I will admit that I enjoy reading from “Once a Runner” from time to time, but I’ll let you in on a secret - it’s not that good! (flame away). I would second the suggestion of “Gold in the Water”.
Finding the book: If you want to purchase it, you’re probably stuck with E-bay or combing through used book stores. If you just want to read it, however, I would suggest asking around at local road races or asking the local high school track coach to borrow a copy. Also, I believe there are a couple chapters from “Once a Runner” in the book, “The Runner’s Literary Companion”.
Its good but I didn’t think it was as good as, for example, “The Rider,” by Tim Krabbe.
The guy who wrote Once A Runner does or did triathlons, and, to me, his best written thing is “Heart Rate Training For Dummies.” I would be surprised if he didn’t or hasn’t posted on this forum or lurks, because he talks about triathlons quite a bit in his heart rate training book.
I’ll be flamed for saying this, but ‘Once a Runner’ is not a great book. The writing is not terrific, and the characters in it are two-dimensional. I thought it was juvenile.
If you love running (as I do), the book to read is actually…
The Bascomb book is actually called “The Perfect Mile”, it’s a great book, but it’s non-fiction. Once a Runner is a great fiction book, but if you look at it, it’s actually based in history, and you can map alot of the secondary characters onto real people. Maybe I enjoy the book a little more, because I ran at the university level and can relate to some of the experiences in there, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Hopefully if they are doing the movie, the book gets reprinted, because I’d like to get a copy.
As for Gold in The Water, I found that book rather depressing to read actually