Running with the Buffaloes 20 years later - We catch up with Adam Goucher, Chris Lear and the Buffs

I think it's a really good book, but I have never understood how people find it inspiring. To me it's depressing as hell, and not just because tragedy strikes.

I need to re-read it. I read it back in college around the time I got injured from running, discovered LetsRun, gained enlightenment and began the journey of my dreams becoming reality.

runner12345 wrote:

growns up wrote:

I don't think they did, though it's not relevant to my takeaway that training at altitude works wonders.

Adam Goucher did have a much shorter career compared to his counterparts, might've been because he was hammering too hard for a short period of time. If he would've backed off a bit maybe he would have had a longer career, but would he have had as successful of a career?

One anecdote, with a variety of inputs, is hardly enough to arrive at a conclusion.

I'll write the screenplay. ?

I had heard of it circa 2000 or so when I graduated HS. I started getting serious about running in 2001, and was getting pretty good at it my freshman track season (good for me at the time--low 16's in the 5k! haha!) I think i heard about it on the epic mensracing.com message boards. I used to read mensracing.com, collegerunning.com and run-insight.com quite a bit before I really got into LRC circa 2002. It was probably threads from those times that got me to read it in '02 and I really enjoyed it. my parents gave it to me for a birthday present i think. ... read it again in fall '04 during my last college xc season, hoping it would help propel me to some good races when I could feel my body breaking down. i had a poor living situation in an apartment with drug-addict roommates, so that book helped keep my mind off of issues. I have good memories of reading it out at the patio by the pool, and looked forward to those evenings during class time.

i really wish that lear would have included a calendar of workouts for the various athletes, to compare and contrast what some people were doing, as well as the women's team's workouts.

Shame the ponce situation casts a shadow on the whole story.

Cannot recall how I found out, probably on tnfmedia and it was a promotion c/o Fila to get a signed copy of the book plus a token discount on Fila shoes, which I used on a pair of Fila Flows. Unsure who was injured more running in those shoes, me or Adam Goucher. Impact? It was just a fun book to read, the training details were about as personally relevant as Casey Malone's discus PR progression. It was more cool to meet some of the people in the book in intervening years.

I have never read anything by the famous Mr. Lear.

He always seemed like a retarded mo-ran who has brain and liver damage from drinking a lot of alcohol with all the other 'cool' Color-Rad-0 runners.

Unfortunately, they all suck at running now.

just sayin

I've read this book maybe 8 times and probably listened to it about 20 times on audible. Thought it was cool how the iceberg came through surpising many. Gouch was of course Gouch. I've run against Valenti several times since in ultras. Jbird runs the boulder running camp and is one odd but cool bird. Wish my kid could run at CU just to experience this all but it's still cool to listen too.

Also amazing though is just how many great runners have come out of that program. Makes every other program look like stinky horseshizit.

This is one of the very few books that I own.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

I need to re-read it. I read it back in college around the time I got injured from running, discovered LetsRun, gained enlightenment and began the journey of my dreams becoming reality.

Funny. Thanks tRg

Good article/interview, thanks LR.

Would be awesome if Lear or Gault could get a sitdown with Wetmore to talk about how his training philosophies have changed over the years and looking back on this year if he would change anything

Loved it wrote:

I've read this book maybe 8 times and probably listened to it about 20 times on audible. Thought it was cool how the iceberg came through surpising many. Gouch was of course Gouch. I've run against Valenti several times since in ultras. Jbird runs the boulder running camp and is one odd but cool bird. Wish my kid could run at CU just to experience this all but it's still cool to listen too.

Also amazing though is just how many great runners have come out of that program. Makes every other program look like stinky horseshizit.

agree-great book-details trials and tribulations of a great team-Goucher was very motivated and talented but just as cool to hear about a guy like Friedberg who walked on in 1st year and become an all_American under Wetmore's program-every team can use a guy that makes the most of his or her talent and became a successful very runner by graduation; Also interesting how the present Women's coach Heather Burroughs was a senior in the '98 season..

Wetmore hasn't washed his hair since the book came out!

Look at her - she needs the melon. That dude? He definitely needs the melon.

Such a light, we’ll placed chapter. Makes me laugh every time.

I went to the CU summer camp for hs kids in 98. My team went mostly because we thought Colorado was a cool place to visit and see the mountains. We had no idea how good their team was and I was blown away by how fast they would run on their easy days. I played ultimate frisbee with goucher (and the rest of the team) and can attest to his competitiveness. We both went up for a contested catch, I caught it because I'm a few inches taller, and accidentally knocked him down. He was pissed and started playing as hard as he could!

My hs team made the trek to the ncaa meet in 98 being just a short 45 minute drive from home. It was surreal to see the same team we saw at summer camp do so well and to see goucher win. I remember being at the meet and wondering why Severy didn't run. I assumed he was injured and didn't ask around. The internet was virtually non existent back then and I didn't have a subscription to track and field news. I didn't know he died until I read the book and I was floored.

I heard about the book two years later. My mom got one of the first printings for me for Christmas. I remember her talking about how it was a nightmare trying to get ahold of it and having to make endless phone calls. For all I know, she could've been calling Lear himself haha. It remains one of the best Christmas gifts I've received. The story was a big part of why I became more passionate about running, moved to Colorado after college, and was fortunate enough to meet most of the people in the book.

Re: the part about the training logs being put into calendar format, Jay Johnson has done this into an excel file if I remember right. I saw it probably 6-7 years ago. If you emailed him, he'd probably send it to you. You can check his website for his contact info.

Harry Groves once told me that his favorite line in the whole book was:

"Slattery, you're an a**hole!"

Groves then cackled like a madman.

Themelon wrote:

Look at her - she needs the melon. That dude? He definitely needs the melon.

Such a light, we’ll placed chapter. Makes me laugh every time.

I would have mentioned this first, but I ran 95 miles yesterday!

aebresv wrote:

Shame the ponce situation casts a shadow on the whole story.

He's going to be an animal out there because he ate steak last night, but he got booty lock on the second 800m.