Born in New Zealand with badly deformed feet, Anne Audain was adopted as an infant by a kindly, hard-working couple--a printer and his wife--who nurtured her and taught her that being adopted meant she was special because she had been selected over all the other available babies. 
But she was a tiny child, shy and bookish, and with her awkward, stumbling gait, she became a special target for teasing by her classmates. Finally, when she was 13, the doctors felt her bones were strong enough to sustain an operation, and her condition was surgically corrected. Liberated from much of the pain and awkwardness for the first time, she discovered athletics at a local club and literally in a matter of months had become a nationally known runner in New Zealand. 
She went on to run in the Olympics, win a Commonwealth Games gold medal, set a world track record, and to move to the United States where she became the first female professional runner, a Nike sponsored athlete, and the most successful woman road runner of all time, winning most of the major U.S. road races she entered from 1981 to 1991. Now a naturalized citizen, she is a successful motivational speaker and businesswoman, and is the founder of the Idaho Women's Fitness Celebration, one of the largest women's sporting events in the world. 
The biography of Anne Audain is a fascinating, inspiring story for all readers but especially for women, young people, and athletes.

Uncommon Heart

Parker, John L., Jr.

Audain, Anne

Parker, John L.

Biographies & Memoirs

Cedarwinds Pub Co

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Once a Runner-the best novel ever written about running (Runner's World)-comes that novel's prequel, the story of a world-class athlete coming of age in the 1950s and '60s on Florida's Gold Coast.
Quenton Cassidy's first foot races are with nature itself: the summer storms that sweep through his subtropical neighborhood. Shirtless, barefoot, and brown as a berry, Cassidy is a skinny, mouthy kid with aspirations to be a great athlete. As he explores his primal surroundings, along the Loxahatchee River and the nearby Atlantic Ocean, he is befriended by Trapper Nelson, the Tarzan of the Loxahatchee, a well-known eccentric who lives off the land.
In junior high school, quite by chance, Cassidy discovers an ability to run long distances, but his real dream is to be a basketball star. Still, Cassidy absorbs Nelson's view of running as a way of relating to and interacting with the natural world. Though he is warned of Nelson's checkered past, Cassidy dismisses the stories as superstitious gossip-until his small town is stunned by the disappearance of a prominent judge and his wife. Cassidy's loyalty to his friend is severely tested just as his opportunity to make his mark as a gifted runner comes to fruition.
John Parker's prequel to the New York Times bestseller Once a Runner vividly captures how a runner is formed and the physical endurance, determination, and mindset he develops on the way to becoming a champion. Racing the Rain is an epic coming-of-age classic about the environments and friendships that shape us all.

Racing the Rain Lib/E

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Blackstone Publishing

Once a Runner - Cassidys Lauf

Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verlag

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Books by Parker, John L.