Book Review: Amazing Racers
In Amazing Racers, longtime running journalist Marc Bloom profiles the cross country program at Fayetteville-Manlius HS (referred to as FM throughout the book) in upstate New York. How does a high school get a 320+ page book written about its cross country teams? The girls team won 11 Nike Cross Nationals titles in 12 years (the lone loss was a second place finish) and the boys added a title in 2014 along with six other top-5 finishes. Bloom sets out to explain how this happened and uncover the secrets of FM’s success.
The answer given is Coach Bill Aris’s ability to get complete buy-in from his athletes. Aris accomplishes this by infusing the program with his version of the “Stotan” philosophy (combining Stoic and Spartan) developed by eccentric Australian coach Percy Cerutty. The philosophy commands ultimate commitment to hard work, the team, and excellence. Aris wants his athletes to forsake modern society and its comforting charms in favor of focused devotion to running. Bloom paints scenes of athletes abandoning social media, running three times a day during summer training camps, and even skipping Thanksgiving turkey for PB&J sandwiches. The goal is to embrace the suffering of championship running and dare to be different. Coaches and competitors look askance at the FM teams as the elaborate pre-race festivities take over the Nike campus in Portland. It’s clear the FM kids are different. They are confused and uneasy with the pomp and circumstance. Once the race starts though, they dominate with maniacal grit. They celebrate their victories quietly. Job done.
So now the secret’s out. Can other teams just copy the FM formula? Not quite. Replicating the quasi-religious ethos requires specific personalities. Aris has an eye for finding non-runners with the right mental makeup to join the team from other sports. He also doesn’t have set workouts; he makes it up as he goes, so Bloom can’t give you any training plans to follow. And it becomes clear that one of the program’s primary assets is 2,000 acre Green Lakes State Park, just north of campus with inspiring woods, miles of soft trails, and challenging hills perfect for distance running. Nothing the FM runners encounter on an XC course is more difficult than what they take on at Green Lakes day after day.
The book is well written and Bloom had extensive access to Aris and the FM athletes. The second half can feel repetitive; once the FM machine starts rolling, you can see how each chapter is going to end. Bloom does his best to add drama, but victory seems inevitable, just as Aris would want it to feel.
Buy it, borrow it, skip it?
Borrow it, unless you are a high school XC fanatic, in which case Amazing Racers warrants a spot in your library.
