An Honorable Run [Paperback]

Matt McCue (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 30, 2009

What is the name of the coach who changed your life? As a young runner, I had two: Coach Wetmore and Coach Brown. Single-minded, driven to escape small town Iowa, I ran to win. Never satisfied, I once threw our high school team's second place medals into a muddy cornfield. My Iowa high school track coach, Bob Brown, dreamed of owning a Harley, but the only bike he rode was a beat-up blue Schwinn, pedaling alongside his athletes. Hugs were his trademark coaching tool. My college coach, the University of Colorado's Mark Wetmore, built champion runners on Magnolia, a mountainous dirt road where he tested their will to be the best. He had run every day for thirty years, and accepted few walk-ons, like me, into his storied program. I barely had time to say goodbye before I left Coach Brown to chase my dream of earning a coveted spot on Coach Wetmore's team. *An Honorable Run*chronicles the life-altering lessons I learned during my journey. It answers the question I had always taken for granted: *What is really important?*

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"There may be accounts of the interaction between coach and athlete in other sports, but in cross country and track, perhaps, we need a wider understanding of this powerful relationship that has changed so many young persons' lives for the better.
I wish everyone could find coaches like mine and Matt's, people who taught more than simple athletics to kids."

Bill Rodgers, Four-time winner of the New York City and Boston Marathons

"This book is a celebration of the unsung heroes of sport, the coaches who sacrifice their time to form champions and change lives. Matt captures all of this in An Honorable Run. The sport of running is about overcoming challenges, life lessons taught and learned and the victories that don't always come with winning, but simply by giving our all."

Jim Ryun, three time Olympian, former World Record Holder in the one mile run

"An Honorable Run is an inspirational journey for anyone who has ever laced up a sports shoe. Proof that you don't have to win to be a winner."

Mike Sager, Writer at Large, Esquire,  2010 National Magazine Award Winner 

About the Author

Born in Iowa, Matt McCue now lives in New York City. He has written for New York Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN RISE Dye Stat, Runner's World.com, and The Huffington Post.

Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (July 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439233284
• ISBN-13: 978-1439233283
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Normally this is the spot where Matt would list the books he has published, but he knows that your time is precious and doesn't want to bore you with the details of past glories. (Don't be impressed. He doesn't have any.) Instead, he thought he'd share a story... McCue moved to New York City the old fashioned way, carrying a suitcase packed full of hopes and dreams. The Iowan had no friends in the city, no job, and nowhere to live. So, it's no surprise to learn that within a few days he was locked out the apartment sublet he had found on Craigslist. Fresh from a run, wearing nothing more than thigh-revealing nylon shorts and tennis shoes, McCue stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the high rise. What have I gotten myself into? he wondered. Thankfully, a man named Jesús, who only spoke Spanish (and McCue only spoke English) saved McCue from further embarrassment by discovering a back way into the building.

But wait! There's more!

Matt's two favorite books are A Confederacy of Dunces followed closely by Dysfunction Junction: A Story on Family.

Had he his way, Matt would spend his summers following the Dave Matthews Band around the country.

Fun Fitness Fact: He still runs, 10 miles every morning, and a few more on the weekends.

He thinks that hand-written notes are a lost art and is working to bring them back.

"If you think you can or you can't, you're right" is his favorite Coach Brown quote (even if it was borrowed from Henry Ford and slightly altered.) It reveals more about a person than a mirror.

Matt has written for New York Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, Runner's World.com, ESPN RISE Dye Stat, and The Huffington Post.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Iowa Boy Chasing the Running Dream September 1, 2009

By Mark Thompson

Format:Paperback

Like Running with the Buffaloes, Once a Runner, and Born to Run, this book makes you want to pop out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and log some miles. It makes you want to chase that dream of high school, college, or road race glory.

An Honorable Run describes the author's days as a runner at Iowa City Regina high school and Colorado University. Perhaps I'm biased because I grew up competing with this high school (but wouldn't that make me biased against him?), but this book gives a great summary of the author's hard-fought years of chasing his running goals. I can live vicariously through this text and think, "What if I trained my heart out and went to school at the top running school in the nation to be my absolute best?" This book shows what happened to the author when he answered that question.

Also, the book chronicles the author's interactions with the "mythical" CU coach Wettmore and his locally-famous high school coach Brown. The personalities conflicting, and great to read about.

Of course, the book includes the author's success/failures chasing these dreams, and the personal level these coaches affected him over the years, college and beyond.

I also liked the insight into the CU training program, and the continued interaction with his ties back home.

Great work.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Personal Story January 29, 2010

By Gilgamesh

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was an interesting and heartfelt account of a very driven, motivated runner's journey through high school and collegiate track and xc careers. The author's depiction of his high school coach was really touching. As a parent of a high school runner, I could only wish that my kid had had such a kind and inspirational coach. I thought the book was especially interesting because the author was a very good runner but not among the natonal elite, yet he made his way onto an elite college team through hard work and perseverance. Very few first place finishes came his way in college but he always maintained his inspiration and dreams. Very nice.

I wish there had been a bit more detail about his college running other than his long runs. There wasn't much discussion of his track workouts, etc. That would have been interesting. There was also virtually no mention of his college life outside running, which I thought made the book sort of one dimensional. Even a brief discussion of how he balanced academics with such high mileage would have made the story more real for those of us who have never been college athletes.

Finally, the part of the book that really confused me was the author's depiction of the Colorado head coach. The author praises him throughout the book and refers to him as a guru of running, yet the coach really comes across as a very distant, almost unapproachable, cold sort of person. The author seems almost afraid to discuss issues with him, big issues like whether he will be retained on the team, or whether he will be taken to an upcoming meet. This same coach apparently never bothered to answer the author's many emails, letters and phone calls about the Colorado program when the author was in high school. That seemed just plain rude to me. Even though the author was not a nationally ranked high school runner, how much time would it take to return an email or mail him a form letter thanking him for his interest in the program? I don't quite know what to think. I would be very reluctant after reading this to encourage my kid to run for this coach. I don't think that was the author's intent, but that was the message that I got. That whole interaction between the author and the coach seemed very strained and odd to me. If this was not the intent of the author, perhaps he should consider revising some portions of the book to present this coach in a better light.

Overall an interesting personal journey that should be of interest to runners and perhaps to other athletes.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars An honorable Run July 28, 2010

By Johnny Appleseed

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you're a long distance runner, you are going to relate to this book, regarless of whether you like it or hate it. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of his writing, I think that if he put in another year of hard writing, cutting and adding, and working to shape the novel, then it really could have been something to match Running with Buffaloes; a story about the same team told from the point of view of a jv runner. There were points where Matt captured moments that only long distance runners must love, but the book is pieced together by those moments, taking away some of the adrenaline rushing gutsyness they bring. Races are let-downs because not enough work is put into the rest of the running that he does. The author should know, as a runner, success doesn't come by piecing together good preformances but by combining them all into one. Finishing the novel, there is the feeling that McCue rushed, didn't dig deep enough and wrote it as a way to exorcise strong emotions.
Overall, this book was written as a tribute to a past-away coach, and for his friends and family I can imagine it is a heartfelt memoir of one man's relationship with Coach Brown. Yet, for all of those who never met him, instead we get a story that is missing too many pieces for it to fully satisfy our literary appetites, built upon emotions that we only get from vaugly desrcibed characters, and the main character who is confused about them. I never knew Coach Brown, and the images McCue paints of him are too tinged with personal feeling that, for 3rd person readers, are like a fingerpainting of the Mona Lisa, and fail to do it justice. This novel is basically a sketch of a much greater story that evades the descriptions that McCue uses to portray important scenes in his life.
As a writer and a long distance runner, I was hoping to find in this novel a story that that included both a well-written and organized plot and the heart and soul of a runner. Instead I found a rough draft of what could be one of the greatest running books if it was sent back to the editor and McCue got back to work. Read it, but get it from the library.