Fatima Whitbread had the worst possible start in life. Abandoned as a baby, she spent much of her childhood in and out of children's homes. A brief, disastrous stay with her birth mother saw her raped by her mother's drunken boyfriend -- while her mother held a knife to her throat to 'quieten her down'. Fatima was only twelve at the time.
Athletics was her saviour: local athletics coach Margaret Whitbread took the young Fatima under her wing, eventually adopting her. Fatima competed in three Olympics, winning bronze at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. In 1986 she set a world record, and the following year in Rome became world champion and was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. But then Fatima faded from the public eye, leaving many to wonder where she had gone.
After the cheering stopped, Fatima faced prejudice, penury, scandal and heartbreak. "Survivor" describes how she defeated all her demons to rise triumphantly from the ashes once again, this time as queen of the jungle. Almost 13 million people watched her on "I'm a Celebrity," and after surviving 20 days in the Australian heat, she has millions of new fans eager to know more about Fatima the woman: the forthright, focused, slightly bossy, charismatic single mum who knows how to transform even the most devastating experiences into lessons in life. This is the unforgettable story of a true champion, who triumphed against the worst hardships imaginable.

This unique sports and labor history charts the revolutionary transformation of track and field over the past thirty years. In this time, the sport has changed from an amateur effort whose governing bodies unfairly controlled its athletes' lives to a professional arena in which athletes have the power to make decisions in their own best interests. While historians have chronicled labor history in team sports such as baseball and football or have lumped track and field into larger studies of Olympic history, Joseph M. Turrini is the first to scrupulously detail the efforts of athletes to reorder labor relations in track and field and to end their decades-long power struggle with governing bodies.

Combining social and institutional history and incorporating the recollections of the athletes and meet directors on the front lines, "The End of Amateurism in Track and Field" shows how the athletes thoroughly transformed their sport to end the amateur system in the early 1990s--changes that allowed the athletes to market their potential, drastically increase their earning possibilities, and improve their quality of life.

This book reveals how athletes in the 1950s began to harness the courts, legislature, and little-known underground labor relations systems that grew within the sport to untangle the distribution of power and decision-making by the 1990s. Enlivening the narrative with stories such as runner Wes Santee's battle with the Amateur Athletic Union and revelations about the actions of college coaches and rivalries between the NCAA and AAU, Turrini examines the effects of amateurism on athletes and explores how changes in the economic context of track and field and the role of the government helped leverage the end of the 100-year era of amateur track and field.

Dedication, passion, obsession--for serious endurance athletes, coaches, duathletes, and triathletes, the quest for improvement never ends. Knowing they can shave time from the previous performance, they seek out the latest in research and training techniques.

In "Championship Triathlon Training," renowned experts George Dallam and Steven Jonas provide you with the same advanced conditioning concepts and programming used by today's elite triathletes.

By understanding the science behind the principles, you will incorporate physiology, biomechanics, nutrition, and injury prevention into your regimen to address your specific needs and the demands of competition. Specifically, you'll learn these techniques:

-Use weight training, plyometrics, and core development to accelerate skill development in all phases of swimming, running, and cycling.

-Apply metabolic training to improve endurance and race speed.

-Combine sport-specific skills, such as mounting and dismounting, with metabolic training to improve transition times between phases.

-Develop more efficient movement patterns for increased performance potential and reduced injury.

-Assess health and physical status to avoid overtraining.

Complete with sample programs for each triathlon distance, technique analysis, training- and race-specific fueling strategies, and tips for motivation, focus, and goal setting, "Championship Triathlon Training" will optimize your training and maximize your results.

Whether it's surfer Jamilah Star riding an unprecedented fifty-foot wave, Olympic marathoner Deena Kastor winning the bronze in 2004, or top-ranked climber Lynn Hill facing a tough climb at Joshua Tree, one thing is certain: These women have game. What's more, these amazing athletes capture our imagination. How do they do it? What motivates them to win and to become the best in their sport? In Women Who Win, adventure writer Lisa Taggart takes us behind the scenes, deep into the training regimens and the ultimate victories, to see what makes these women--and some of their fellow female athletes--tick. Whether their sport is soccer, cycling, mountain biking, or volleyball, these athletes will inspire you to pursue your athletic dreams, whether it's running a marathon or catching your first wave.

Runner's World's The Runner's Brain will show readers how to unlock and capture the miraculous potential of the body's most mysterious and intriguing organ and rewire their minds for a lifetime of athletic success. The book combines cutting-edge brain science and leading-edge sport psychology that the author Jeff Brown uses both in his private practice as a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist specializing in sport and performance psychology and as part of the medical team of several major road races including the Boston and Chicago Marathons. Chock-full of entertaining tales from runners of all abilities including some of the greats and branded by the foremost authority in running, Runner's World, readers get trustworthy information that's been proven to work both in the lab and on the road. Dr. Brown also touches upon his personal experience dealing with aggrieved runners in the medical tent following the tragic events at the 2013 Boston Marathon.