Book Notes: FROM COUCH POTATO TO ENDURANCE ATHLETE by Hilary Topper
In her debut memoir From Couch Potato to Endurance Athlete: A Portrait of a Non-Athletic Triathlete (August 2022, Meyer & Meyer Sport), Hilary JM Topper documents her journey of becoming an endurance athlete in her 40s and beyond while also surviving daily life obstacles: operating her own small business and working 60+ hours per week, mothering two children, caregiving for aging parents, responding to deaths of family members and friends, juggling COVID-19 complications, and more.
Sport Stories Press champions sportswomen and amateur adult athletes, just like Topper, so we are thrilled to see her story published and have the opportunity to share our book notes with you. We hope to read and publish more books about amateur athletes and their journeys to inspire lifelong athletic participation for adults of all ages and abilities.
BOOK SUMMARY FROM THE PUBLISHER
For those who have ever thought they were too old or too unfit to compete in a triathlon, From Couch Potato to Endurance Athlete will prove that it is never too late to compete!
This is a story about overcoming life’s obstacles-from injury and business trouble to grief and loss and everything in between. Hilary Topper was a 48-year-old working mother who once upon a time had practically failed high school gym class. She was working 60-plus hours a week, running a small business. Her focus was on others-her children, her aging parents, and her staff. In the meantime, her weight kept increasing, and she was unhappy with the way her life was going. She needed a change. To turn things around, she joined a gym for the first time in her life.
This book will take the reader on Hilary’s decade-long journey as she trains for and runs her first 5K, swims the aqua-blue waters of the Caribbean, cycles a hilly course in Milwaukee, learns how to run-walk her way through the New York City Marathon, and competes in her first triathlon in Sanibel, Florida. The reader will be right with Hilary as she narrates each experience-even a 5-mile swim in the murky waters of Long Island.
Hilary’s story will move, motivate, and inspire readers. They will laugh and cry as they follow her on her journey.
“I competed for fun. I did it to challenge myself. I did it to get healthy. I did it because I loved it.”
SPORT STORIES PRESS BOOK NOTES
Although Topper says she writes and dedicates the book to other back-of-pack athletes like herself, even front-to-middle-pack athletes will find meaning and/or enjoyment in this book. I'm a lifelong competitive swimmer with national age group records and US Masters Swimming top ten times. I've also competed in and placed in many running races and, a few years ago, trained for a competed in a few sprint triathlons. I enjoyed hearing the details of Topper's first swimming, biking, running, and triathlon adventures because it brought back memories and helped me to reflect on my own sports experiences.
Reading this book feels like you're getting a glimpse into Topper's personal training log, which makes the narrative very accessible and easy to follow. The book is organized chronologically with short chapters that often focus on one training event or competition at a time and end with a "Lesson Learned" -- a sport and/or life lesson that Topper learned from that experience that readers and athletes of all levels can relate to.
The accumulation of training and competitive events over several years shows her athletic progression over time: for example, how she could barely swim to training for a half-Ironman, which includes a 1.2 mile swim; however, the narrative often feels like a catalogue of events without much introspection. The swiftness through events and details (this happened, then this happened, and then this…) left me wondering why a particular events were included when they did not help to drive the narrative forward. I longed for more personal reflection about those events or at least more scenes and sensory details, rather than just expository writing, to help me better connect to Topper's experiences from her perspective. My personal preference would have been to read more in-depth accounts of fewer experiences that illustrated Topper's journey.
Because of the cataloguing of events, I was halfway through the book and still wondering what the narrative was building up to, or if it was meant to be a compilation of events. The pieces of her journey were interesting enough to keep me engaged, so I continued to read with pleasure and curiosity, even if uncertain of the trajectory. In the end, Topper does conclude with a metaphor that makes the story’s overall purpose clear: sports and other life events are part of a bumpy, nonlinear road, and both are worth it when you put your heart into them.
Woven within the story are also very brief fragments of Topper's life outside of sport, endurance, and triathlon training that include relationships with family members, friends, and co-workers and challenges and successes of operating her own business. This is another area in which I'd have loved to have had more personal reflection or introspection from Topper. I assume she didn't dive into those details because she didn't want them as the main focus of her story, but those areas felt a little flat; for example, it would have been useful to see more scenes of her family during childhood or as an adult, rather than get that information through expository text.
Regardless, the fragments of life outside of sport worked well to put her sporting challenges and successes into context and show that sports competition became a part of her lifestyle, not her whole life. It is an important moment of the story when she questions the purpose of sports participation in the midst of family and business struggles. After detailing a sudden and unexpected death of a family member, she writes, "I started rethinking my season after this happened. There were things in my life way more important than competing in a triathlon or even running a marathon. I competed for fun. I did it to challenge myself. I did it to get healthy. I did it because I loved it. […] I needed to rediscover my love for triathlon" (p. 179). Ultimately, Topper concludes that sports are a way for her to stay mentally and physically healthy even when (or especially when) living through those other important life challenges.
I'd recommend this book to others who are seeking new challenges and aren't sure where to start; those who have sought new challenges and are hesitant to continue; and those who embrace new challenges and want an opportunity to reflect on their own journeys, whether or not those challenges are sport-related.
Sport Stories is actively seeking book notes (reviews) about books by, for, and about sportswomen and/or amateur athletes. Contact us if you have a book you’d like us to review or would like to contribute your own book notes.
