Tagged: marathon

14 Minutes

14 minutes alberto salazar john brant rodale 201214 Minutes: A Running Legend’s Life and Death and Life by Alberto Salazar and John Brant, 5/5

Salazar’s life-story is every bit the page-turner that the book’s title suggests. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into the obsession that drives world-class athletes, but I was even more interested in how Salazar dealt with injury, set-backs, losses and depression to establish a thriving post-competitive career in a non-lucrative sport.

Why I read it: My friend, Peggy, passed it on to me.

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Runner’s World Complete Book of Running

runner's worldRunner’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I would suggest reading the newest version, since several aspects of this 1997 version feel a bit outdated.

Marathon

Marathon: You Can Do It! by Jeff Galloway, 3/5

This guide, which applies Galloway’s signature run/walk method to marathon training, is clearly the product of much expertise and experience on the part of the author, addressing a wide variety of helpful topics.  While it wasn’t entirely convincing (I still really hate the idea of interrupting my runs with walk breaks), the concepts made sense and if I ever become injured or dissatisfied with my training progress, Galloway’s method is likely one of the first I would consider adopting.

Unfortunately, some serious flaws as a book affect the quality and utility of Marathon: You Can Do It!  The first half contains multiple appearances of several identical or nearly identical sentences and paragraphs, making the text bloated and frustrating to read.  Also, there is a notable lack of helpful diagrams and photos to illustrate key concepts (though the few charts that appear are good).  This is a book that deserves to be updated and proofread by an editor who has eyes.