Tuesdau July 1, 2025

Lyle Smith

Blood, Sweat & Spikes

About the Book:

At the height of the first American Running Boom, a small town in New Jersey emerged as something of a magical place in the sport. Tiny Bernardsville, in the Somerset Hills produced dozens of local, state, age-group, and national champions and claimed a place in the pantheon of American distance running. A junior program fed a high school team of boys and girls that claimed legend status. Before he was one of the best collegiate distance running coaches on the planet, Mark Wetmore was the young, ambitious, experimental coach of this program. BLOOD, SWEAT & SPIKES is one story of one of those runners in that town and the people who made it unique in the history of the sport.

About Lyle

Lyle Smith is the author of the memoir, BLOOD, SWEAT & SPIKES and WHY YELLOW MATTERS, that explores the importance of asking “why?” in everything we do. He makes his home in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with his wife, Heather, and son Aiden. It is a place he’s wanted to return since he first ran the Junior Olympic Cross Country nationals here at age 11. Originally from Bernardsville, NJ, he can proudly say he was a part of The Long Red Line of Bernards distance running as a two-time high school All-American, 16-time NJ state champion and twice a member of the Penn Relays high school boys distance medley Championship of America team.

Praise:

“We chase happiness in grace, pleasure and more importantly, what the Greeks called “arete." Excellence. To get good at something molds us into better human beings not quite chasing windmills, but a pursuit to be better at distance running. But it really could be anything. Lyle Smith,  with “Blood sweat and spikes,” has shown us a peek of a world once lived before the internet and social media. A time and place and story that should be told.”

- Brad Hudson, Elite Marathon Coach, Author of “Run Faster.”