Book Review: Eat & Run

My head knows that running well and eating well go together. My heart would rather this weren't so.

Unfortunately my habits tend to follow my heart rather than my head.

This is why, despite a profound disinterest in cooking and meal planning, I'm attempting to embrace both. It's also why I picked up Scott Jurek's memoir. Jurek attributes his years of ultra-running dominance, in part, to his careful vegan diet. He's confident enough of the connection that there's a recipe at the end of every chapter of this book.

A plant-centered diet isn't totally foreign to me. Before I got pregnant with my twins in 2006, I had been a vegetarian for five years. Becoming one wasn't a hard transition for me. My husband, Dan, had been veg for a few years and easily converted me: I am an animal lover (and not someone who could ever hunt or in any other way imagine killing my own food), and I've never been a big fan of meat anyway. I resumed eating chicken and fish because I wasn't getting enough protein for the pregnancy and felt instantly better as soon as I added those things back. I think I grew my kids on scrambled eggs, in fact. After they were born, I never went back to vegetarianism, but someday I might.

Going vegan? More of a stretch. I love dairy. Ice cream is probably my single favorite food. And despite Jurek's assertion at the big book signing I attended the other week that ice cream made with almond or rice milk is just as tasty as the real thing, I am dubious.

This isn't to say that I doubt what he says about the benefits of a vegan diet are true. His running results, his clear good health, speak for themselves. He backs up his position with a lot of real science. Even my instincts tell me that he is right (and I think your instincts will, too, should you read this book). Moreover, the recipes sound tasty. I know I'd like all of them.

But as convincing as Jurek and the evidence are, I have no plans to go vegan. There are two big reasons why I don't have time for a diet like his, and won't have that kind of time for years, if ever:

1) Running (unfortunately but understandably) is not my job. The job I am lucky to have takes up 30 hours of my time each week in actual face time at work, plus another five hours factoring in my commute. That's 35 hours of waking time that I do not have to make rice milk from scratch, haunt the bulk aisles at Whole Foods, soak beans for hours, construct beautiful meals that are two hours in the making and chop endless quantities of vegetables these meals require--or plan for all of those things.

2) I have children. Outside of the hours required by my paid job, I am responsible for caring for them. This job is not limited to my waking hours. And it is even more unforgiving of the elaborate kitchen activities Jurek practices daily (including the aforementioned making of vegan milks from scratch, bulk shopping, bean soaking, vegetable chopping, multi-hour meals and planning). This is because the modern world provides many tempting shortcuts for busy parents trying to get meals on the table, especially parents like me who don't enjoy spending lots of time in the kitchen. In order to make time for running, reading, hanging out with my husband, blogging and having some fun with my kids, I frequently and unapologetically take many of those shortcuts.

Yes, I do try to make our meals as healthful as possible (and happily I have a husband who works harder on this than I do). Yes, I'm trying to do more planning and to avoid things that are processed. But I'm not above feeding the kids a box of Annie's boxed mac and cheese, and throwing chicken on the grill is much easier than hand-assembling lentil burgers.

Enough about me, though. You're probably wondering: what about the book? Isn't this supposed to be a book review?

The book is good. You learn a lot about the ultra-running psyche, which is endlessly fascinating. Jurek had a tough childhood, has been through a nasty divorce and endured years of sadness watching multiple sclerosis make his beloved mother sicker and sicker. Though he never says so explicitly, these are probably also big reasons he's so tough and gets so much out of painful activities like running through Death Valley. As with the Kenyans, whose hard lives contribute to their ability to run fast and far, Jurek's circumstances aren't easy to mimic (nor would most of us choose to mimic them, if we're honest with ourselves).

I came away from this book with a lot of respect for Scott Jurek. I'm glad it's a bestseller, too. It may well make many people's lives more healthy.

That said, I'm looking forward to the sequel. You know, the one he's going to write when he and his now-fiancee have kids. I have no doubt they'll solve the kitchen conundrum that I'm too lazy to deal with. Oh, and it's Sunday, my Sweets R OK Day. I'm going out for some Dairy Queen ice cream. The kind made from REAL milk.

Book Review: Running With the Kenyans

Being a librarian has its privileges. One of them is my fairly frequent trips to the 796.424 section of our New Non-Fiction shelves (for those who find the Dewey Decimal System worrying, 796.424 is where the running books live).

Last Sunday, my library was closed due to a big festival that takes over our parking lot every Memorial Day weekend. I went in and did some work anyway, because they make those who don't show up take precious vacation time. Without any library members to serve, alone in the giant building, I had some spare time for things like re-shelving...and just wandering while dipping into one book and another. It was on one of my wanders that I saw a copy of Adharanand Finn's Running With the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth.

It's the most tantalizing title since Born to Run, and along the same lines: a Westerner, intent on learning the secrets of a culture truly "born to run," goes and lives among this foreign people temporarily, partly to see if some of their secret sauce can help his own running, but partly just to see, well, what it's like, and what that secret is. Along the way, he meets some true characters, subjects himself (and his family--in Finn's case, family includes three small children) to culture shock...and brings the whole thing to a satisfying climax in the form of a big race (this one with lions).

Since this is a review, I'll cut to the chase: those of you who think there's one key element to explain the Kenyans' dominance of distance running will be disappointed. But Finn does a fantastic job identifying the combination of factors that have made them so unbeatable for so many years. He touches on all of these factors in detail throughout the narrative, and near the end of the book, he summarizes:

"For six months, I've been piecing together the puzzle of why Kenyans are such good runners. In the end there was no elixir, no running gene, no training secret that you could neatly package up and present with flashing lights and fireworks. Nothing that Nike could replicate and market as the latest running fad. No, it was too complex, yet too simple, for that. It was everything, and nothing. I list the secrets in my head: the tough, active childhood, the barefoot running, the altitude, the diet, the role models, the simple approach to training, the running camps, the focus and dedication, the desire to succeed, to change their lives, the expectation that they can win, the mental toughness, the lack of alternatives, the abundance of trails to train on, the time spent resting, the running to school, the all-pervasive running culture, the reverence for running."

A few paragraphs later he writes:

"I've immersed myself in the world of Kenyan runners, living and training with them, sharing their commitment, and following their almost monastic lifestyles, in the hope that some of their magic would rub off on me. Hopefully it has, but in truth, at thirty-seven, after years of living an easy, Western lifestyle, and without anything driving me other than the joy of running and the desire to use my talent, I never stood a chance."

It's a humbling message.

As always, though, actions speak louder than words. There's a lot of hope here, too, for those willing to adopt some Kenyan style in their training. In the wake of his experience, Finn finishes as the first Westerner in the hot and dusty Lewa Marathon, his first, in three hours and 20 minutes. After his return to the West, he takes three minutes off his pre-Kenya half-marathon personal best. And four months after that Kenyan marathon debut, he runs the New York Marathon in two hours 55 minutes exactly.

The book wasn't as funny or smoothly written as Born to Run (a book I loved and recommend to everyone). But it felt more true to me in its "shades of grey" characterization of these extraordinary runners and the reasons for their success. I liked his unpretentious descriptions of what it was really like to run behind a group of Kenyans, and I was particularly impressed with his blunt critique of his own commitment to his beloved sport after a disappointing half-marathon part-way through his African sojourn.

Since finishing this book tonight, I've found myself Googling "ugali"...and I think I might take a walk up my street. Barefoot.

Book Review: Running With the Mind of Meditation

I do not have an Eastern mindset.

I remember going to a one-off book club meeting with a bunch of women, all acquaintances of my boss, about two months after Will and Ruthie were born. Other than some "dates" with my husband, I hadn't been out much. I wasn't back at work yet, and my overachieving breasts made so much milk that being far away from the babies and the breast pump for any length of time was a recipe for misery. But I longed for adult conversation, so when I was invited to this group's meeting, I jumped at the chance.

Which book we read eludes me now. But what I do remember is that we had a great discussion. At one point, someone mentioned how she needed to learn more to "live in the moment." (In Boulder, you hear this a lot, mostly from people who are so Type A they twitch with restlessness during yoga.) My response was, "People say that to me all the time. But the truth is, I don't like the moment at all."

People did say that to me all the time back then. Well-meaning folks were constantly telling me to live in the moment with my twin newborns, not understanding that the vast majority of my moments were like Chinese water torture. Most of the other women in the group were silent when I said this. My boss said, kindly, "Thank you for that honesty." And then the discussion moved on.

Five years later, I still have trouble living in the moment, even though the pleasant ones vastly outnumber the unpleasant ones now. My Western head is full of checklists, plans and goals, and the older I get, and the faster the passage of time seems to me, the more I realize that living in the moment, at least a little more than I do now, would be a healthy outlook to adopt. (I can't promise that I'll ever learn to love the moment when the afternoons with the kids get long.)

It wasn't until I picked up Running With the Mind of Meditation, though, that I realized this applies to my running, too. I'm always saying I want to run for the rest of my life. This book has actually given me an idea of why my current goal-driven, failure-anxious approach might need to be altered for that to be the case.

The author, Sakyong Mipham, is the leader of Shambhala, a group of meditation retreat centers including one in Northern Colorado not too far from where I live.

Yeah, I could run there.

Sakyong is also a 3:05 marathoner and leads running/meditation workshops with the same name as this book. (My friend Michael Sandrock has attended the retreats and got me a copy of the book.)

As accomplished a runner as Sakyong now is, he's been meditating for much longer. So as he got stronger as a runner, it was natural that his first calling would begin to deepen his understanding of his running. The result: first the workshops and now the book.

Many passages in this book spoke to me, but, with my Boston Marathon goal looming over everything I do from injury rehab to racing, the passages I most appreciated were in the "garuda" section, which is how the author characterizes the third phase, in which the runner has passed from beginner (tiger) to exultant born-again (snow lion) and now feels like moving into tougher challenges (the garuda, in Tibetan mythology, is a bird with human arms that hatches ready to fly).

Here's a sample:

In both running and meditation, one needs focus, determination and a goal. At the same time, that determination and goal can become a disease. We are ambitious and are therefore plagued by hope and fear, which destabilizes our training and practice. Thus the garuda phase is letting go of hope and fear--not as a technique to achieve our goal, but as a genuine recognition that hope and fear stifle our potential and infringe deeply on our well-being...Both hope and fear result from the inability to appreciate what we have and what we have accomplished.

The man could have been writing just for me. Earlier he had written:

Without patience, people try to run again too soon and complicate their injury. Waiting out an injury is an excellent time to work on our meditation. I have found rehab to be a practice in itself, determining day to day how we feel and responding with the appropriate action--which may mean keeping still. We can use the time recovering from an injury to train our mind in gentleness and firmness.

Other things Sakyong advocates and/or emphasizes throughout the book:

• The beginning of anything will always be the most challenging time; you can and will get through it with the right mindset.
• Running without headphones focuses your mind and improves both your running and your experience of your running.
• Pay attention to your posture as you run.
• Learn to meditate when NOT on the run. Learn to be still. Stillness helps the mind in the same way movement helps the body. Then bring the focus and present-moment attitude of "real" meditation to bear on your mindset while running.

There's much more, of course. I did a lot of underlining and starring the margins while reading. There was true compassion in this book (and compassion is often lacking in the Boulder version of the Zen attitude, which is usually just Western Type-A driven-ness in Eastern monastic clothing). There was also a sense of humor. I feel that Sakyong is someone I would trust, someone whose suggestions would actually help me both as a person and as a runner. I recommend this book to all runners.

(Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book to review. My good opinion of it is my own. I don't finish books that bore me, and I don't mince words if I think a book is a piece of tripe.)

For more information about the book, visit its Web site. The upcoming retreat dates are all on there. Wouldn't it be fun to attend one of those?!

Book Review: Run to Overcome

I've had this autobiography of Meb Keflezighi for a while, having won it as part of a giveaway from Erin at See Mom Run Far last fall. Though I'd dipped into it here and there, I hadn't really sat down to read it. But when I found out exactly why my back has been hurting and what it meant for my running, I knew it was time to pick it up and read it through.

"Overcoming" is something I think every runner has to acquaint him/herself with at some point. There are the usual difficulties of training. There are life circumstances. There are injuries and illnesses. There are your own demons, and, if you're really good, like Meb, there are outside detractors, too, people who think because you are older or injured that you are slowing down, that you've peaked.

Most runners out there who follow the professional side of the sport know the outlines of Meb's story: how his family arrived in the U.S. from Eritrea after his father made a harrowing trek to Northern Africa and Italy; how Meb and his brothers and sister excelled in school despite having no English when they arrived; how close-knit his family is and how important both his home and his adopted countries are to him. They also know the story of how, wanting a good grade in P.E., seventh grader Meb laid down a 5:20 in the mile run.

I was lucky to hear Meb speak just after he won the Olympic Trials Marathon in January, chalking up a new personal record in the process, and he comes across in this book much the same way he does in person: modest; religious; friendly and inspired. I loved the details, like how he hates ice baths, how he longed for his true love before meeting his wife, Yordanos, at last, how he told his four-year-old daughter that she'd have to earn her first trophy and how during one of his worst injuries he got to know the seniors doing pool aquatics while he was doing pool running nearby.

But another quality that, in person, is made manifest in his running more than his manner emerges in the book as well: this is a person who is intensely driven, eager to prove his critics wrong, someone who takes the worst circumstances (including some nasty injuries) as new inspiration for doing better than he ever has before. He writes:

Winning in life doesn't happen when you overcome just one thing--do or die. It's persevering, knowing that difficulties are bumps in the road, not the end of the world. It's continuing to do the right things, knowing your time will come. After all, you have to conduct yourself like a champion before you can ever win a championship....Whatever you do, then, give it your best. Persevere in overcoming obstacles. When you do, you'll be running to win.

Nobody's path to his or her dreams unwinds without stumbling blocks--even when you are as gifted and driven as Meb. But the unwritten postscript to this book is his triumph in January, his return trip to this summer's Olympics.

These are the words I took away from this book: Patience. Perseverance.

Book Review: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

This little memoir by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami suited me to a T.

At the time of the writing of the essays that make up What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami was in his 50s and a longtime distance runner (he'd run nearly 30 marathons at publication time), though not one who was ever going to make an Olympic team. He's self-deprecating about his running, nonplussed by his age-related slowdown, but also determined to make the best of it, and stay out there.

He writes:

Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life....

There are a lot of other interesting thoughts in here. This one in particular made me feel good about not having a runner's physique or a naturally speedy metabolism:

....having the kind of body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don't want to gain weight I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences...But people who naturally keep the weight off no matter what don't need to exercise or watch their diet in order to stay trim...Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age...Some of my readers may be the kind of people who easily gain weight, but the only way to understand what's really fair is to take a long-range view of things...I think this physical nuisance should be viewed in a positive way, as a blessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible.

It's such an understated yet optimistic way to view what most of us in that boat see as a huge pain in the neck. Likewise his experience of what he calls the "runner's blues," which he first experienced after completing his first ultra-marathon (despite that race being a triumph for him), and his attitude of mixed disappointment and determination to plow on after he didn't meet his goal for the 2005 New York City Marathon. (On a side note, it's cool for me to think he was running that august event the same year I did.)

Keeping in mind that I know very little about Japan, his attitude strikes me as very Japanese. There's a real love for running in these pages and a determination to keep striving, but it's quiet and tempered.

This was comforting to me, because among those who write about running, I often feel like King Lear's daughter, Cordelia, who just couldn't wax over-eloquent in describing her love for her father (says she: "my love's/More richer than my tongue"). Murakami is the same way: the love is there, but so are the frustrations, the starts and stops, the doubts and imperfections. Not every run is a transfiguration. But amid the ups and downs, there is the author, still putting one foot in front of the other.

That's all the inspiration I need.

Book Review: Running the Edge

I live in Boulder, domain of runners but also of Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and other New Age-y, self-help-y, laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank-at-our-neuroses types. I'm not a fan of this stuff, or of the self-help, self-love and self-improvement movements or pop psychology in general. The ideas of "because I deserve it" and other Oprah-esque cloakings of hedonism are big turn-offs. I (and I'd wager many middle- and upper-class Americans) actually do plenty for ourselves. It's other people we should be focusing on.

That said, I do believe that while perfection isn't possible and happiness isn't reached via a check-list or a particular spiritual practice or a set of goals, improving one's character IS a worthy process to embrace. That's where Running the Edge: Discover the Secrets to Better Running and a Better Life comes in.

Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano were teammates on the University of Colorado cross-country team made famous (among runners anyway) by the book Running With the Buffaloes. Goucher went on to become a professional runner and an Olympian, while Catalano coached runners and taught. In the introduction to this book, they say they wrote it because "both of us realized that as good as our lives were, we could do better."

Though non-runners won't relate to a lot of the material here, becoming a better runner is really only a sub-point. The point is becoming a better person--in your family life, your education and other facets--by examining yourself in what Goucher and Catalano called the "six mirrors," among them initiative and personability. There are exercises at the ends of the "working" section of the book to help you do this.

It took me a long time to read this book, not because it wasn't enjoyable (Goucher and Catalano's anecdotes are funny and inspiring, and the writing is unpretentious and clear) but because I actually tried to work through the "mirrors" and really absorb what the authors were trying to impart. In the days leading up to the Top of Utah Marathon in September, I read Running the Edge daily.

Does it work? Well, I'm still a work in progress. I don't believe any one book can change a person, or a runner, overnight. But the authors know that. I liked their no-excuses attitude, their frequent references to the truth that we are all "in progress" and that ultimately the only way any of us can make a positive change in the world is to make positive changes in our selves. A sprinkling of philosophy gave their ideas some intellectual heft. Their sense of humor and humility made them appealing guides.

The Houston Marathon is in a month. I'm already re-reading parts of this book as that big day gets closer. I'll never be an Olympian or even very fast. But I do like the idea that I haven't reached the edge of my potential in running or in anything else.

This book would make a great gift for the runner in your life. Want to buy it? Go here.

[Disclaimer: Goucher and Catalano answered questions from my readers on this blog last summer. I purchased this book myself before they did so, and my review is my own.]

Book Review: Running With the Buffaloes

I'm in the throes of moving (to get all Victorian on you; yes, moving IS like an illness), and so I haven't had any time to post anything decent. The running has been going well this week (really nice 10-miler last Saturday and an even better 5x1000 speed session Monday).

I'm vacillating about tomorrow's run: do I do 8 miles with 6 at tempo (as my program for the 10K suggests) or do I do my Boulder Classic run up Mt. Sanitas? I'd do Sanitas in a heartbeat, but I've been spooked by the book I'm now reading (The Beast in the Garden), which is about mountain lions, in Boulder, attacking people. The lions are described as "crepuscular" hunters...meaning they hunt at dawn and dusk. And I am a "crepuscular runner." In other words, prey. And lions *have* been seen on Sanitas.

So do I do it, or do I go the safe route? Keep in mind...a week ago I wouldn't have even asked.

Since we're talking about books, I thought I'd post my review of the last running book I read. It was a doozy!

This book is a Boulder classic. I tweeted that I was reading it, and unlike most of my tweets, which go out into a great black hole of no response, this one got an enthusiastic reply. While shopping at our new Alfalfa's grocery store last week, the cashier noticed it tucked under my arm. "Great book," he said. "I read it years ago."

The book details (and I mean details!) every day in the life of the 1998 University of Colorado men's cross-country team. It starts in the hot summer months, when it wasn't clear what the season's outcome would be, and culminates with the team's third-place finish at the NCAA championships, a race that CU's star runner, Adam Goucher, won in spectacular fashion after long years of striving. The testosterone is so thick at times you can almost smell it--these aren't the gentlemen athletes of Chariots of Fire. The reader goes along on tough runs ranging from lung-burning long ones at 8,000 feet to puke-inducing track intervals, and also on all the team's meets. You meet Mark Wetmore, the program's idolized coach, getting his impressions and worries as the season unfolds. And you're there when a beloved senior team member dies in a biking accident, plunging the team into grief.

The book reads like the author's journal. This is good at times, because it all feels immediate and intense, but also bad, because anyone's personal journal could use an editor. A steady editor here would have excised or explained jargon, cleaned up sentences and smoothed out transitions. I love good narrative non-fiction and would have liked more narrative flow here. Also, to me as a woman and a decidedly average runner, Wetmore's fretting about his runners "getting fat" and his disparaging remarks about average folks who come out each year to run the big local race, the Bolder Boulder, were disheartening (I hope he doesn't talk about his female runners' weight like that).

But overall, I enjoyed this unique book and learned a lot from it about competitive running, about the town I live in and about young and talented athletes. They are, as one team member put it toward the end of the book, "incredible people with the incredible and audacious agenda to discover their own talents," who "run our asses off and do what we do so well that we defeat all kinds of people that are supposed to be better than us."

Hopefully Wetmore won't begrudge some of us average folks (who may also be a little fat!) adopting just a smidge of that attitude, toward running and life

Book Review: Once a Runner

Despite being a classic from the 1970s that someone in Runner's World called the best-ever novel about running, Once a Runner started off on, um, the wrong foot with me. That's because it started off with this:

"The night joggers were out as usual.

"The young man could see dim figures on the track even in this pale light, slowly pounding round and round the most infinite of footpaths. There would be, he knew, plump, determined-looking women slogging along while fleshy knees quivered. They would occasionally brush damp hair fiercely from their eyes and dream of certain cruel and smiling emcees: bikinis, ribbon-cuttings, and the like. And then, of course, tennis with white-toothed males, wild tangos in the moonlight.

"And men too of various ages and levels of dilapidation, perhaps also grinding out secret fantasies (did they picture themselves a Peter Snell held back only by fat or fear as they turned their ninety-second quarters?)."

Quivering fleshy knees? 90-second quarters? Rendered in purple prose? Let's just say, I can relate more to the night joggers than I can to Quenton Cassidy, the young miler with Olympic-level abilities who is the center of this story. And I dislike purple prose in any context.

At the beginning, the book dwells too much for my taste on Cassidy's track-team buddies at the fictional Southeastern University. The author's descriptions of their testosterone-fueled antics and 1970s dating rituals (words like "co-ed" crop up) also turned me off. But as Cassidy's talent attracts the attention of Olympian Bruce Denton and the action moves away from the track team and its dorm, the book grabbed me and did not let go.

And while the writing still had some overwrought moments, I found myself increasingly forgiving them. After all, Parker was writing about running, and all of the elemental fury and passion that goes into it when you love it. Even if I am more of a "night jogger" than anything else in Quenton Cassidy's world, I've seen and felt enough of what Parker is talking about through his gifted young hero's experience that toward the end, when the story culminates in one key race, I had fallen for this story, hook, line and sinker.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves running. You'll imagine its scenes during your own races but also on those beautiful runs by yourself, when you are aware with every tingling fiber of your body and every soaring thought that running is something you, too, were meant to do...fast or not.

Book Review: The Grace to Race

My book club recently read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a media sensation of a memoir by a woman who sought to raise her two daughters "the Chinese way" (which as far as I could tell consisted mostly of spending lots of money on forced music lessons, practice, instruments and music-related travel, and no tolerance for much in the way of social activities). While I was in the bookstore buying it, I saw another book that I couldn't resist purchasing as well: The Grace to Race: The Wisdom and Inspiration of the 80-Year-Old World Champion Triathlete Known as the Iron Nun.

Put the Tiger Mother and the Iron Nun head to head and I know who would come out on top! Sister Madonna Buder started running at age 48, qualified for Boston very quickly with a time of 3 hours 29 minutes and change (the standard for women over 40 at the time was 3 hours 30 minutes) and began competing in triathlons soon after that. She set several records for older age-group women in the Ironman distance and is still racing today, at 80, though it sounds like she has stomach issues.

Her book also details a penchant for close calls, travel scares and accidents. I could have done with fewer details about these, as well as fewer accounts of races. I say, when you've been through as much as Sister has, pick a few key races and harrowing incidents and really flesh them out. Whether they ended well or badly, we will learn more from a few well told than too many told in tedious chronological order.

I did enjoy the expected but still uncanny role that God has played in her decision to compete and persevere. Many athletes chant mantras when the going gets tough. Sister Madonna's have to do with praising God and praying for other people. Her list of reflections is a good tip list for anyone undertaking a tough goal. And I also liked how, even though she is a nun, it's clear that she can be prickly, opinionated and in the heat of competition even irritable--just like any other high-strung athlete (and make no mistake, this late bloomer is talented).

I'm looking forward to reading many other running books this year. My favorite of all time is Born to Run. Here's a link to my review of it on GoodReads (a social networking site for readers).

What are your favorite reads for runners? Or to be more general--what are your favorite books when inspiration is needed?