Rating: 
Summary: Everything you wanted to know about running ...but.........!
Review: A must for every serious runners library.The answers, my friend, are in here but they are well hidden. This book requires patience and background knowledge to make the most of it. The majority of the text could have been left in the lab but then we would have lost a few gems along the way. If things don't make sense the first time then maybe you can revisit them in the future. Written by two passionate devotees - judicious editing could have avoided some of the difficulties people may find in interpreting their complex messages. Coe is Martin's key to practicality:Martin is Coe's key to academia. While people can recall the sublime running of Seb Coe there will always be a strong market for unlocking his training secrets. At the end of the day the message is simple ..."to run faster you must run quicker!"
Rating:
Summary: Everything you wanted to know about running ...but.........!
Review: A must for every serious runners library. The answers, my friend, are in here but they are well hidden. This book requires patience and background knowledge to make the most of it. The majority of the text could have been left in the lab but then we would have lost a few gems along the way. If things don't make sense the first time then maybe you can revisit them in the future. Written by two passionate devotees - judicious editing could have avoided some of the difficulties people may find in interpreting their complex messages. Coe is Martin's key to practicality:Martin is Coe's key to academia. While people can recall the sublime running of Seb Coe there will always be a strong market for unlocking his training secrets. At the end of the day the message is simple ..."to run faster you must run quicker!"
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: A really comprehensive book on all aspects of running. I am sure it will become a reference book for all serious runners. The only book that can match "Better Training for Distance Runners" would be "Lore of Running".
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive
Review: A really comprehensive book on all aspects of running. I am sure it will become a reference book for all serious runners. The only book that can match "Better Training for Distance Runners" would be "Lore of Running".
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: For anyone serious about coaching the distance events, this is a must-read. Technically sound and practically written, it is a valuable tool in the quest for achieving optimal athletic performance in the distance events. Although it doesn't go into full depth of physiological concepts, it does more than an adequate job in this regard for most coaches. Certainly its sections in terms of physiology are much more extensive than most other books of similar subject-matter. But its greatest strength is its adaptability towards implementation in distance training programs. The bottom line is that it is a must-read for distance coaches of any level.
Rating: 
Summary: Incomprehensible
Review: Gibberish disguised as science. Get Noakes' Lore of Running if you want sensible speculation based on science.
Rating:
Summary: Very confusing, only buy if you have a state rank team
Review: I am a cross-country captain and wanted to educate myself on how to help my coach with our team. This book just helped to get me confused. "training increases the bodys release of such hormones as aldosterone, vasopressin, and renin, causing a net retention of Na+ and H2O and thus a volume expansionof the blood and a dilutional pseudoanemia." If you fully understand what I quoted, than this is the book for you because the whole book is basically written that way. The only advantage to this book is that on p280 there are many pictures of how to strech before a run.
Rating: 
Summary: Just another book which gives a lot of science
Review: I certainly agree with the other person who didn't like this book. I bought this book because I thought it would present a lot of training ideas on improving performance but I was disappointed because this book was full of scientific text which isn't fun to read, plus it requires a lot of knowledge to put the information in this book to practical use.
Rating:
Summary: Platitudes and Biology
Review: I love running and I love books about running. I have degrees in the sciences and am a self-confessed nerd, having read about fifty books on training how to run. Of all of these, I found *Better Training for Distance Runners* to be the most frustrating.
There is a degree of scientific complexity matched only by Noakes book *Lore of Running.* Unlike Noakes' book, this one never delivers after slogging through the detailed account of running physiology. There are some isolated bits of information, but the book lacks an integrated perspective on training.
For example, Jack Daniels' book *Daniels' Running Formula* provides a step-by-step development of a training regiment that can be adapted for any competitive runner. In this book, after reading through detailed chapters on physiology I came to the chapter on putting together a training schedule. With great expectation I began to read--only to be severely disappointed. The chapter contained scattered accounts of different types of training, no direction about how much or when such training would be advised, and no guide to practical implementation. Coe's comments often seem to be platitudes or simply recalling what his son did in workouts. I'm not sure the authors really understand the cause and effect relationship between various aspects of training and the resultant changes in running performance.
I guess that this book might be helpful for experts who already know everything about training and can benefit from some of the biological insights. Not being one of those, I found the book both difficult and vague, resulting in a high cost of reading with very low payoff.
Rating:
Summary: THE definitive source for serious runners.
Review: If you are a competitive runner who races 800m or farther, look no further than this title for serious training advice. This is a virtual bible in terms for technical advice, training guidelines, and example programs. It covers the science, strategy, and psychology of seriuos training and competition. No serious athelete or coach should be without this book.
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