I’m Here to Win is the how-to book by Chris McCormack, a triathlete and Ironman champion. Through the chapters, Chris uses his own career  to highlight the various things that are needed to succeed as a endurance athlete.

Using Chris’s advice, we will start with a few positives. Chris has led an interesting life and many of the stories are engaging in a very real way. His suggestions are clear and understandable to the non-athlete. The book itself, however, feels a bit unwieldy. It reads like an autobiography more than a how-to book and the stories are thrown in out of order. Chris will cover many important years up to the 2010 Ironman Hawaii then begin again in the next chapter, but focussing on different aspects of many of the same races. This non-linear method impedes attempts to read I’m Here to Win as a story, but the detailed narratives make it difficult not to get drawn in, just to get rammed back into the past at the end of the chapter.

This book will help many people that want to do endurance events on the amateur or professional level. If you can read I’m Here to Win as a instruction guide and hurtle through the non-linear telling to get to the heart of the advice, it is an exceptional tool. If you can’t, however, read the grey boxes and skip the stories.