The Greatest : The Haile Gebrselassie Story

Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic Book About a Fantastic Athlete
Review: I recommend this book for anyone who loves running and even those who have never run a step. Often discussion of a great athlete is lost in endless charts of interval workouts and mileage figures. Denison does a great job both of providing specifics of Gebrselassie's training, but more broadly, highlighting his will to win and the personality traits that make him the greatest distance runner ever to slip on a pair of spikes.

Especially riveting are the numerous race accounts. Denison provides info on everything about Gebrselassie on race day; his pre-race routine, his mental preparation, his ability to lock into exactly the splits he needs for whatever record he is going for, and, rarely, his post-race reflection on what few mistakes he made. Further, the book offers a real surprise in observing that before all 3 of his Olympic championships and during his 2003 season when he was beaten frequently by Kenenisa Bekele and Abraham Chebii, Gebrselassie was suffering from severe injuries. Because he is so tough, he never spoke a word about them, but read the book and you will find out just how tough Gebrselassie really is.