Running Free Book Review

Since I thought The Perfect Distance was a bit drier, I thought I’d read more about Sebastian Coe and found this book that is a sort of cross between autobiography and biography. David Miller is credited as an author as well as Sebastian Coe who told his personal stories between David Miller’s observations on Coe’s performance until the winter of 1980 – 81. Having read The Perfect Distance, I knew all of his achievements but this book goes into deeper with the first-person commentary from Coe.

I thoroughly enjoyed stories told by the duo, especially about the days leading up to the Moscow Olympics. By then, Coe was already well-known figure in the world of athletics and in the Great Britain. The level of pressure Coe experienced and the unfortunate result in 800m of being unable to cope with such pressure of great magnitude is painful to read through, though his success one week later in 1,500m is impressive and very inspiring.

This book was published in 1981, so there is no analysis on his training or diet comparing with today’s advanced training or diet. Surprisingly, Coe does not go into his training details in this book. I would have been interested in knowing what sort of exercises he went through, but I guess that was reserved for the book Winning Running that was to be released by his father Peter Coe in 1996.

As well as he was a world-class athlete, he is very articulate and his opinions are well founded. No wonder he later became a politician after his retirement from competitive running. I am looking for the second book Coming Back that was authored by the same duo in 1985 and that is about his career as a competitive racer between 1981 and 1984.