Run to Win

The book is now live! It’s FINALLY ready…it’s been more than a year and a half that you have been asking me to write about more tips on how to get ready for your marathon. It’s been more than 6 months since I started writing this book.

I was up to all hours of the night last night (and for the past few nights) writing a letter that describes exactly what is in the book. Printed, it is 13 pages long!

It needed to be that long though for me to describe everything that is in the book. I am also launching a community website along with it.

Tonight, I’m going to bed early, and I will be sleeping well! If you have any interest in running a marathon in the near future, then head on over and pick up a copy of my book: http://www.marathoning.org/marathon-preparation

Do you ever get stuck working for too long and just can’t seem to find a way to get out the door for your run? Or has it been so long since you ran that you couldn’t even say when or how far it was?
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Ever since I originally wrote a series of articles on marathon preparation and recovery for some friends of mine a year and a half ago, I thought about writing a book on the subject. I finally began that project this past Summer, and for the past couple of months I have been working on it non-stop. The last few weeks have been hectic as I rushed to complete the last few pieces of the puzzle and to get the formatting and graphics work put together for the project. It is amazing how exhausting this sort of a process can be!

Well, the work is almost done. I have sent out a dozen or so review copies of my manuscript, and I will be spending the weekend doing some final edits and getting my wife’s opinion on what I’ve written. I plan to make the book available for public consumption next week, so stay tuned for more details. In fact, if you join my mailing list you will not only be amongst the first to know about when it is available, but you will also be able to instantly download another book that I wrote a few months ago about the 3 components of an effective workout.

As exhausting as this process has been, it has also been a lot of fun and I can’t wait to share what I’ve written with you. Right now, the word count is standing at a bit over 31,000 words.

A couple of years ago, I reviewed The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove. It is one of my favorite exercise books and I have tailored quite a few of my lifting routines after ones that were provided in that book over the past couple of years. A common question that a lot of people were asking the authors, though, was how to adjust the workouts so that they would be appropriate for women.

Now, there is a New Rules of Lifting for Women. I have not read the book yet, so I do not know how different that it is from the original book. According to Lou Schuler, most workouts that would work for men will also work for women, except that instead of gaining bulk they would just get in shape and look better as women do not have as much testosterone as men do.

Ryan Lee interviewed Lou Schuler last week about writing the book, and they discussed why he wrote it and some of the influences that Schuler had. You can listen to the 12 minute interview at Ryan’s site or by clicking play here:
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My copy of Again to Carthage arrived this week, so I gave it a read through. It is a very different book than Once a Runner. You can read and enjoy Carthage without having read the first book, (which is good as it still costs in the hundreds of dollars,) and fans of the first book will certainly appreciate all of the references that are made. The sequel is much less about running and living, and instead concentrates on an older protagonist going through a mid-life crisis. The running seems secondary rather than central to the sequel, and does not take a central role in the book until more than halfway through it.

A lot of people die in this book, and it seems to be a central theme that propels Quentin Cassidy into his quest for the Olympic Marathon. Not all of the deaths seemed necessary, either.

Not quite as much time is spent on his actual training in Carthage; an entire year is skipped from the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next. There is a more serious but just as comical “court” scene in the book, and it was interesting to find the different stories woven throughout that John Parker had told about his own life when he spoke at Maine Running Company this Summer.
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In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about great sources of information for the month of November.

This week, Scott discusses old strength training books.

He divides the books up into rough categories based upon when they were published, and provides suggestions about where to find copies of the books both online and offline.

He includes books from the last couple of hundred years, from the 1970s when the lifting boom really took off, and more modern books from the 1980s through today.

Looking through his list, I only own one of the books but I have read 3 of them.

Are any of the books on your shelf?

Rick Karboviak believes that most high school running coaches in this country are training our kids incorrectly, and that it is hurting the sport. He believes that we need to do more to develop the next generation of runners, and provides some solutions and strategies to do so in his book, “Endure!”

This book is not for everybody. In fact, I think that its appeal will be for a very small segment of the running community. For that small segment, though, it is probably worth taking a look at given its low cost. The book is delivered electronically, and includes a couple of bonuses including a 20 page “bonus” section, a phone consultation with the author (a certified coach) and a month free in a training club. I have not made use of the phone consultation or the training club, so I can not offer an opinion on either of those.

The book recommends that we take a different look at how we train our children, and offers up the experiences of the author as he has grown as both an athlete and as a coach. The book is divided into 7 sections.
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As the price of Once a Runner soars up near $500 for a used copy, the release date for Again to Carthage approaches at the end of November. The official publication date for Again to Carthage is November 26, 2007. I am not sure when Once a Runner will be republished, but John had said that it would be early next year around the same time that the sequel was published.

Amazon currently has a pre-order special where you can purchase the book at a discount plus get an additional 5% off once the book is placed into your cart. I pre-ordered my copy this morning. The cover price for the book is $23.95, and Amazon currently has it listed at $16.29 (see the ad to the right for the latest price as you view this article.) An additional 5% discount brings the total price for the book down to $15.48.

I thought that that was certainly a worthwhile price for the book. I have been looking forward to the publication of it since I got to listen to John Parker read the first chapter at Maine Running Company this Summer.