Front Runner

"Sports journalism at its finest, a book so well-researched that everyone who thinks they know Pre is in for a big surprise.Christopher McDougall, bestselling author ofBorn to Run

On the 50th anniversary of American Track and Field icon Steve Prefontaines tragic death comes an essential reappraisal of his life and legacy, a powerful work of narrative history exploring the forces and psychology that made Prefontaine great and separating the man from the myths.

In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascinationa talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brands first celebrity-athlete face.

Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan OMeara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaines life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontainethe first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty yearsprovides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that shaped Prefontaine on and off the track. Bringing new depth to an athlete long eclipsed by his brash, aggressive running style and the heartbreak of his death at twenty-four, OMeara finds the man inside the myth, scrutinizing a legacy that has shaped American sports culture for decades.

What emerges is a singular portrait of a distinctly American talent, a story written in the pines and firs of the Pacific Northwest back when running was more blue-collar love than corporate pursuitthe story of a runner whose short life casts a long, fast shadow.