Steve Burgess, a former top Bermuda middle distance runner, has written a book to mark 25 years since the launch of his Back to Basics fitness programme through which he has coached thousands of athletes of all ages and abilities.

His book, Back to Basics: 25 years of coaching, mentoring, guiding, arrived in Bermuda last week ahead of Sunday’s celebration and launch at Muse Restaurant on Front Street at 6pm, but already the limited edition copies have been sold, with more books scheduled to be reprinted.

The 70-page hardback book contains photos of Burgess during his career as an 800 metres Bermuda record holder and, lately, with Back to Basics where he has trained the likes of Flora Duffy and Tyler Butterfield, the Olympic triathletes. He estimates he has coached about 3,000 athletes over the past 25 years.

Dr David Saul, a recent inductee into the Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame, wrote the introduction for the book, relating how he and Burgess used to “race each other around the two-mile course at Camden, each trying to break ten minutes while not wanting to lose to the other.”

Added Dr Saul: “Even in those early days two things stood out, his determination to win and that winning smile that came regardless of the result.”

Running and then helping others has been a labour of love for Burgess who works with his first client at 5am and his last at 9pm with a full-time job in between.

“I always believed if it wasn’t fun it wasn’t worth doing,” said Burgess in the book. “It doesn’t depend on the coach; it has to come from within.”

The book takes the reader on a journey through Burgess’s early years before later making a name for himself as a talented runner and then a coach.

“I wanted to do a celebration of 25 years with Back to Basics, thanking the clients, thanking friends,” said Burgess.

“It started in my neighbourhood where most of the guys I grew up with [near St John’s Field] played Cup Match. I give credit to Hazard Dill, a 1948 Olympian in London and my former neighbour.

“It’s interesting that when I went over to London in 2012 to see Tyler and Flora compete I thought ‘gee, this guy [Dill] was here in 1948’. The book looks back at my early development and talks of mentors like Dr Saul, Walwyn Hughes, Sid Howard, from the United States, and Lewis Gainey, my coach at the University of Georgia. Dr Saul just got inducted and he had me come and sit at his table, we have that respect for each other.

"I have 180 people training with me on a Wednesday night and when I took that programme over from Mid-Atlantic Athletic Club (MAAC) there were 15 runners.”

Burgess has had clients join his programme just a couple of weeks after arriving on the Island, finding a personal trainer soon after finding an apartment.

“For me that says a lot,” he said. “I didn’t have the funds to open a gym but saw the merits of a gym.

“Sonya Dismont Burgess [no relation] named the company Back to Basics. Wednesday nights I run the track programme for MAAC, then I do an after-school programme, a group on Wednesday morning and a group on Friday lunchtime. I’ll be quick to admit, it cuts into your personal life, even though I don’t have a spouse or children.

“For those coming into this industry, you are helping others but it is going to take up your time. My first client is five in the morning and the last at nine at night.

"There is a quote I heard from David Wingate as a teenager, that ‘if you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life’. In the book I’ve got quotes from numerous athletes of how they feel about fitness classes that I’ve trained.”

Burgess coached Duffy and Butterfield as teenagers when they were promising middle distance runners. “Tyler set the [high school] Front Street Mile record of 4:27 and he is blessed with great genes,” Burgess said.

“We have a great relationship and whenever he comes home he comes to the track. I’ve worked with football teams Warwick United and Dandy Town, rugby teams and national cricket teams.”

Burgess pays tribute in the book to Laurie Joseph, a Front Street Mile winner in 1990 and ‘91, who died in a road crash along Harrington Sound Road in 2003 at the age of 29.

“He was my first junior athlete and we’re setting up a foundation called ‘Running for Laurie’ and the objective of that is to help children develop in track and field where we would select a kid to be sent away to a camp,” Burgess said.

“It would give his name a lasting legacy. He never got the chance to run May 24, so I run May 24 with his picture on my vest, not that May 24 is my speciality!”

Middle distance was his speciality and Burgess also paid a tribute in the book to Aaron Evans, who broke his Bermuda 800 metres and University of Georgia indoor record in 2010.

He said that Evans made the “classiest of calls” to him when he broke the record, saying: “Mr Burgess, I finally got it. But Mr Burgess you held this record for 25 years. I’m 21-years-old. I can’t even imagine 25 years ... I haven’t been on earth that long.”

For Burgess the 25 years with Back to Basics have gone by very quickly.

Orders for the reprint can be made by contacting Burgess at Stevieb.backtobasics@gmail.com or by calling 292-0738.