Book Description:

 A Cold Clear Day, The Athletic Biography of Buddy Edelen  (Windsprint Press) is the story of a young American expatriate who moved to England more than forty years ago, determined to prove that he had a place among the great distance runners in the world. After three years, he owned the world record for the marathon, the first American to hold that distinction since 1925. Two more years passed and Buddy returned to the United States. He was soon forgotten, even as the running boom gathered force.

“Southeast Essex would be different after Buddy’s last run in England on July 27, 1965. For five years the neighborhood had set its clock by Buddy’s morning run, his evening return, his trot down the street for a paper and the tidbits of food he called dinner, his back and forth jaunts along the sea front. People grew accustomed to his haphazard dress, the bizarre collection of torn sweat shirts strangely lettered, his dark socks stuck into old shoes, the backward lean as he ran and the twisted arm; through it all, the friendly word and the smile, always the acknowledgment that he was a guest in their country.

The streets would be quiet, like those rare days without a breeze off the seafront, just enough to make a person pause, notice the stillness and then move on.”  

Book Reviews:

 “...an arresting read. Murphy’s opening, in which schoolteacher Edelen trains solo in the English hamlet of Westcliffe-on-Sea, captures the life of an ascetic academic as an attractive hybrid of Good-bye, Mr. Chips and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.”  New York Running News

“In this superbly written book, author Frank Murphy brings one of America’s great distance pioneers into sharp focus....A Cold Clear Day is great reading, one of the best-written track biographies we’ve come across.” Track and Field News  

“A Cold Clear Day...moved me with what I didn’t know about an important American Marathoner. Then--and this was far more difficult--it moved me with what I know perfectly well about runners under stress, holding themselves together, reduced and revealed by the longest Olympic distance.” Sports Illustrated

“Murphy’s niftiest writing is his version of Edelen’s thoughts during his victory at the ‘64 Olympic Trials.”  USA Today

 “Murphy’s book transports you to another era.” Athletics Today (England)

A Cold Clear Day is the perfect book for a high school distance runner who wants to learn something about the real work needed to challenge yourself.” American Track and Field

A landmark book about running....One of the twenty-five books every marathoner should own. Marathon and Beyond