by Larry Eder
American Track & Field titled Starting Blocks.
We asked James Dunaway, editor of American Track & Field, to read the book and write a review, and here is what he wrote! We hope that all of you go out and buy this book! RBR highly recommends it!
Meb’s Amazing Story
Mebraton Keflezghi was one of 10 children born to a family
in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, one of
the two or three poorest nations in the world. When he was a few months old,
the family left their home and moved 50 miles away to a small village to escape
an invading Ethiopian army. They lived in a two-room house – one room for
cooking, the other for eating and sleeping — without electricity or running
water. They herded livestock, scrounged for firewood, scraped for food; sometimes
Meb was so hungry he ate dirt
The children went to school whenever there was a school to
go to. They studied hard. They dreamed of America, where “everyone had a
villa.” And the family stuck together.
When they arrived in San
Diego in 1987, Meb was put into sixth grade, a
12-year-who spoke no English. Yet he, and his brothers and sisters, became top students
( their parents told them the only acceptable grade was an A).
Meb started to run as a seventh grader, went on to become a
state champion, an NCAA champion at UCLA, an American citizen in 1999, an
Olympic silver medalist in 2004, and a winner of the New York City Marathon in
2009. All these races and many more, and many ups and downs, are chronicled in
“Run to Overcome,” the book Meb has written with our own Dick Patrick, but the
most important parts are not what he accomplished, but how he and his family
and friends did it.
There are many, many important things about running in Meb’s
book that you won’t find in any other book about running. About character. About persistence. About
belief in oneself.
If you’ve forgotten know how lucky you are to be an American,
Meb Keflezghi’s book, ‘Run to Overcome’ will remind you…unforgettably.
If you think that being dirt-poor can prevent you from
becoming what you want to become, “Run to Overcome” will make you think again.
If you think that the American Dream is a thing of the past,
“Run to Overcome” will show you it’s alive and well.
I can’t imagine that there’s a single coach or athlete who
couldn’t profit by reading it.
——-James Dunaway
You can find Run to Overcome at www.Runtoovercome.com, and wherever fine books are sold!
(Just to be clear, this is a review.
We do not take payments for reviews of books or any other products. If
one is paid by the product’s manufacturer, or sales agent, to write
something about a product, that is not a review, that is an ad. We value
our relationship with our readers, so, ads are ads, and reviews are
reviews. If you ever have a concern about our editorial standards, please let me know at [email protected].)
