Since relocating to Alabama, I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on various books I’ve wanted to read. Personally, I like to read nonfiction, and as a runner, I enjoy reading running-related books. When I have time, I like reading biographies as well, but that is a post for another day.
Of course, most runners have read “Born to Run” but here the books I’ve read in the last few weeks. I’m not being paid to promote any of these books. All of these are short, easy reads.
The Mock Olympian is about a man who decided to race in every summer Olympic city between the years of 2012 – 2016. He went from partying in college to racing. It’s an inspirational story with witty humor and challenges any runner has probably faced.
You can also follow Micheal on Twitter here. He tweets plenty of updates and witty posts.
This was written by a very good friend of mine, Brian. Running to Leadville is a story about a runner who finds himself and his love of running, only to lose nearly everything.
While the primary focus is running, there is a lot of personal life and the daily struggles as well as love and romance too.
November Project:
I received a signed copy of the November Project book during the Runner’s World Race Festival Weekend.
I also was able to attend my first November Project workout there and was sore for days after (that could be because I also raced a 5k and half marathon ;).
Anyways, with my downtime, I was able to read the book, and I wish I had sooner! The book itself is hilarious and short, easy, fun and engaging read. It talks about how November Project was founded, workouts and you can do and basically convinces you to #justshowup.
The Road to Sparta is the story of how the marathon was created and 153-mile run from Athens to Sparta. Dean Karnazes, himself, honors Pheidppides by running the entire journey.
What I found fascinating is that Karnazes doesn’t use any of the modern sports nutrition like gels or gu. He fuels himself for this 153 mile run on figs and olives.
I also met Dean at the Runners World Festival and was lucky enough to be part of his book launch. In fact, he said I was the first person’s book he signed! We were able to listen to him talk first hand about recreating the entire journey and the struggles he faced. I *almost* want to do a longer run (long being 15 miles) using only olives or figs to fuel.
So now that I’ve finished those four, I’m looking for any more recommendations. If you choose to read any of them let me know, they are all great and exciting reads.
Questions for you:
Have you read any interesting books lately?
What is your favorite way to fuel a long run?
Duel in the Sun is one of my favorite running books!
The Long Run by Mishka Shubaly is short and really good
I haven’t read born to run but I’ll give it a go! I also really want to read the November project – I’ve heard lots about it but I didn’t realise it was a book. I’ve just finished reading “Fast Fuel: Food for Running Success: Delicious Recipes and Nutrition Plans to Achieve Your Goals” and that was super interesting, it mainly focused about how to use nutrition to achieve your goals – I’d highly recommend it!
I host a monthly running book club on my blog and we have read a lot of good books! Your friend Brian reached out to me, but since I just hosted Cory Reese I didn’t want to do another ultra book too soon. Sounds good tho! BTW, Cory’s book was probably my favorite book of 2016. He’s hilarious!
I highly recommend Run the World by pro runner Becky Wade.
I’ve heard that’s another good one! Thank you for sharing!
If you listen to podcasts, I would recommend the Runners World Podcast! They interviewed Dean a while ago and he talked about his experience working on this book. It was really interesting! I’m starting to read a book where a bunch of famous runners talk about their first marathon and give advice. Can’t wait to get into it!
I just wrote a post about this! Link is here: https://happycrazyfastlife.wordpress.com/2017/01/10/what-im-reading-2016/
I’ll check these out – thanks for the recommendations!
I just finished Run the World by Becky Wade. I can’t recommend it enough if you like books about running. She took a year to go on a Watson Fellowship and run with different cultures around the world. It’s really interesting stuff.
I really liked First Ladies of Running. If you haven’t read it, I think you would like it too. I have read a lot of running books but not any of these you mentioned, so I guess I should check them out.