It’s finally here.

Believe Training Journal by Lauren Fleshman and Roisin McGettigan-Dumas

How cool is this cover?! My friend Anna designed it.

Four years ago I went on one of those “anything is possible runs” with my friend Ro, and we decided to make a training journal together, because we would prefer journaling the old school way if anyone made a half decent one. Several thousand of you used them (thank you!), and gave us feedback that made our imaginations go wild with possibilities and ideas for the next edition. But there were two problems.

  1. Cost. Publishing your own book is way expensive. Like way way. You have to guess how many you will sell, write a big ass check in advance to have them made, and then store them in your living room  and cross your fingers that you can sell them all. We sold them all, but couldn’t afford to take the risk alone to buy enough new journals to meet demand. We needed a partner. A publisher.
  2. Cool Shit. As a random person on the street, you don’t have access to all the materials or colors you want, nor the experience to know what the hell you are doing. We did the best we could with the first two editions, and I’m super proud of our work, but to make the book of our dreams that our readers wanted, we sought out the help of some pros.

Something cool happened.

Velo Press, a boutique publisher specializing in legit endurance books, wanted to make our book with us, so we partnered up and got to work. The result is something I’m freaking over the moon about. Like I’m basically peeing my pants writing this right now. And that is really saying something since Ro and I nearly killed ourselves and one another a few times trying to squeeze a lifetime of experience into 12 short chapters, and Velo Press nearly lost all it’s hair dealing with our obsession over every single word, margin, and design detail. But you know what? It was all worth it.

9O5B9937Ever since I won the creative writing contest in first grade with my story about a pet Stegosaurus, I’ve wanted to write a book. Like a real one. And as much as I loved our first Believe I Am Journal, I always wanted to do more with it and felt restricted by the options available to self-publishers. This new book is perfect just the way it is, at least to me. I love the cover that Anna Kalbrenner from Picky Bars created for us. I love every single page. The photos and quotes throughout are from women I greatly admire. Even if nobody buys it, I’ll be proud of the result for the rest of my life.

That being said, it would be pretty sweet if you bought it and told all your friends.

The book is a Training Journal with a weekly layout, with plenty of space for recording stuff. Every month has a chapter written by us  on one of twelve key topics. We tell it like it is, pro style. There are quizzes and worksheets throughout that make these topics directly applicable to your personal objectives and goals. There are also useful lists, and pages specific to race planning and analysis. You don’t have to be a pro to use this journal, but you will develop a more professional mindset as a result. I think you’re gonna love it.

So where can you buy it?

Well, lots of places! Come November it will be in book stores, bike, tri, and running stores. And online lots of places of course! If you are a retailer interested in carrying our book, please email admin@asklaurenfleshman.com.  You can also pre-order it now, which guarantees you a copy hot off the press, you can get some extra perks, and it makes us super excited to know about how many books we will need to get!

“I want one! So how do I pre-order?”

Well, here’s your options right now: You can buy it on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Velo Press, Believe I Am, or Picky Bars.

9O5B9883The cheapest options are Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Because they are super big stores, they always get to put books on sale before they hit the shelves. For every 50 books sold, Ro and I make about enough in royalties to buy a latte. Obviously that’s less than ideal because I drink way more lattes than that, but that’s how the book industry works in case you are curious! It’s not all about making money though. There are important perks to selling through these big stores too, like building your book ranking, getting online reviews, and exposing your book to a ton of people.

You can also buy it from our awesome Publisher, Velo. The publisher of a book puts in a lot of work on the project, takes on financial risk to create the books, and only has a handful of projects a year to bet the house on. You can download a free preview of our book, and while you are there you should really check out some of their other titles. Matt Dixon’s book, Hanson’s Book…really great stuff. Authors make a better royalty through publishers. After my experience with Velo, I will definitely buy books directly from Publishers more often.

Or you can pre-order it from the authors!

Obviously this is our favorite option! But we’ll be freaking stoked if we get our book in lots of people’s hands no matter where you buy it. For reals.

If you wanna buy it from me, I set up a bundle package with Picky Bars that is pretty sweet and saves you some money on a bar/book combo. It includes the book and a variety six-pack (of bars). You get the bars right away, including our new flavor Cookie Doughpness, which isn’t available for general sale yet (it’s my new fave). Then, when the books arrive in mid-October, I’ll autograph your copy and pop it in the mail! It’s a sweet opportunity to get Picky Bars for cheap, try the new flavor, AND get your book autographed:

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Click the image above to check out the rest of the info on the journal and place an order. If you know anyone in your life who would benefit from this journal, I’d be super grateful if you’d share it with them. And once you start getting them in the mail, please find us on twitter @laurenfleshman and @RunRoRun and let us know what you think! Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to this book. My coaches, teammates, competitors, family, and friends are my teachers. I hope I represented you all well!

xo

Lauren