Building a Better Runner
Science-Based Training for Peak Performance
Building A Better Runner is your ultimate guide to distance running. Whether you are a teenager who enjoys running the mile, a hobby runner who wants to be fitter and faster, or a high-level athlete aiming for Olympic gold, this book has training tips and plans to suit your needs. There is a specific way that the body improves. If the right phases of training are used at the right times, then an athlete (from a beginner or hobby runner to an elite, high-level runner) can benefit from this scheduling. By using a scientific method developed by author and runner Terry Hamlin, this book utilizes physiology, biochemistry, and periods of stress and recovery to create the most effective program for runners looking to better themselves athletically. Hamlin wants runners to understand how the body works on a kinetic and cellular level. Additionally, he hopes to help runners understand that it’s possible to remove your frustration with not improving and make the sport of running an exciting, lifelong pursuit. Are you ready to run the distance?
Terry Hamlin began to run to stay in shape for surfing. He went on to the University of South Carolina, where he was offered a partial scholarship in his sophomore year and accepted. He has always considered himself a road racer. Two friends, Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine, were having great success on the track and road, so Hamlin upped his mileage in 1974. When another friend, Bill Rodgers, won the 1975 Boston Marathon, Hamlin began to focus on the sport even more and learned all he could through his biochemistry/psychology dual major about what made him and other runners “tick.” Hamlin was ranked in the top twenty distance runners in America in 1979. He won dozens of races from the mile to the marathon. In fact, a team he put together in 1978 still holds the US Twenty-Four-Hour Relay Record. In 1977, while working full-time as a chemist at the Medical University of South Carolina, Hamlin and Dr. Marcus Newberry put together the famed Cooper River Bridge Run. That same year, Terry created the Charleston Running Club, one of the best running groups in America. Hamlin is a full-time realtor in Charleston, South Carolina, and he coaches runners interested in “becoming the best runner within.” He has coached five runners to the US Olympic Trials and has two more on the way, as of the release of this book. Hamlin lives outside his hometown with his wife, Dolly, and their two schnauzers, chickens, and assorted animals on his horse farm in the Francis Marion National Forest.
Bill Rodgers has won the Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon four times each. In 1998, he was inducted to the National Distance Running Hall of Fame, and in 1999, he was inducted to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.
