Runner’s World Complete Book of Running: Everything You Need to Know to Run for Fun, Fitness, and Competition by Amby Burfoot, 4/5

This is an encouraging book, with lots of advice for beginning to intermediate runners (like myself) – basically, anyone who hasn’t yet settled on a rigorous training program.  Several concise, entertaining articles are provided on the following topics:
1. Beginning Running
2. Nutrition
3. Injury Prevention
4. Women’s Running
5. Building Strength, Endurance, and Speed
6. The Mental Side of Running
7. Cross-training
8. The Marathon.

One of the main themes of the book is training smart as opposed to just training hard.  The authors point out that, in conjunction with a good training program, lowering weekly mileage can actually be beneficial to performance.  There is also a lot of emphasis on taking an appropriate number of rest/recovery days.  These ideas and the training concept of “Yasso 800s” (which I am looking forward to trying out soon) are the most important things I got from this book.

I would suggest reading the newest version, since several aspects of this 1997 version feel a bit outdated.