Marathon Running

Today in history - April 19th, 1897 - The first Boston Marathon is held.  Also, this year's Boston Marathon was just this Monday!  Here are 10 books on marathon running.

26 Marathons: What I Learned About Faith, Identity, Running, and Life From My Marathon Career by Meb Keflezighi - Four-time Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi shares his lessons on life, family, faith, and running through a reflection on each of the 26 marathons he's run in his storied career. When four-time Olympian Meb Keflezighi ran his final marathon in New York City on November 5, 2017, it marked the end of an extraordinary distance-running career. Meb will be remembered as the only person in history to win both the Boston and New York City marathons as well as an Olympic marathon silver medal. Meb's last marathon was also his 26th, and each of those 26 marathons has come with its own unique challenges, rewards, and outcomes for him. Through focused narrative, Meb describes key moments and triumphs that made each marathon a unique learning experience and shows runners--whether recreational or professional--how to apply the lessons he's learned to their own running and lives. Chronologically organized by marathon, 26 Marathons offers wisdom Meb has gleaned about life, family, identity, and faith in addition to tips about running, training, and nutrition. Equal parts inspiration and practical advice, this book will provide readers an inside look at the life and success of one of the greatest runners living today.

26.2 Miles to Boston: A Journey Into the Heart of the Boston Marathon by Michael Connelly - For this revised and updated edition, author and lifetime Bostonian Michael Connelly will conduct interviews with runners of the 2013 Marathon and those preparing to run in 2014 - which will prove to be the Marathon's most historic and highly attended. While still containing the wonderful trivia, history, and traditions from the original 26 Miles to Boston, this updated edition widens the POV, weaving in the shocking events surrounding the 2013 race, the aftermath, and Boston's resilience and commitment to make the 2014 race something to celebrate for the ages. With a new foreword by four-time Boston Marathon winner Bill Rodgers.

Eat & Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek - For nearly two decades, Scott Jurek has been a dominant force--and darling--in the grueling and growing sport of ultrarunning. In 1999, as a complete unknown, he took the lead of the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile traverse over the old Gold Rush trails of the California Sierra Nevada. He won that race seven years in a row, setting a course record along the way. Twice he won the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile "jaunt" through Death Valley. Recently he set an American record of 165.7 miles in 24 hours--6 1/2 marathons in one day. And he was one of the elite runners who traveled to Mexico to run with the Tarahumara Indians, as profiled in the bestseller Born to Run. His accomplishments are nothing short of extraordinary, but that he has achieved all of this on a plant-based diet makes his story all the more so.
In Eat and Run, Scott Jurek opens up about his life and career--as an elite athlete and a vegan--and inspires runners at every level. From his Midwestern childhood hunting, fishing, and cooking for his meat-and-potatoes family, to his early beginnings in running (he hated it), to his slow transition to ultrarunning and veganism, to his world-spanning, record-breaking races, Scott's story shows the power of an iron will and blows apart all the stereotypes of what athletes should eat to fueloptimal performance. Chock-full of incredible, on-the-brink stories of endurance and competition, fascinating science, and accessible practical advice--including his own favorite plant-based recipes--Eat and Run will motivate everyone to "go the distance," whether that means getting out for that first run, expanding your food horizons, or simply exploring the limits of your own potential.

Life is a Marathon: A Memoir of Love and Endurance by Matt Fitzgerald - Step after step for 26.2 miles, hundreds of thousands of people run marathons. But why--what compels people past pain, lost toenails, 5.30 am start times, The Wall? Sports writer Matt Fitzgerald set out to run eight marathons in eight weeks across the country to answer that question. At each race, he meets an array of runners, from first timers, to dad-daughter teams and spouses, to people who'd been running for decades, and asks them what keeps them running. But there is another deeply personal part to Matt's journey: his own relationship to the sport--and how it helped him overcome his own struggles and cope with his wife Nataki's severe bipolar disorder.

Marathon Man: My 26.2 Mile Journey From Unknown Grad Student to the Top of the Running World by Bill Rodgers and Matthew Shepatin - Within a span of two hours and nine minutes, Bill Rodgers went from obscurity to legend, from Bill Rodgers to "Boston Billy." In doing so, he instantly became the people's champ and the poster boy for the soulful 1970s distance runner. Having won the Boston Marathon and New York Marathon four times each, he remains the only marathoner to have appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice. Winning the Holy Grail of marathons in an unthinkable record time changed Bill's life forever.
But his dramatic breakthrough in Boston also changed the lives of countless others, instilling in other American runners the belief that they could follow in his footsteps, and inspiring thousands of regular people to lace up their shoes and chase down their own dreams. In the year before Rodger's victory at the 1975 Boston Marathon, 20,000 people had completed a marathon in the United States. By 2009, participants reached nearly half a million.
Thirty-seven years later Bill Rodgers still possesses the same warm, endearing, and whimsical spirit that turned him into one of America's most beloved athletes. In Marathon Man he details for the first time this historic race and the events that led him there.

Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide: Advice, Plans, and Programs for Half and Full Marathons by Hal Higdon - Especially in tough economic times, running offers an affordable and positive way to relieve stress  and gain a sense of accomplishment. Marathons and--more than ever--half-marathons are the ultimate achievement for runners and have experienced an unprecedented boom in the last several years.
New hunger for reliable information on marathon and half-marathon training, as well as new technologies that have revolutionized ordinary people's ability to train intelligently, means the time is right for a new edition of longtime Runner's World contributor Hal Higdon's classic guide to taking the guesswork out of preparing for a marathon, whether it's a reader's first or fiftieth.
Since its original publication in 1993, Higdon's definitive manual has sold over a quarter of a million
copies through all channels. The book is such a consistent seller for many reasons, but above and
beyond all the others is this one: It works. At the core of the book remains Higdon's clear and essential information on training, injury prevention, and nutrition. With more than 25 percent new material, this fourth edition of a running classic will be a must-own for both longtime runners and those new to the sport.

Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reasons Why Women Run by Kristin Armstrong - In Mile Markers, Runner's World contributing editor Kristin Armstrong captures the ineffable and timeless beauty of running, the importance of nurturing relationships with those we love, and the significance of reflecting on our experiences. This collection considers the most important reasons women run, celebrating the inspiring passion runners have for their sport and illustrating how running fosters a vitally powerful community. With unique wit, refreshing candor, and disarming vulnerability, Armstrong shares her conviction that running is the perfect parallel for marking the milestones of life. From describing running a hardfought race with her tightly-knit group of sweat sisters, to watching her children participate in the sport for the very first time, Armstrong infuses her experiences with a perspective of hope that every moment is a chance to become a stronger, wiser, more peaceful woman. Running threads these touching stories together, and through each of them we are shown the universal undercurrents of inspiration, growth, grace, family, empowerment, and endurance.

My Year of Running Dangerously: A Dad, A Daughter, and a Ridiculous Plan by Tom Foreman - CNN correspondent Tom Foreman's remarkable journey from half-hearted couch potato to ultra-marathon runner, with four half-marathons, three marathons, and 2,000 miles of training in between; a poignant and warm-hearted tale of parenting, overcoming the challenges of age, and quiet triumph. As a journalist whose career spans three decades, CNN correspondent Tom Foreman has reported from the heart of war zones, riots, and natural disasters. He has interviewed serial killers and been in the line of fire. But the most terrifying moment of his life didn't occur on the job--it occurred at home, when his 18-year old daughter asked, 'How would you feel about running a marathon with me?' At the time, Foreman was approaching 51 years old, and his last marathon was almost 30 years behind him. The race was just sixteen weeks away, but Foreman reluctantly agreed. Training with his daughter, who had just started college, would be a great bonding experience, albeit a long and painful one. My Year of Running Dangerously is Foreman's journey through four half-marathons, three marathons, and one 55-mile race. What started as an innocent request from his daughter quickly turned into a rekindled passion for long-distance running--for the training, the camaraderie, the defeats, and the victories. Told with honesty and humor, Foreman's account captures the universal fears of aging and failure alongside the hard-won moments of triumph, tenacity, and going further than you ever thought possible.

Running Home by Katie Arnold - For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats--walking high lines a thousand feet off the ground without a harness, or running one hundred miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality.
His death was cataclysmic, unleashing a perfect storm of grief and anxiety. She and her father, an enigmatic photographer for National Geographic, had always been kindred spirits. He introduced her to the outdoors and took her camping and on bicycle trips and down rivers, and taught her to find solace and courage in the natural world. And it was he who encouraged her to run her first race when she was seven years old.
Now nearly paralyzed by fear and terrified she was dying, too, she turned to the thing that had always made her feel most alive: running. Over the course of three tumultuous years, she ran alone through the wilderness, logging longer and longer distances, first a 50-kilometer ultramarathon, then 50 miles, then 100 kilometers. She ran to heal her grief, to outpace her worry that she wouldn't live to raise her own daughters. She ran to find strength in her weakness. She ran to remember and to forget. She ran to live.
Ultrarunning tests the limits of human endurance over seemingly inhuman distances, and as she clocked miles across mesas and mountains, Katie learned to tolerate pain and discomfort, and face her fears of uncertainty, vulnerability, and even death itself. As she ran, she found herself peeling back the layers of her relationship with her father, discovering that much of what she thought she knew about him, and her own past, was wrong.

Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon by Ed Caesar - Two hours to cover twenty-six miles and 385 yards. It is running's Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. But now we can glimpse the mountaintop. The sub-two hour marathon will require an exceptional combination of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than anyone who has run before. So who will it be?
In this spellbinding book, journalist Ed Caesar takes us into the world of elite marathoners: some of the greatest runners on earth. Through the stories of these rich characters, like Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai, around whom the narrative is built, Caesar traces the history of the marathon as well as the science, physiology, and psychology involved in running so fast for so long. And he shows us why this most democratic of races retains its brutal, enthralling appeal--and why we are drawn to test ourselves to the limit.
Two Hours is a book about a beautiful sport few people understand. It takes us from big-money races in the United States and Europe to remote villages in Kenya. It's about talent, heroism, and refusing to accept defeat. It is a book about running that is about much more than running. It is a human drama like no other.