Review of The Longest Race

Book Link: https://www.amazon.com/Longest-Race-Inside-Deception-Running/dp/1982179147/

This was my first true audiobook listen and since I listened to it in pieces while I was driving, it definitely helped me "read" more and complete the book faster. I liked that Kara Goucher did her own narration but there were times you could tell she doesn't do this very often and the focus on annunciating her words became a bit of a distraction from the story. However, you could literally here the emotion in her voice multiple times, especially when talking about her grandfather's death, which I felt helped make the content resonate and become personable.

Since this was an audiobook, I didn't get a chance to highlight sections like I usually do so I'll give some general highlights and thoughts instead. The story of her running career (the training and running specifically) was captivating and as a fellow distance runner I felt lots empathy, motivation, and commiseration throughout. Her family life was equally relatable growing up in the Midwest and moving to the PNW for work myself and having very similar thoughts and experiences. I had mixed feelings about the rest of the content with Nike, doping, and Alberto Salazar. Those things are unfortunately intertwined with her life and it took incredible bravery, conviction, and courage to come forward at the time and be willing and able to write this book in the first place. That part cannot be understated. I'm not sure how to best state this, but I wanted to learn more about Kara and her training, feelings, and motivations through her career and less about the shitty people that made her achievements that much more difficult to achieve. It's nearly impossible to truly separate the two so but it left me with mixed feelings even giving them the attention and recognition.