A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey

Chrissie Wellington when you meet her is bigger than life. Her bubbly smile and charm captures everyone's attention. This book gave me a new and more complete understanding of who Chrissie is as a person and a human being, she is more than just the champion of triathlon. She is doing more of things more of us should be doing - living life without limits.

Life is like a triathlon, long, enduring, one seemingly endless event one after another, and as an athlete (weekend warrior), I found the book refreshingly different as Chrissie described details about her personal challenges I would have never expected her to reveal. She has yet again demonstrated her inner strength and willingness to live and completely expose herself to everyone, a clear picture of a champion in life. I highly recommend this book if you follow Ironman events. It truly painted a picture of who I believe Chrissie really is every single day.

I haven't read the print version, but the audio performance was wonderful.

Chrissie. Inspirational.

This is a wonderful book with a strong story line. Chrissie's journey is so inspirational. I could have done without all of the United Nations stuff, but after all it is an autobiography. This is a book anyone can benefit from reading. Brilliant.

There's an interesting start to this book. Lance Armstrong narrates the foreword and I can't help but think of the doping scandal that overshadows his achievements now. His foreword kind of primed me to look out for machismo, for ego. This set the scene for me to feel sceptically about elite athletic pursuits and I wasn't much helped out of it by not warming to Chrissie as much as I'd have hoped.

I picked this up because I've read and loved books like "Into Thin Air" by Krakauer and "Born to Run" by McDougall. I was looking for an inspiring read, an insight into the mind of a person who pushes her body to the limit. While I found Chrissie to be very self-aware insightful and honest. I also couldn't help feeling like it was all a little too glossy. Challenges and set-backs are described, but over all it was success story after success story and I felt a little hit over the head with it.

I did learn a lot about the world of triathlon and ironman, as I'd hoped, but it didn't have the inspiring effect on me that Born to Run did. I didn't ultimately find Chrissie that accessible and did't feel a sense of inclusiveness around the description of her experience.

I think readers with an interest in adventure/sport stories or in biographies will get the most out of this. Chrissie is an exceptional woman and has used her success to raise the profile of charities. She's certainly a role model, I just don't know that she spoke that much to me personally.

The way in which the story telling is written is amazingly well done, and Polly did a fantastic job at narrating. Ironman Chrissie's story is full of will, mental and physical strength, but is also playful and humorous. Insights to her life, training, and wins make me want to be the best that I can be.

1st time for both

Yes! I am only a runner, but I now want to do a sprint tri!

Her story was told in a logical way with enough detail to keep the reader rivited.

I was at the two 70.3s in Lawrence, KS that she mentions in the book. A thrill to see her race.

The title is perfect - A Life Without Limits.

I love books about achieving things beyond what you can imagine! This book is an awesome story in that regard! I found it to be very motivating and a pleasure to listen to!

Yes, its inspiring :) Though, not everyone can live up to her abilities, its just awe-inspiring to hear her travels.

It is in the top 5 audiobooks I've listened to. Her journey to become one of if not the best is truly inspiring and puts what is possible into perspective.

Finding Ultra by Rich Roll is another really good book about endurance sports. Rich goes on an incredible journey also from alcohol abuse to cheeseburger addiction to placing in ultraman a year after he started training.

In general, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in how success is a journey not a destination irrespective of what your goal is. The candid unfiltered story of this athlete is inspiring no matter what your journey.

Never Give Up, Never Give In and Smile

N/A

Yes, anyone who desires self-evolution and improvement would really enjoy this book. I listened to it on my final training runs leading upto the Chicago Marathon as well as during the run itself. The narrator's voice is fantastic to listen to..the first few chapters were a bit boring (sorry Chrissie!!) there was a bit too much detail about growing up that didn't really lend themself to the story, but then again, maybe I was too focused on getting to the training and racing portion of the book. Either way, once it got there I was enthralled - Chrissie is truly an inspiring and hard core athlete with a sense of humor and well development self-awareness. This is not only a good autobriography it is VERY well written, which is rare.

Loved the narrator's voice, beautiful- would have enjoyed it no matter what she was reading. Chrissie's intro and epilogue added a bit of 'realness' that I enjoyed as well.

No, it was best enjoyed over several long runs.

I listened to this book while running the Chicago Marathon (just during the quieter bits of the race..anyone that has run it knows that most of the course is like a hurricane of noise and fun). The narrator and Chrissie became by running companions, when the run got hard they were there discussing a challenging time in Chrissies races and it gave me some perspective. I was sad when it was over (the Marathon AND the book).