In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m a runner. But first and foremost, I’m a mother. Trying to explain why mommy leaves for hours at a time to run or having to justify why I’m too tired to keep up after doing a 50k can be difficult for my children to grasp. The book My Mommy Runs, written by Matt Sorenson and illustrated by Andrew Langston, was a great addition to our library for many reasons.…
The brand new Brooks Adrenaline GTS 19 were launched November 1, 2018 and I, for one, really love the update. I’ve ran in them over the last month, putting over 100 miles on track, treadmill, roads, paved trails, and even to some cross training classes. After this wide array of usage, they are still holding up like new and have become one of my go to shoes. In fact, the GTS literally stands for “go to…
As a lifetime reader, and a runner for nearly is long, it’s funny to think that I rarely read books about running or runners. Whether this is a planned habit or merely chance, my often daily escape to the written world rarely touches upon my favorite habit. When offered the chance to enjoy and learn from the experiences of another runner in the book written by Kate Edwards, I figured it would be worth my…
The dream of the sub-2:00 marathon has gotten a lot of attention in the media in the last few years as the marathon world record and “world best” have crept closer to that symbolic milestone than anybody could have anticipated just a decade ago. Several recent non-fiction books have explored the subject, and now an engaging and highly entertaining novel has joined them. “Million Dollar Marathon” by Philip Maffetone with Richard A. Lovett combines running,…
Book: Marathon Journey, An Achilles Story Author: Stephen F. Balsamo Release Date: July 2013 Purchase: Amazon ($7.99) “Perseverance in times of weakness can lead to strength.” Generally, when you think about running books, your mind goes to self-help titles on improving your speed, how to run appropriately on different terrains, or different ways to train. There are so many titles out there that are great and extremely helpful. While I have gone through a couple…
I’m not the biggest comic book reader in the world, but I completely appreciate the medium. There is just something amazing about being able to convey a full story within a storyboard and have to get through the plot without having the luxury of hundreds of pages of text at your disposal. And, on top of that, it is something that needs to be aesthetically pleasing as well. Matt Crehan Comics will be releasing The Art…
I am obviously a self-proclaimed obsessive personality about running. How obsessive are you about running? Take my totally unscientific quiz to rate yourself!
I’m no Ryan Hall, but if you put aside Hall’s vastly superior speed and endurance, this commercial captures what outdoor long runs are like for me: Well, except I wouldn’t be listening to either The Odyssey or Moby Dick. What makes for a good audiobook when you’re going for a long run? Obviously, the answer is dependent somewhat on each person’s particular reading tastes, but it’s not as simple as “good audiobooks” = “books I like reading.”…
Billed as a self-help book, Spartan Up! written by Spartan Race founder, Joe De Sena, can be seen as a motivational book or a shameless plug for the Spartan Race. Either way, this often strongly worded book is not for the faint of heart. Spartan Up! challenges those who have settled into society’s “everyone gets a trophy” mentality.
I recently got a review copy of the third edition of the Daniels Running Formula and devoured it from cover to cover. Well, not quite cover to cover, because the last section was on marathon training plans, and I have no plans to run a marathon any time soon (or ever — but that is the subject for another column). Author Jack Daniels is a well-known running coach whose website offers a very useful running calculator (plug…
