Chrissie Wellington's Inspiring Journey to World Champion: A Life Without Limits

Matthias Eriksson: Grateful for Chrissie's Honesty and Transparency. Sharing the highs and lows of her incredible journey.

Sweden on Aug 08, 2022

J. Lock: Even though I don't do triathlons, I admire Chrissie and think she is an incredible athlete, her results speak for themselves, she just annihilated her competitors.

It is incredible how someone with world class endurance just fell into the sport by chance and how she ran a debut marathon of sub 3.10 with very little training is incredible.

A surprisingly large amount of the first half of the book is taken up by her relationship with her coach, an Australian who had an indecent incident with an underage girl and is banned from coaching in his native country for life.

The style of the book could annoy some readers, the writing could have been tighten up in many places, there is a lot of uninteresting facts - the names of her bikes, the name of the first boy she kissed, what the local nightclub was called etc. There is also an annoying habit of putting additional information in brackets. We learn she rarely throws things away so her first swimming certificate (still got it) her first tri bike (still got it) a souvenir a friend got her from NY (still got it) etc

Many readers probably aren't interested where she first kissed her current boyfriend or that her...

United Kingdom on May 06, 2014

Amazon Customer: I have learned in a \short period of time that triathletes are a very strange breed of athlete. While largely toiling in anonymity, the triathlete mercilessly works her/his body to the absolute limits of human endurance. They are acutely (and sometimes grossly) intimate with every biological function and become soul-mates with pain and drudgery. It is the constant testing of their limits that leads to the belief in limitlessness (or as was said in The Matrix, "there is no spoon"). In "A LIfe Without Limits", this boundless energy and spirit is explained with beautiful clarity by the sport's leading lady over the past decade - Chrissie Wellington.

As much a story about pursuing dreams and the sacrifices necessary to make them happen, as it is a story about athletic achievement, Chrissie takes us on a guided tour of a life lived in direct opposition to cubicles, committee meetings and the silent desperation of a well-meaning advocate for the developing world. Despite all of the earmarks of an effective bureaucrat working to improve the lives of developing populations throughout the world, Chrissie took up triathlon at a relatively late age and became dominant within the...

United States on Jan 09, 2013

Amory Ross: Chrissie Wellington is a role model juxtaposing the in-your-face arena of public figures. She is a welcome change to the ego-centric rock-star status athletes. She quite literally punches through her suffering and earns her place at the top every time she enters a race.

To say Chrissie Wellington is an enigma would befoul her. She is someone who is not capable of being described in one word. What pushes her is the central struggle of this book.

What seems to push her is a figure in her life that never showed her much emotion. Her first coach, Brett Sutton, a controversial figure in endurance sports, never seemed to really show her the reactions she was looking for. He kept her on the bottom rung as he did with all his athletes. He is incapable of attending her races, and instead of rejoicing in her accomplishments, he focuses in on his payments. Having a coach like that can be a great distraction from real purpose.

Ms. Wellington opens up about her struggle with eating disorders; this shows that an athlete who presents as bulletproof in races fights demons within. While I do not agree with her advice on treatment of eating disorders (to eventually snap out of...

United States on Nov 21, 2012

Lost In 80's: This is a great book, well written and fast paced - I finished it quickly and wished it had been longer. I'd recommend it to anyone, particularly those who participate or follow triathlon, or its constituent sports.

What Chrissie Wellington achieved in her 5 short professional years in what many consider to be the toughest of endurance sports, Ironman, is nothing short of astonishing. If this were a work of fiction, if someone was to create a character that won every Ironman race they entered, you'd say interesting story, but that just doesn't happen. But Chrissie's story is fact and likely her record will never be bettered; no-one she's competed against in all those races will achieve what she has, because they lost to her, at least once, someone new will have to come along. Look at other sports and it's hard to find anyone with a comparable record, or to find someone who has won by the margins she has.

How Chrissie ended up dominating Ironman makes for compelling reading. Her early years hint at nothing significant to follow; nothing outstanding sporting wise, and often illness caused by her obsessions seemingly would have blighted her achievements. Her journey in...

United Kingdom on May 06, 2012

Zola: A Life Without Limits frustrated me. Without doubt Chrissie Wellingtion is an extremely gifted athlete and its obivious that she has a few grey cells up top. But I couldnt reconcile the dedicated, disciplined, driven, focussed athelete with the whiney, crying, narcistic,worrier that she appears to be. Poor Tom is all I can say. I am fascinated that someone who can be so focussed and dig so deep in the middle of a race, have the ability to drive through the worst of the worst pain yet come across as someone who would be such a pain to live with. Loved the stories about training with Brett Sutton ( but have no idea how she put up with him for even one week let alone the time she did train under him), loved the comparisons between Dave Scott and Brett Sutton and their training philosphies and I did appreciate Chrissie's honesty wherein she admitts to her deep seated fears about how she will deal with her first defeat over the Ironman distance when and if it ever happens. Chrissie, dont ever stop listening to your brother, he is the voice of reason in your life. He is the only one in the Wellington family who doesn't spend half his life crying. OMG, the crying, I was so over it by the...

United Kingdom on Apr 30, 2012

ACB(swansea): Chrissie Wellington's autobiography is in her own words, and, in short, one of a self- confessed obsessive- compulsive and 'self-control freak', to do the best her body and mind can. We ordinaries may not begin to comprehend. This means total dedication and pummelling the body and mind to regimens that are beyond compliance and endurance for all but the elite. Ironman is a gruelling non-stop swim, cycle,run. (2.4 miles, 112 miles, and a marathon). Chrissie has won all 13 ironman competitions entered including world titles from 2007-2009 (ill 2010) then regained 2011. The book contains the obsessive-compulsive nature of the author. Nothing second best accepted.3 A's at A-level, Ist class degree at Birmingham. Masters (MA). Entered law. Became professional in 2007 (aged 30) with the considerable help of Australian coach Brett Sutton. Her coaches put the press on. Eating disorders (bulaemia and anorexia) are put into her overall life. Vegetarianism followed by meat-eating are not surprising in the challenges faced. Questions on her sexual orientation. Broken limbs, muscle strains. Nothing stops. Parents and brother were of great help and acknowledged. The middle part of the book is...

United Kingdom on Feb 23, 2012