Paula: My Story So Far

What Paula achieved in her athletics career is amazing. Her autobiography is intelligent and heartfelt. She went through so much in her athletics career, and you have a feeling this autobiography needs an update as it ends just after the Athens Olympics, and of course her career continued after.

A book that gives some background into Paula's personal life as well as explaining the complexities of getting to, achieving and being an elite athlete.What you see at the big athletic events, whether there is failure or success, is told by Paula on a personal level and a level that can be understood by anyone looking to better themselves. She describes the hard work leading up to such events and how it can go either right or so wrong on the day after the years of hard daily training. The frustrations she has faced and personal disappointments only to be negatively represented by the media, but also of the elated success making her journey worth every effort.A great book, easy to read, written by a true elite of Great Britain.

Paula Radcliffe is an amazing athlete, a great ambassador for the sport, and after reading this book a great person. The problem I have is with her writing style, it did not suit me as a reader. I wanted to give this book 3 1/2 stars, but because of the many positives I took away from her story, her trials and tribulations, I decided to round it up rather than down.Paula is one those people who found early no what her passion in life is early on. Running. She also had the ability, means, and ambition to follow it. She worked very hard not only to get as good as she did in running but also to give herself options for life after running, or if she could not follow running as career.The negitive I have about the book as I said is the writing style. Most chapters are about a year in review. She start with the main point of that year, usually the important race of that year or improvements of that year. She takes us almost up to the starting line, but then backtracks to earlier in the year, or fast forwards to the lessons she learned from this race or experience. I kept thinking I must have missed something till I kept reading and reailised this was just the way the book was written. This going back and forward and looping of the chapters I just found infuriating and harder to read.The positives messages in the book do outweigh the negatives. The book is honest to a fault, in some cases even giving too much information. An example is in some chapters we even know the colour of her stools, and what to do if you need to go in the middle of a race. I completely agree with Paula's stance on bring more attention to the issue of drug cheats, and dopers. Though her moral high ground on playing dirty does not stretch to competing against her brother. One of the messages Paula gets across is the that athletes are not machine they are as prone, or because of the high intensity of their training, even more prone to injuries than the rest of us. For athletes there is an important message about the thin line between ignoring the voices telling you to stop and keep going, and recognising the voices of knowing something is wrong and stopping before doing permanent damage to yourself. Also how you deal things that have gone wrong. How you carry on and learn from these is what is the difference an athlete, an elite athlete and a champion.She gives her side of the story of Athens 2004. For anyone who has never done a marathon before they are 26.2 miles. The reason for this is a roman soldier ran that distance from his base to Rome to warn them of an attack. He delivered his message then droped dead from exertion. To honour him this the marathon was created. Running the distance is one thing dealing with the after effects is another. This does not even take into account countless miles one needs to run to be fit enough to do this distance. I think this needs to be remembered when reading this particular chapter. Then imagine attempting something like this at a professional pace at much less that 100%.Great stroy, great person, great athlete, the book is just let down slightly by the writing.

I enjoyed the chapters that really got down into the nitty gritty of her career but I found she spoke a lot about other people rather than her own achievements. The book got better by the end where she touches on her Athens experience and New York but it was a slow book to be honest.

Great insight into one of the best female distance runners of our generation. Great read on the highs and lows of elite level running.

An honest and down-to-earth account of her life so far, from childhood, to the heartache of Athens. I really like and appreciate how this account hasn't been written as a 'novel' - like a lot autobiographies are. It's simply about her experiences and career as it happened. No sparkly bits added in for the sake of it. Radcliffe talks from the heart about the lows of her career as well as the glorious highs. Her commitment and work-ethic are admirable and the number of countries that running took her is amazing. Running is clearly her number one passion, reading Radcliffe's autobiography has inspired me to start running again with my local cross-country team. A great read from a world-class athlete.

Reading this autobiography you really have to feel for Paula. After so much success all through the years she is still short of an Olympic medal. And even after this book she was unsuccessful again in Beijing. Lets hope 2012 will be her year. GOLD MEDAL LONDON 2012 PAULA RADCLIFFE. Also her methods of training were brilliant and the great success she had in 2002, 2003 & 2005.

Good Runner, poor boosk.

I was just a few weeks away from running my first road race, at 5K to be held on Labor Day 2004, so I had become very interested in road racing and was watching the Olympics Women's marathon that fateful day that would become probably the worst running day of Paula Radcliffe's life. Before the race I had never heard of Paula Radcliffe, but I tend to root for a come from behind win in any event, and there were no Americans close to the front, so I became her fan that day. It was so disappointing to see her stop so close to the finish, even if she was out of medal contention. I know she had to be crushed to have to stop like that. I know a race like that can either destroy and athlete's career or make her stronger going forward. A couple of months later when she won the New York City Marathon I knew which it would be for her.The book tells Radcliffe's story from when she was a young girl starting to run, through her entire career up to the 2004 Olympic games in Athens. She goes into great detail in her training and in explaining how the numerous injuries affected her. In parts I thought maybe she was giving a little too much information, telling things I don't think I could ever tell, but I believe she wants the reader to understand how much goes into training and running if you're a world class athlete, and she held nothing back.Paula Radcliffe is British and the book has a very British personality to it that I, as an American, found very interesting. She used British vernacular throughout, without bothering to explain any of the idiosyncracies, which leads me to believe she expected mainly British fans to buy the book. Maybe I was an exception.It was an easy and very interesting book. I think any athlete would understand and enjoy this book.

That's the true story of a woman and athlete who deeply wants it and gets it, with hard work, willingness, injuries, but no lies

Adoro le biografie e questa è scritta molto bene, con molti dettagli. Si riesce veramente a capire i motivi di quello che è successo.

Sinceramente mi aspettavo di piu' da questo testo. Un po' monotono, differentemente da altre interessanti biografie di sportivi.Per un appassionato di maratona, comunque, non puo' mancare

Biografía de uno de mis ídolos. Es un poco larga y solamente está editada en inglés, o al menos yo no encontré la versión en castellano, con lo que cuesta un poco de leer a no ser que tengas un buen nivel de inglés.