I decided that it would be better to enter the race, than miss another training session doing marshalling duties.

The race route is a bit of a convoluted figure of eight, where miles 5-9 and 15-19 are basically the same section.

My expectations were fairly conservative, I know people say that often to make an pre-race excuse, but in this case it's absolutely true. I'd raced hard the day before, and it was going to be my first road race since 2006. However, I'd mentally set myself a goal of somewhere between 2:40 and 2:50 even though I was treating it more like a tough training run.

The weather on the day was perfect, fopr the record field of 300+ runners too, although not too many from Spen. I counted 2 ladies (Jackie Carter & Hazel Pike) and 4 men (John Henry, Steve Hemingway, Naz Hussain and myself) although Steve and Naz were not wearing club vests. Also present was long-time Spen runner, and now K&C Steve Carter.

Chatting with Steve at the start, I soon gave up on the idea that running with him, deciding it would be foolish on my behalf, and that it might be better to try to stick with John, just for as long as it felt comfortable, but not get dragged into a race. As it happened I stayed with John and Steve for less than 2 miles before deciding to just do my own thing, and left them heading off into the distance.

The first 10 miles went pretty well, although I could already feel the cumulative effect of the previous days exertions, and by mile 12 it was getting tougher. By 15 miles I'd had enough, but still felt I could get round, so just plugged away. By mile 18, on the drag up to Roberttown I was reaching the end of the road, but knew that the last 2 miles were more or less downhill/flat, and that kept me going. I was pretty relieved to cross the finish line, and my time was 2:35:34 ish. John Henry was first back in 2:32 ish (I think). I figured he'd gone though a bad patch somewhere, since I expected to be much further behind him.

Now, just to show what a master of pacing I am (not) here are my mile splits, with the equivalent miles marked together for comparison.

Talk about fading badly eh!

Thanks to all the marshalls, helpers and supporters who turned out on the day.

Spen results
113 John Henry       M50 2:33:11
123 Chris Jones      M45 2:35:36
177 Steven Hemingway M45 2:49:31
215 Jackie Carter    F45 3:02:55
236 Hazel Pike       F40 3:17:13
253 Nazir Hussain    M55 3:41:05

258 finishers

Full results here

Windmills Whizz (BM, 7 miles 800ft)

Saturday saw a record turnout for the Windmills Whizz fell race at Odgen Water near Halifax. Spenborough runners spotted included Gareth, Tim, Chris Jones and Chris King.

Tim and Chris J have run this race for the last two years, both times following a Friday night out on the beer. In the interests of providing accurate comparison against previous years timings they followed the same pre-race preparation, and as such were running with a 6 pint handicap.

The race starts from the edge of Ogden Water with a steady climb up onto the moors. Any cobwebs were quickly blown away by the fresh westerley winds. Chris J and Gareth set off near the front of the field and managed to gain quite a few places thanks to some of the front runners taking a wrong turn at the road junction and heading off in the wrong direction. From this point the route is largely on tarmac, but does include a sharp rise up to the wind farm and around the windmills.

The final stretch follows a fast track back down to the edge of the reservoir. Chris Jones was first Spen back beating his previous time by a couple of minutes, with Gareth close on his heels. Tim and Chris K followed them in a few minutes later.

Spen Results (somewhat skewed by many front runners taking the wrong route)

18 CHRIS JONES     48:45 V40
19 GARETH PATCHETT 48:49 V40
49 TIM WRAGG       52:28 V40
67 CHRIS KING      53:43

122 finishers

Full results here

Antony Bradford - blog link

If you haven't seen it yet, our top road runner Antony Bradford has a really cool blog, with some interesting articles and great race reports.

Here are links to his reports on the Norton 9 Mile race, and the Liversedge Half Marathon.

Should competing athletes be expected to take on roles of responsibility within the club?

Most of the blog entries so far have been race reports, so here is one to break with tradition.

Should competing athletes be expected to take on roles of responsibilty within the club?

An accusation often leveled at athletes is that they are not prepared to take on roles of responsibility within the club. But is it fair to expect this from a competing athlete?

It's a tricky one, and I'm sure views will be divided. But there are 2 key words for me here, competing and expected. I've given this some thought, and my personal opinion is that it is something that should not be expected of a competing athlete, and here are my reasons for saying that...

• Our club motto is "train to compete", and in order to compete to the best of one's ability, it's necessary to put a lot of time into training, and that doesn't leave much time for anything else.

• We need to attract new members, and that means marketing the club. What better way of marketing the club is there, than week after week, pulling on a club vest, getting out there and competing?

• The club needs successful athletes to get articles in local papers, and to show up in the results in athletics periodicals, again promoting the club.

• In addition to the time needed for training, there is the travel to events, and in the case of those who are also the parents of competing junior athletes, taking them to and from events and providing support for them and their fellow team-mates.

• Contrary to popular opinion, training isn't all about having "fun" (although it can be at times) in fact sometimes it's a real drudge, getting out in the cold & wet and putting in the miles when you're tired from a hard days work is just plain tough!
  

Taking the above points into consideration, I believe that the competing athlete plays just as important a role (no more or less) for the club as an official of the club. Naturally, if the athlete personally feels they are able to dedicate the time and resources into taking on a such a role, there should be nothing to stop them doing so.

Thoughts anyone?