Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon: How to Be Your Own Best Coach

by Matt Fitzgerald and Brad Hudson

Book Overview

Learn how to run faster, unlock your potential, and reach peak performance with this practical guide featuring training advice from a former Olympic trials marathoner and coach to Olympians.

"Reading this book can help take you to the next level and keep pushing you up as far and fast as you want to go."--Sarah Toland, former NCAA All-American, USA National Cross-Country Team member, and Olympic Trials qualifier for the 5,000 and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767928229
• ISBN13: 9780767928229
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.5" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Worthwhile if you are serious

Intuitive, excellent work. Take advantage of Brad Hudson's years of experience in research and application of running methodology and technique and directly apply it to your running. Warning, not for the casual "I wanna finish a marathon someday" crowd, this is real and it works. Big negative on Kindle is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to read the workout charts at the end of the book. Would appreciate if anyone can provide a link to those charts online.

One of the best running books

This book in my opinion conveys what I've been looking for all over the internet, blogs, forums. It describes cutting edge training methods that are used by current elite athletes but explained in a way that a runner with lesser experience can get quite a lot from it. Brad Hudson's training philosophy is not one size fits all kind, as every athlete and runner is different, he articulately shows how based on a template training plan one can do adaptive training, where runners can modify their workouts based on how physiologically they are feeling on the day of running. He has also given deep insights as what it takes to be a great athlete for an athlete of any ability and how to improve year after year, a knowledge previously held only by top national coaches and not available in one place. He also gives out various training plan templates for athletes of varying abilities and methodology for readers to devise their own training plan once they understand all the principles for adaptive training written in this book. In all a wonderful training book that can open your mind to lot of useful new information and change your training forever.

Bingo!

Bingo! At the age of 50, with 21 marathons and somewhere around 400 races under my belt, I thought I had read everything on the subject of running. I was wrong! This book really gets to the point on how to improve your running. As nice as the running books are that discuss shoes and sports drinks, etc, Run Faster is more advanced and to the point. If there is any one thing that will really help you improve alot, it's HILLS, pay special attention to the Hill Training! Don't be afraid to experiment with your training. Buy this book, read it at least twice and do your HILLS! Well done Brad.

Think about what you are doing

I am not a new runner, and I have been blessed with some of the best coaches in the country at every level: high school, college and beyond. I found that at each level I questioned why I was being told what to do a little more, and this is the first time I have really picked up a book on running. I now wish I had started reading running books a long time ago. I have learned so much about the physiological reason I do things from this book, that my day-to-day training awareness has reached a whole new level. Brad gives the real physiological explanations as to why training stimuli has to change and what it should change to. He explains why hill sprints are so beneficial, why the different threshold levels of training are so important, and how to train as hard as possible while avoiding injury. Most importantly, he teaches the reader how to own their training, which makes training for a race feel so much more like an adventure than a formula. I recommend this book for every level of runner & especially those who want to understand what they should be doing and why.

One of the best

This is one of the best books ever written on running training. I'm a masters athlete racing mile, 5k and 10k and I think I've just about read them all -- Brad's is the clearest breakdown of what you need to do, and when, that I have ever read. If you've struggled with Daniels and Noakes (great though they are), this is the book for you. I predict you will finally understand what you are doing! What I loved about Brad's book is that he can explain thing so simply. In his system/no system he's got 12 most effective training methods and three - yes just 3 - basic types of training. I love it. System/no system? Yes; the book's plan is kind of interactive. Brad insists that your schedule MUST be individualized. You need to read, absorb, plan, try stuff out -- and adjust according to the feedback you get, not just blindly follow tables of speed and distances. He gives all the tools you need to work things out. Bear in mind, too, that Brad is not coming at this from an academic/theoretical point of view, but is a highly successful coach currently training Olympic-level runners. Totally recommended. A caveat for fellow masters runners: the typeface is small and sans serif. It's a 278-page book that should probably be twice that size with a more readable typeface. It's the only book I've read for months for which I've had to dig out my reading glasses!