The longest race Inside the secret world of abuse, doping, and deception on Nike's elite running team

Kara Goucher

Book - 2023

"Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age, and though she was confronted with serious challenges including the death of her father and struggles with disordered eating, her prospects were bright. She won high school cross country championships in Minnesota, NCAA track and field championships at the University of Colorado, and when she graduated from college, Nike offered her a sponsorship deal. Alberto Salazar was a legend of American distance running. He ran at the University of Oregon, made two Olympic teams, and won the New York and Boston marathons in the 1980s. In the early 2000s he was hired by Nike as a coach to build a team that would reestablish the United States as a distance running ...powerhouse. Dubbed the Nike Oregon Project, it would be based at the company's spectacular headquarters near Portland. In 2004, Kara and her Olympian-runner husband, Adam, were invited by Alberto to move to Oregon and join the elite team. It seemed the opportunity of a lifetime and the start of her dreams coming true. But behind the scenes, Salazar was hiding dark secrets beneath his charming persona. Narcissistic and power hungry, he demanded complete control over his runners, pushing and then crossing the limits of anti-doping rules and even promoting a culture of abuse. Told with stunning honesty, The Longest Race is an unforgettable story and a call to action. Overcoming the powerful forces compelling her to remain silent, Kara became a key witness helping to get Salazar banned for life from professional coaching, as well as a crusader for female athletes. Ultimately, she reveals how she broke through the fear of losing everything she ever worked for, took back control of her life and career, and reclaimed her love of the sport of running"--

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  • Introduction
  • Author's Note
  • Preface
  • Chapter 1. Patty and Mirko
  • Chapter 2. Dreams of Jennings
  • Chapter 3. Changes
  • Chapter 4. Boulder
  • Chapter 5. What Next
  • Chapter 6. Love and Injuries
  • Chapter 7. Valhalla
  • Chapter 8. Welcome to "the Nike Family"
  • Chapter 9. Pushing the Edge
  • Chapter 10. Pros and Cons
  • Chapter 11. Jetting
  • Chapter 12. Rieti
  • Chapter 13. Heart
  • Chapter 14. Rules
  • Chapter 15. Flip the Switch
  • Chapter 16. Unstoppable
  • Chapter 17. Great Expectations
  • Chapter 18. Trials
  • Chapter 19. Beijing
  • Chapter 20. "Queens Girl"
  • Chapter 21. Trapped
  • Chapter 22. Heartbreak Hill
  • Chapter 23. Multiple Attempts
  • Chapter 24. Nine Months
  • Chapter 25. Survival Mode
  • Chapter 26. Muzzled
  • Chapter 27. From the Sidelines
  • Chapter 28. Proof
  • Chapter 29. Confrontation
  • Chapter 30. The Fight for Two Spots
  • Chapter 31. The FBI, London, Rondos
  • Chapter 32. Bombs
  • Chapter 33. Return of the Buffaloes
  • Chapter 34. Going Public
  • Chapter 35. The Haunted Place
  • Chapter 36. Under Oath
  • Chapter 37. Just Keep Going
  • Chapter 38. A Call for Change
  • Resources
  • A Note on Sources
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Booklist Review

In this revealing memoir, Goucher, a two-time Olympian, World Championship medalist, and top U.S. finisher at the Boston and New York City marathons, chronicles her introduction to running, battles with disordered eating, injuries, challenges as a collegiate athlete, and experiences as a professional runner coached by famed marathoner Alberto Salazar as part of Nike's Oregon Project. With storytelling skillfully guided by sports journalist Pilon, Goucher details the toxic environment of professional running, which involved "doping, exploitation of power, and corporate corruption," as well as mental and sexual abuse. At the height of a successful career, she finds herself asking, "How did I get here? And how do I get out?" Goucher became a whistleblower, helping to expose Salazar (now banned from the sport) and Nike's culture of misogyny. Her memoir goes beyond the coaching scandal headlines to explain Goucher's mindset as she strove to shine a light on an abusive system and industry. Backmatter includes resources for survivors of abuse.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A track-and-field star pulls the lid off the big money behind corporate sponsorship of sports. In 2015, Goucher made news when, with her husband, a fellow Olympian, she accused Alberto Salazar, their coach at the Nike Oregon Project, of violating anti-doping rules. The abuse she chronicles in this book goes further than that. Entering distance running only eight years after the women's marathon was made an Olympic event, Goucher was immediately confronted by issues of body image, and she imposed self-destructive rules against such things as eating more than 700 calories before dinner. Following the end of her NCAA collegiate eligibility, she won Nike's sponsorship as a professional runner, a contract that paid little (to women, at least) and involved a range of demerits as well as incentives. The money would come to be an issue. So would the training regime imposed by Salazar, who, Goucher alleges, abused her sexually and psychologically but who was held in such reverence--he founded the Nike program in the same year that he was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame--that it was difficult to raise objections and be believed. A helpful team doctor, meanwhile, discovered a demographically improbable streak of hyperthyroidism through the team roster, for which he prescribed an energy-boosting drug that was allowed under anti-doping rules. Later, Goucher used a battery of prescribed "supplements" that probably violated the spirit but not the letter of the regulations. Racism against African runners, sexism ("you were in a man's world, subject to contracts written by men, for men"), high-tech cheats, and corporate "financial dominance"--all enter into Goucher's list of charges. Though Nike has denied the author's allegations, it's telling that Salazar's name has been stricken from a building on the company's campus. Goucher makes a strong case against a powerful sports machine. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.