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The Comeback Quotient
A good comeback makes a great story. In The Comeback Quotient, sports journalist Matt Fitzgerald shares the stories of top athletic comebacks, to give you inspiration and tools for your own comeback in sport or life. By Matt Fitzgerald A good comeback makes a great story. In The Comeback Quotient, sports journalist Matt Fitzgerald shares the stories of top athletic comebacks, to give you inspiration and tools for your own comeback in sport or life. Every sports fan loves a great comeback. Is there a special quality shared by top athletes who triumph over great challenges? And can anyone acquire it? In The Comeback Quotient, celebrated sportswriter Matt Fitzgerald supplies the answer to both questions. He identifies these mega-achievers of astounding athletic comebacks as “ultrarealists,” men and women who succeed where others fail by fully accepting, embracing, and addressing the reality of their situations. From ultrarunners like Rob Krar to triathletes like Mirinda Carfrae to rowers, skiers, cyclists, and runners all over the world, Fitzgerald highlights and speculates on just what makes these comebacks so compelling. As for whether anyone can stage his or her own great comeback, the answer is a resounding yes: Anyone can become an ultrarealist to some degree. In the tradition of his best-selling How Bad Do You Want It?, The Comeback Quotient combines gripping sports stories with mind-blowing science to deliver a book that will forever change how you perceive the challenges you face, giving you the inspiration and the tools to make the next great comeback you witness your own. The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life Click on the graphic to order the book or for more information |
Spitting in the Soup
Inside the Dirty Game of Doping in Sports By Mark Johnson What will it take to kick doping out of sports forever? Doping is as old as organized sports. From baseball to horse racing, cycling to track and field, drugs have been used to enhance performance for 150 years. For much of that time, doping to do better was expected. It was doping to throw a game that stirred outrage. Today, though, athletes are vilified for using performance-enhancing drugs. Damned as moral deviants who shred the fair-play fabric, dopers are an affront to the athletes who don’t take shortcuts. But this tidy view swindles sports fans. While we may want the world sorted into villains and victims, putting the blame on athletes alone ignores decades of history in which teams, coaches, governments, the media, scientists, sponsors, sports federations, and even spectators have played a role. The truth about doping in sports is messy and shocking because it holds a mirror to our own reluctance to spit in the soup—that is, to tell the truth about the spectacle we crave. In Spitting in the Soup, sports journalist Mark Johnson explores how the deals made behind closed doors keep drugs in sports. Johnson unwinds the doping culture from the early days, when pills meant progress, and uncovers the complex relationships that underlie elite sports culture—the essence of which is not to play fair but to push the boundaries of human performance. It’s easy to assume that drugs in sports have always been frowned upon, but that’s not true. Drugs in sports are old. It’s banning drugs in sports that is new. Spitting in the Soup offers a bitingly honest, clear-eyed look at why that’s so, and what it will take to kick pills out of the locker room once and for all. | |
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Kicksology
Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture & Cool of Running Shoes Authotr: Brian Metzler Paperback. Black-and-white interior with full-color photo section. Kicksology is your all-access pass into the fascinating, colorful world of running shoes—and what makes up a perfect pair of kicks. Sports journalist and veteran shoe tester Brian Metzler takes runners and kicksologists deep inside the $10 billion dollar running shoe industry with a behind-the-curtain look at what makes iconic running shoe brands tick. Kicksology follows a shoe from inspiration to store shelf to show how innovative ideas evolve into industry-wide trends and fads. Metzler tours shoe labs where scientists advance our understanding of shoes and running mechanics as well as the domestic and overseas shoe factories where the world’s favorite kicks are assembled. A dedicated shoe nerd and running junkie, Metzler shares his love of great shoes in this fascinating look at the intersections of shoe culture and history, science and storytelling, intel from the innovators with on-the-ground insight from top runners. Kicksology is filled with information as entertaining as it is surprising, tapping into the passion runners have for their kicks and feeding their curiosity about what makes a great shoe. | |
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Fast 5K
Pete Magill Spend two hours with Pete Magill’s Fast 5K and you’ll know how to run your fastest 5K. In his fast-paced, ultimate guide to 5K running races, celebrated running coach Pete Magill reveals the 25 crucial keys to setting your next 5K PR. Magill shares hard-earned lessons he gained while leading 19 teams to national championship wins and setting multiple American and world age-group and masters records. Fast 5K shares Magill’s essential keys to finding your fastest running fitness and race readiness. The 25 keys include optimal training mileage, effective tempo runs, VO2 max workouts, hill repeats, plyometrics that work, ways to prevent injuries, recovery tips, guides to diet and racing weight, choosing racing flats, and much more. Offering three 12-week and one 16-week 5K training plans, Fast 5K is the key to your best 5K running times. Pete Magill is a world-class 5K runner, personally holds multiple American and world age-group records in track & field and road racing and is a 5-time USA Masters Cross Country Runner of the Year. Now in this distilled guide, you can get world-class advice on how to run your fastest 5K ever. Read an excerpt! See selections from SpeedRunner here. | |
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SpeedRunner 4 Weeks to Your Fastest Leg Speed In Any Sport
Pete Magill In SpeedRunner, celebrated running coach Pete Magill reveals his 4-week training plan to make any athlete a faster runner—no matter the sport, age, gender, experience, or goals. In every sport that includes running, the difference between the best and the rest is tenths of a second. In most team sports like football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and in distance running and triathlon—simple leg speed makes champions. By targeting the neuromuscular system and strengthening muscle and connective tissue, Magill’s SpeedRunner program builds speed, strength, agility, coordination, balance, proprioception, and explosive power so athletes can excel. Magill developed his SpeedRunner program over decades of experience coaching athletes of all ages from short sprints to the marathon. He’s led his club to two dozen USATF National Masters Championships in road running and cross country. As a 5-time USA Masters Cross Country Runner of the Year and multiple American and world age-group record holder himself, Magill is proof that his training methods are effective. Over the four weeks of the SpeedRunner program, you’ll focus on faster acceleration, top-end speed, strength, agility, and speed endurance. Magill also offers speed-only training and supplemental sessions to further hone your top-end speed, core musculature, and whole-body strength. The SpeedRunner plans balance training volume and intensity with recovery to ensure rapid, injury-free gains. Bottom line: The ability to run well is a fundamental skill required for success in any sport that includes running. SpeedRunner can transform your running performance. Read an excerpt! See selections from SpeedRunner here. | |
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