On November 29, I tried to go to bed early, but I had an idea. So I got up to write down some notes and went back to bed. Then I got up to take more notes. This went on until instead of going to bed an hour early I was going to bed 3 hours late…and that’s how the Runner’s Almanac began.

Fast forward 2 weeks and 2 days and I was ordering a proof. The book was put together, the cover designed, interior typeset, and now it was just time to wait and see whether what I’d envisioned in my head was going to work when it was actually on paper.

And yes, yes it does!

The proof of the book came in today, so I’ve gone ahead and made it available for purchase.

The book will appear at Amazon most likely between Monday and Wednesday of next week, but until then you can check out the book’s website, download a sample chapter if you’d like to see what it’s all about, and order it directly if you’d rather get it sooner rather than later (it would make a great Christmas gift for any runner in the family!)

Just head on over to: therunnersalmanac.com

Where he falls short, however, is in the format that that information is presented in, at least in the Kindle edition. I haven’t seen the print edition of the book, but my assumption is that the majority of the criticisms that I have are probably a non-issue in the print version.

Even with the formatting errors, the book is still worth picking up. For the experienced ultrarunner, it’s worth browsing through for the 1 or 2 ideas that may have never occurred to you and that will make your next race more enjoyable. For the marathoner looking to move up, it provides a pretty comprehensive guide, especially if you aren’t sure how to modify your training to handle the extra distance.

Here’s my full review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvlA7quoob4

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube – Buy on Amazon

Video Transcription

Click Here to Read the Transcript

Bryon recently took part in the Marathon Mastermind. You can listen to his coaching session by going over to www.marathonmastermind.com and joining in yourself.

If you want to listen in for free, you’ll have to sign up today to hear Bryon, however. His coaching session ends later tonight. There are still 4 more coaching sessions coming up throughout the rest of this week that you can listen to for free.

This weekend, he’s going to be trying to defend his New York City Marathon title, as he joins up with some of the best runners in the world. It’s a stacked field, and it’s going to be a great race.

Along with the race, he’s also just released his new book, “Run to Overcome“. I was sent an advanced copy that I got to take a look at over the past week or so, and it’s a great story!

It follows Meb’s journey from his native Eritrea, through Italy, and to the United States where he started running out in San Diego. It follows his entire career right through UCLA and into his professional career.

The book is organized chronologically by topic. So it starts out with stories from Africa, and then it moves on to UCLA, the Athens Marathon, the New York City Marathon, and it just goes from one topic to the next.

So while the book itself isn’t 100% chronological, the general topic for what’s getting covered in each chapter is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OFXAF6vEU

Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Watch on YouTube

There’s a lot that you can get from the story.

First, it’s just a fun read! You get to learn about one of the better runners in the country right now. What makes him tick. Why he does what he does. It’s just enjoyable to just sit down with the book.

It has also got some great training advice in there. He talks about what he does as an elite athlete, to try and keep at the top of his game. How he deals with injuries, and the sorts of training that he does.

So not only can you follow what Meb does and why, but you can also get some good tips that you can apply to your own training.

One of my favorite tips that I got out of it was that just because something is on paper, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to follow that exact workout, especially if you’re using just a regular canned training schedule. You always have to build in some flexibility.

So if you’re feeling really good or if you’re feeling really bad, if might be cause just to change your workout around, and to do something that’s a little bit more tailored to what you’re capable of on that day, as opposed to what’s on the piece of paper that was written a week ago, a month ago, or a year earlier.

Some of my favorite stories from the book probably have to be the stories about different races, such as the Athens Marathon and the New York City Marathon.

I think that these are my favorite stories not only because I’m a runner and I enjoy reading about running, but also because I was watching those races when they happened.

In Athens was when that crazy priest went out and jumped the course. And then in New York City as Meb went on to be the first American to win it in 27 years. It’s just kind of cool to see how those races unfolded from the front of the elite pack.

It’s also kind of neat to read about some of Meb’s failures. In the London Marathon, before he won New York City, it was just kind of silly that after he drops out of the races and manages to avoid all the volunteers trying to push him back in, he gets on the bus to get back to his hotel. And then the bus stops, and Haile Gebresellassie gets on the bus, and then it stops again, and Khalid Khannouchi gets on the bus. There’s a whole cast of characters, where even though there was a lot of great performances that day, there’s a lot of top tier athletes that just weren’t able to finish the race and had one problem or another. It was kind of funny the way he shared that story.

So if you want to learn more about the book, you can go to www.RunToOvercome.com, and that will give you all the information you want. They are running a contest, so they are giving away a book a day.

You can also get the book at your favorite book seller, or at Amazon, or any number of other places. I’m sure if you’re going to be at New York City that there’s going to be places that you can pick up a copy at the expo. And you might even be able to get it signed if you see Meb before the race.

I recommend giving it a read. It’s not super long; I was able to read it in a couple of days. So I hope that you enjoy it if you do pick it up.

I was provided an advance review copy of this book by the publisher. More info: www.RunToOvercome.com

It sounded like an interesting story that he had, so I picked up his book, Iron Heart: The True Story of How I Came Back From the Dead.

I just tore through it. He has a great story and you can’t help but be inspired when you listen to it or read about.

Bryan was a weight lifter and a competitive swimmer when he graduated from high school. He was driving home from swim practice, and his Camaro just got completely smashed by a dump truck.

There was very little left to it, and there was very little left to him. Every organ in his body was damaged. Hi heart was moved to the other side of his chest. His lungs were both collapsed. His spleen had to be removed. His liver was punctured, and he wound up being put into a chemically induced coma for 2 months.

When he woke up, which is where the story of the book starts, he has no idea where he is and he cannot move. He can’t even blink his eyes. He’s listening to all the doctors around him talking about how he’ll be lucky to live, and how if he does live, he’ll probably be a vegetable for the rest of his life.

The story follows his progress through the hospital. First, starting to blink, and then being able to move his fingers, and eventually until he was able to talk again.

Everytime he was given a new challege, they would say “Well, you’ll never be able to walk again” or “You’ll never be an athlete again.”

He just went through physical therapy. He started walking again. He started body building again, and he even became a personal trainer. And then he eventually got back in the pool. He went to college and swam for Saint Mary’s.

One day, he was watching a special on the IronMan Triathlon and he thought, “Well, let’s see what it takes to get into that.” Completing an IronMan had been one of his childhood dreams, so he got in touch with the producers, told him his story, and promptly forgot about it.

About 2 months later, he heard back from them saying, “If you can prove to us that you are able to finish, then we’ll get you one of the media spots in the race.” And basically what he had to do was finish a half Iron Man about 2 weeks later. All he had to do was finish and he would have his spot. And in total, he had about 6 weeks to go from back to being a body builder and a personal trainer to having to get to the starting line for his first Iron Man.

All he wanted was to finish that Iron Man in 17 hours, which was the cut off. And he was able to do it. He finished in about 14 hours.

It’s just a very inspirational story. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book and take a read. And if you take a look at this video and news documentary, it will show you what exactly he went through and give you an idea of what the book is all about:

You can find a copy of the book at your local library or at Amazon.

Many of the lessons could easily be learned on your own, but knowing what to expect and following a plan from somebody that has helped others learn to run barefoot is certainly easier than muddling through yourself and hoping you don’t get injured.

I also held a contest to give a copy of the book away, where the only criteria to enter was to share your own experience or lack thereof in the comments. If you were one of the people who entered, then you had a 1 in 22 chance of winning.

After a quick visit to Random.org, the winner has been chosen!

Here is the winning comment:

Chiraag Says:
July 13th, 2010 at 7:56 am
I’m curious about what is the right time to experiment with barefoot running: should I have years of experience first, so that I have a better understanding of my gait with shoes?

Congratulations, Chiraag! I’ll email you for your postal address so I can get a copy of the book to you.

As for the answer to your question, that depends entirely on you.

A new runner may actually have an advantage over an experienced runner in learning to become a barefoot runner because they won’t have as many bad habits and won’t feel they have to try to maintain their current speed or distance on their normal runs, so they’ll be less likely to get hurt as long as they don’t try to go too far, too fast.

So, if you are interested in running barefoot, then just start no matter what your experience level. I’ve found that running barefoot has improved my running form even when I’m wearing shoes, which leads to feeling better after my runs and recovering faster from them.

I personally don’t believe that I need to run barefoot all the time, I only run barefoot as a part of my training and still do the majority of my racing while shod.

(Photo Credit: Marylka Yoe Uusisaar – Book: The Barefoot Running Book)

Overview

Jason splits the book into 4 main sections for the different levels of experience you will find yourself as you become a barefoot runner.

First is the Pre-Barefoot Running section, where you will learn how to build up some strength in your foot in legs, get used to sensory overload from nerves that have potentially been ignored for a significant portion of your life, and to help improve your foot-eye coordination.

The next section is about Starting to Run Barefoot, which gives tips on how to actually start running, the types of terrain you may encounter and which ones you should start out by running on, and the basics of barefoot running form.

The third section covers Intermediate Barefoot Running and focuses on how to add hills and new types of terrain to your running, how you can start speeding up and running further, and the common injuries that barefoot runners experience.

The last section is on Advanced Topics such as racing, trail running, and extreme weather.

Jason also discusses handling hecklers and the 4 types of people that you will encounter and interact with as a barefoot runner, ranging from the non-runner and inquisitive running peers to hostile runners that think barefoot runners are an affront to nature.

What I Like About the Book

The book is very short at 61 pages and can be read in a single sitting or two. For the most part, Jason stays right to the point and offers his experience and advice in an easily digested format. He labels all of the different theories, activities, and hazards that you should be aware of which makes it quick and easy to find information later that you want to refer back to.

I think that Jason’s exercises for the beginner barefoot runner are a good way to introduce yourself safely to running without getting hurt. His 6 guiding principles to barefoot running are reflected throughout the book, which are:

1. There is no 1 right answer
2. You need to experiment to see what works for you
3. Your body is the best teacher
4. Patience is required
5. Running relaxed is key
6. You should be having fun and enjoying yourself

As somebody that has used barefoot running as part of his training since the early 90s, I especially like his last point.

Running barefoot is just a lot of fun, so make sure that you don’t let running become a chore.

What I Didn’t Like About the Book

There are only two things that I didn’t really care for in this book.

First, Jason is definitely zealous about barefoot running and is eager to share his positive experiences and expertise with others. For the most part, he does this well, and his advice on how to deal with people that heckle you (shared both from himself and from others in the barefoot running community) is certainly useful and worth a chuckle or two.

In a few places throughout the book it definitely seems more like a crusade, though. I don’t mind sharing the benefits of barefoot running with others, but I don’t feel the need to convert anybody to it that has no need nor interest.

Second, Jason is a pretty funny guy and I’ve enjoyed his humor in some of the videos that I’ve seen him post. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the humor translates into print quite as well.

Rather than laughing at some of the jokes and self-deprecating humor, I found myself rolling my eyes instead which distracted me from reading more than anything else.

Where To Find More Information

The Barefoot Running Book is available for purchase at Amazon as either a print publication or as a Kindle e-book.

You can find more information about Jason at his website, The Barefoot Running University, where he offers workshops, articles, and links to barefoot and ultramarathon resources around the web.

I will also be giving a copy of the book away next week.
Just click here and leave a comment to enter the contest.

(Photo Credits: Jason Robillard – Mike Baird – Seema K K – Mike Day)

All you need to do is leave a comment below sharing your experience (or lack thereof) with barefoot running.

You have until Tuesday evening (July 13, 2010) at 8:00 pm EDT to leave your comment, after which I will choose somebody at random. Only 1 comment is allowed per person and is subject to any applicable laws where you live.

You can purchase the book for yourself at Amazon, or read my review about what the book contains and what I think of it.

If your comment doesn’t appear right away, then it is probably because this is the first contest you’ve participated in here.

First time commenters are moderated to help keep spam from overtaking the site. So…welcome to Run to Win, and thanks for your patience, I’ll approve it ASAP!

Update: Contest Winner Announced

Fast forward a year, and in June of 2009 Steve published his first book, 7 Weeks to 100 Pushups.

It’s a very quick read, and the programs offered in it seem even more accessible than the ones on the website. You should be able to read it in one or two sittings without any trouble.

The first thing that you’ll notice about the book is that it is 7″x9″, which was not what I was expecting when I ordered the book. It has more of the feel of a training log than a book that you would sit down and read.

The advantage, of course, comes from the book staying open on the floor in front of you on the page with that day’s workout, so that you can easily see how many pushups you should be doing for each set. (Unless your cat is wanting to play and keeps closing it on you, anyway.)

7 Weeks to 100 Pushups is divided into 4 parts:

Part 1 is an overview, which explains a little about the history of the pushup and why it is such a good exercise to take part in. There are a couple dozen success stories from folks that have used Steve’s program and some beginner’s tips frequently asked questions. Trivia about the pushup is sprinkled throughout this section.

Part 2 is made up of the 6 different schedules. The number of pushups you can currently do in your initial test determines which schedule you should start on. The 2 beginner programs are each 10 weeks long, while the intermediate and advanced programs are each 7 weeks long. All of the workouts are between 5 and 8 sets.

Part 3 contains 15 variations on the pushup that you can use to further challenge yourself, including different positions that you can use and different props that can change how the angle you work out at or the stability of your body while doing the pushup. There are large pictures and step by step instructions for each variation.

The Appendix is split into 4 parts:

• The Warm-Up Routine
• The Post-Workout Stretching Routine
• The Preliminary Program
  (for those not strong enough to do a pushup)
• A Training Log for recording your workouts

The appendix seems rather strange to me, as the preliminary program would make more sense near the start of the book rather than at the end, and the warm up routine and stretching routine should bookend the actual pushup programs.

Of course, if all of those sections were placed earlier in the book, then the pushup routines would not fall near the center of the book and it wouldn’t stay open to the page you want it at when you are working out, which I assume is the reason that they were pushed off to the back.

I enjoyed reading through the book when I first got it, but I am interested in little trivia items related to fitness. If your only interest is in the pushup schedules themselves, I’d still recommend picking up the book.

Will you be able to do 100 consecutive pushups within 7 weeks? That depends upon you and how strong you are at the start of the program and how well you improve throughout. You will certainly be stronger at the end of the program than you were at the start, and if you don’t make it to 100 pushups the first time through then you can always move on to the next advanced program.

How well did the program work for me?

Before I answer that, I’ll go briefly into my own pushup history.

In 2006, I was in relatively good shape. Pushups were a part of my lifting program, but certainly weren’t the bulk of it. One day, I randomly tried to see how many pushups I could do and managed 46 before stopping.

In August of 2008, I hurt my hip pretty bad during a road race and stopped lifting weights for about the next 10 or 11 months. When this book was published, I picked up a copy and decided that I’d use it to get back into shape. On June 29^th, I did 23 pushups in my initial test, which isn’t too bad for having not done any lifting most of the past year and for cutting the test short a little when my wife had me giggling while I was trying to do the pushups. A week later I started the Advanced 1 program in the book.

Over the next 8 weeks (as life got in the way and I took an extra day of rest now and again) I managed to complete every workout, and did at least a few extra pushups at the end of the last set each day. For the most part, I kept going until I was uncomfortable and not until failure, but it was always past the minimum I needed to do so I was happy with it.

The only exceptions were in my last few workouts of the last week, where it was a bit of a struggle to reach the full number of pushups. The only workout I actually failed to complete was the very last one, where I was supposed to do at least 60 pushups in the last set and I got noodly-armed after 57 pushups and could only get about halfway back up on the 58^th. Having done 179 pushups in the previous 7 sets before starting that last set, I expect that when I start the Advanced 2 program next week that I’ll be able to do quite a few more pushups in my final set and will get into the high 70s or low 80s (if not higher).

Now that I’ve been through the program once, I definitely notice a difference in my body. My muscles are a little more defined, and I definitely feel stronger.

I broke my foot halfway through the program and haven’t been able to run for the past 4 weeks or so, and I’ve managed to only lose about 3 pounds in that span of time. (When I stop running, I normally shed weight at 2-3 pounds per week unless I’m sick, in which case I might lose more.)

Have you done the 100 pushups challenge? Have you read the book? Share your experiences or thoughts below if you have. If you are interested in purchasing the book, you can buy the book at Amazon.

If you’re familiar with the book, then you’ll get a kick out of Chris’s appearance on the Daily Show last night (click through for video):

Upon returning to Maine Running Company, Bart signed copies of his book, My Life on the Run and gave away training logs, Runner’s World magazines, Powerade, and pizza. One lucky runner even got a free pair of Saucony running shoes. (They had their tour bus there and were performing gait analysis and shoe fittings.)

Bart told a few jokes and described some of his varied experiences in different races and cultures before settling down to chat with folks individually (video after the jump):

It was a pleasure to finally meet Bart; I had an opportunity back in January but I missed his talk at the expo because of the traffic and he didn’t arrive to the race until after I started and was gone before I finished. (His wife ran the marathon while I ran the 50 miler.)

Have you read My Life on the Run or met Bart before? Share some of your favorite stories in the comments below if so.

Once a Runner will officially be released in the 2^nd quarter of next year, and runners have been waiting for years for the book to be printed again. For a (very) limited time you can get an early copy of the book at the Maine Running Company, as a case of the books has arrived in stock.

If you want to pick up a copy, I recommend that you don’t wait to get over there and buy one. I don’t expect them to last very long.

Patrick Mouser created a series of trailers for the film version of Once a Runner as a design project, but unfortunately they aren’t based on a real film. As John Parker said when he spoke at the Maine Running Company last year, the easiest money he ever made was selling the film rights to the movie every time they expired because nobody ever got around to making it:

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

Have you noticed that your butt is becoming a numb membrane of lipid filled tissue that fits ever so nicely into that comfy chair you spend countless hours in? If so you may be in need of my Blogger Proof Workout. Bloggers spend numerous hours creating content to feed the ever hungry internet and information world. Unfortunately, that process entails tons of sitting and limited physical movement.

The listed exercises can be done in a short duration of time in between your work tasks, and include moving your chair around your office and doing pushups whenever you break your train of thought to answer an email. So not only will he get you into better shape, but he’ll also help you be more productive.

You can download the Blogger Proof Workout for free as a pdf document, or read more about it over at Fat Man Unleashed.

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.

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:

I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the book to see what the differences are between the original book and the new one, and to see what I should be doing differently when I train my wife. I would also like to see any updates that are included in the book that would be applicable to men as well as to women.

If you have read the book already (which has just been published) then let me know what you thought of it. I will write a full review of it once I have gotten a copy for myself.

Update: You can now read a sample chapter from the book over at the Muscle with Attitude website: Step Away From the Treadmill

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.

Again to Carthage includes real people in it, unlike Once a Runner which only had fictional versions of real people. I have read in a few reviews that it could be a bit disconcerting as people were taken out of their proper eras and mixed and matched, but I was not given that same sense of discombobulation. First, the real people that appear in the novel are only very minor characters. They do not really impact the story very much.

Second, the peak of their careers were all before my time. I was born in 1980, and the book takes place in the late 1970s. I have only read about or watched taped footage of the people that appear in the book, and those that I have met in person are much older than they were in their prime.

The final race in the novel was a mix of the comical and knowing exactly what it felt like. John Parker has a knack for describing what means to be a runner, and while I’ve never had a race quite like the one in the book I have had individual experiences from it in different races.

The outcome was a little predictable, but I enjoyed the end of the race where he was running from his own ghost. I have had many runs where I thought that somebody was behind me, only to discover that I was running away from my own shadow or footsteps.

I am still looking forward to purchasing a 3^rd copy of Once a Runner, and I think that it is the better book of the two. When I first read it, I was living the life that was being described for Quentin Cassidy. I was a college runner with a college runner’s lifestyle. At the time that I first read Once a Runner, I could envision myself running on the team with Cassidy.

Perhaps in a few years my perspective will have changed and I will be able to relate a little better to Cassidy in Carthage. I haven’t quite reached the same point in my life, but I can certainly imagine it. Fans of the first book are going to enjoy reading Again to Carthage, and I think that it has enough mass market appeal that most people would be able to pick the book up and give it a read through.

I enjoyed reading it, and will certainly read it again. I do not think that I would consider purchasing a 3^rd copy after the first two went walking, though, or that I will read it as many times as I have read Once A Runner. Again to Carthage will make a great holiday gift for any runners that you might know, if they have not already picked a copy of it up.

Table of contents for Information (November)

1. A list of strength training forums
2. The best sources of running advice…
3. Strength Training Books
4. What’s your favorite running forum?

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?

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.

Chapter 1: What this book is NOT

The book begins by pointing out that the author is not a marathoner or long distance runner. He is a 5k and 10k runner who trains kids to race between 3k and 5k. He does not believe in high mileage running for multisport children, and does not believe in blindly offering mileage charts without any strategy behind how to develop a proper training plan.

Chapter 2: Real-world discoveries

Rick believes that children these days (and Americans in general) have a problem with obesity and terms this the Play Station Generation. He also notices that some of the best runners in the world grow up in areas where there are a lot of hills and no transportation options beyond the pedestrian for most kids. Lacking a fitness base as children makes it more difficult for Americans to compete on the world stage as adults.

He also points out that most children are multisport athletes, and that cross country or track tend to be conditioning seasons for their other sports. These kids do not benefit from long, slow distance running because their sports do not involve a large component of aerobic conditioning. In fact, even the sport of cross country does not involve endurance running.

“I think the true cross-country racing style is not just some ‘long endurance’ event: it’s a series of random sprints, surges, adjustments in pace, and adaptation to the environment they face, all put together in a set distance for a race.“

Chapter 3: GPS Technology

The third chapter is devoted to GPS technology. He explains what they are, the basic differences between the different brands, and how to use it when coaching.

He would use the GPS tools to easily craft workouts and distances on the fly over varying terrains, and to help the kids maintain set paces during workouts. He also believes in training the kids to race in meters and not miles for metric-measured races.

Measuring a course in kilometers instead of in miles gives the kids more feedback on how they are doing, and they get it earlier in the race than the kids who have to wait for the first mile to get to where their coaches are waiting for them. It also makes it easier to plan workouts and prevent overtraining the athletes.

Chapter 4: The Kettlebell

This chapter does not have a whole lot to it. Rick believes that strength training is an important part of a developing athlete’s training regimen. I tend to agree. He also believes that the chaotic movements of kettlebells are a perfect complement to simulate cross country running. Kettlebell swings have the same caloric burn as running and are great for hill training in the weight room.

Chapter 5: Running workouts

In the fifth chapter, he describes the different types of workouts that he has his kids run, and why he develops those workouts the way that he does. His general plan is to include hill workouts, fartlek workouts, interval training, and long runs that are no farther than twice the race distance for a specific athlete.

Chapter 6: Strength workouts

The strength workouts vary from pretty good to less than ideal.

The descriptions for the kettlebell exercises vary quite a bit in quality and are not all complete.

The body weight and the medicine ball exercises are all fairly well described.

Chapter 7: Creating strategies

Rick believes that the strategy is more important than the racing plan. You need to find out the strengths and weaknesses of your runners and you need to build around that. You have to also make sure that your athletes understand how to race.

There are 3 steps to developing a strategy:

1. Figure out the athlete’s needs
2. Figure out the athlete’s conditioning levels.
3. Plot out the training plans on a workout calendar.

He offers a typical workout calendar template that he developed at the beginning of a recent season and shows a chart graphing the racing performance throughout the season for his athletes.

He also offers suggestions on how to fit a strength component into your workout schedules and presents some example circuits that can be accomplished with groups of 15-30 kids.

Closing and Bonuses

The book’s closing is one big block of uninterrupted text where he returns to the general philosophy of his training regimen and coaching style. He includes the instructions on how to play a running game that he invented, and the 20 page “Road Warrior Training Program” that includes more specifics on different types of running workouts than he provided in the main book. This “bonus” book is intended more for an individual athlete than for a coach.

Who will not benefit from this book?

Most endurance athletes are not going to find much that they can use in this book.

There are much better sources of information about how to implement strength workouts into your training regimen, and most experienced endurance athletes are not going to learn anything new in here that they can directly translate into their own training.

The strategies for bringing together a workout calendar are not going to translate for marathoners very well, and the author never pretends that they will. The book really is centered on young athletes that are running shorter races.

Who do I recommend this book for?

I think that for the low price, this book is worth picking up and looking at for any high school coaches. You may not be convinced to change your entire training philosophy based on what is in here, but there are a few good nuggets that would be very simple to implement into an existing training program.

I also think that this book is useful for some ideas on how to implement GPS technology into a training plan. I have just recently gotten a new GPS watch and this book has given me some good ideas on ways to best use it during workouts.

I feel as though I got more than my $17 worth of value out of reading it, despite not being the demographic that the book is aimed at.

Click here to learn more about the “Endure!” eBook. From the sales page, you can download a free report on why kids are not running any more and you can read more about the book itself.

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.

Again to Carthage is scheduled to be published early next year, but John Parker is auctioning an advance copy of the book off for charity. After suffering from a heart attack (which was actually myocarditis and not a heart attack,) he wants to give a little something back to the website that was used to keep his friends and fans updated as to his progress.

Although he does not really remember much about what has happened over the last 3 months, John Parker spoke at the Maine Running Company at the beginning of August and read the first chapter of Again to Carthage to the attending crowd.

As soon as the book is published (and Once a Runner is republished,) I plan on purchasing a copy. I bid in the auction, but was quickly outbid by others.

All of the money raised in the auction (which is currently at $301) will go to the Caring Bridge website. You can view the auction details by clicking here.

Update: The book sold for $580.

Table of contents for Books (February)

1. Inspirational Running Books
2. Health and Fitness Books
3. Nutrition Books
4. A book on Bending

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we wrote about books throughout the month of February.

This week Scott takes a look at the Diesel Crew electronic book on how to get started in the wonderful world of Bending. Bending is taking pieces of metal, such as nails and pipes, and bending them. It is great for grip training, and unlike normal weight lifting you will actually produce a physical end result for your work. Of course, you also need to keep replacing your supplies…

If you are looking for a more conventional weight lifting book, you can read my review of The New Rules of Lifting. The programs in that book are forming the basis of my workouts these days.

Table of contents for Books (February)

1. Inspirational Running Books
2. Health and Fitness Books
3. Nutrition Books
4. A book on Bending

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about books throughout the month of February. This week I would like to talk about the diet and (mostly) nutrition books that line my shelves.

For athletes, the best book that I have read that deals with the nutritional requirements of athletes is Eat Smart, Play Hard by Liz Applegate. Most books about nutrition have a chapter or two of actual content, and the majority of the book is meant for skimming either because it just plain is not interesting or relevant or it is full of recipes. The recipes can be important, but they are not really meant for line by line reading.

The first time that I read this book, I read it cover to cover, and the second time I read the first two thirds over. The book is divided into three sections: the basics, the food, and the meal plans. There are recipes sprinkled throughout the book, but the general idea is centered more upon creating a healthy balance that will support an active lifestyle. The meal plans are blueprints to help complete different athletic endeavors, such as being a weekend basketball player, getting out on the greens for a day or a weekend, to riding a century or running a marathon.

This is the first relevant book that I have read on nutrition, because it does not worry about whether you want to lose weight or not. It tackles nutrition from the viewpoint about what sorts of fuel your body needs to perform specific tasks, and assumes that you will get to and maintain a healthy weight. Along with supplemental research that I have read about over the past few years, I base most of my nutritional philosphy off of what I read in this book. It helps that I was already eating a diet that was conducive to my levels of activity; this book just helped me to fine tune the little things.

I used to work out in Mike Foley’s gym, the author of Eat to be Fit. I like Mike a lot, and I think that his nutritional counselling services are top notch (based upon friends who have used his services; I never have personally). That being said, I did not find his book very relevant to myself. I think that it would be a good book if your goal was weight loss, but my goals are usually to put on pounds if I am thinking about changes in my weight. If I want to lose weight, I just need to stop running for a week or two. This book also does not answer the why of doing something; it operates under the assumption that the reader is looking for an expert’s advice on what works, and will take it on faith that following that advice will work. For a lot of people, knowing why something works does not interest them. For myself, I need to know how my body works and how and why it will react to different fuels under different circumstances.

I did get some good tidbits from the book, and had the advantage of being able to ask the author about the science and research behind some of it. I certainly recommend this one to anybody who is undertaking new levels of fitness in an effort to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. It does a good job of helping you add exercise and better nutrition into your life in a safe and effective manner. For somebody who is already in decent shape and is looking for a competitive edge, though, the material is lacking.

My wife introduced me to How to Cook Everything, which is not really a nutrition book. However, it lists recipes for almost anything that you might want to prepare. Once you have an idea of what you might want, you can just peruse the index and find something interesting. I usually use the recipes in this book as a base to experiment off of, and find it handy for ideas on how to prepare something that I have never made before. The book is very large and quite cumbersome, so make sure you find some shelf space near your kitchen and have somewhere you can leave it open to reference it.

As for diet books in general, I tend to recommend that people avoid the diets that restrict carbohydrates. The Atkins and South Beach diets tend to favor people that are not very active; I believe that if you follow the Atkins diet exactly that it even recommends that you do not exercise during the initial break in period. While eating too many sugars and carbohydrates can be detrimental to your waistline, if you lead an active lifestyle then you will not have enough energy or fuel to get yourself through your days. Those diets are really meant for people who sit behind a desk all day and on a couch all night. I realize that that is a broad generalization, but I would not be able get by on a diet skewed so much away from breads, pastas, and fruits. That being said, I do recommend looking at cookbooks for those sorts of diets because as individual meals throughout the week you can usually find some very good additions.

What are your favorite diet and nutrition books? What has worked for you? What hasn’t? What should I look at in the future?

Table of contents for Books (February)

1. Inspirational Running Books
2. Health and Fitness Books
3. Nutrition Books
4. A book on Bending

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about books throughout the month of February.

Scott writes this week about his favorite health and fitness books. His shelf looks a little bit different than mine; the only book on his list that I could turn around and grab right now is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. There are a couple of other books I have had at one point, and may or may not have on a shelf downstairs. For the most part, though, his collection has quite a few books that are either on my list to look for when I next get to the library or else look interesting enough that I will be adding it to my list. How many of those books do you have on your shelf?

Table of contents for Books (February)

1. Inspirational Running Books
2. Health and Fitness Books
3. Nutrition Books
4. A book on Bending

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about books throughout the month of February. To start the month off, I am going to talk about running books.

Books are a great way to find some coaching without having to break your bank account wide open, and can provide the inspiration that you need to get out of the door every day. You can works of fiction, collections of quotes, how to manuals, collections of essays, and historical retrospectives on all manner of subtopics related to running. I am going to share some of my favorites in each category.

Best Fictional Work
Once A Runner by John L. Parker, Jr was one of my favorite books that I read in college. This is saying quite a bit, as I minored in literature so I read quite a few great novels. The book is about an amateur runner who gets kicked out of school and has dreams of beating the world’s best. My school was nothing like the one in the novel, but there were so many instances here and there of little things that every team does in some way, shape or form that it is difficult not to identify with the characters. A friend of mine even tried the 3 by 20 by 400m workout that is detailed in the book, once. He didn’t finish, but he came pretty close. I wrote a review of Once a Runner shortly after starting this website.

Best Biographical Retrospective
Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner is probably the best auto-biographical retrospective from an inspiration stand point. A lot of people, especially in the ultra-marathoning community, are put off by Dean Karnazes and his self promotion. I think that he tells a great story, and is a very charismatic individual. This book helps to get you inside of his head to see what makes him tick, and was a very humorous read. I had to stop and read out loud to my girlfriend different passages that had me laughing. While the book did not encourage me to want to go out and race the Western States 100 Miler, it did get the gears to start turning for me to look into venturing up into the 50k or even 50 mile range of races. The review of Ultramarathon Man was the first review that I wrote for Run to Win.

Best Retrospective of a Single Event
Coast to Coast, by Ryan Pancoast, is a great story about a transcontinental relay from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. This has a special meaning to myself, as I am friends with the group that ran it and still regret to this day my decision not to join them. The narrative follows the perspective of one of the runners through their 12 day journey, and is interspersed with anecdotes from other runners and support crew as well as maps, diagrams, and a lot of pictures. Ryan does a great job of making you feel as though you were there with the crew, and he does not hide from sharing the trials as well as the triumphs. Every person ran every few hours around the clock, and it is not easy to be cooped up with so many people for so long with little to no sleep. I wrote a review of Coast to Coast shortly after it was published.

Best Collection of Quotes
The Quotable Runner by Mark Will-Weber is divided into different sections based upon who said the quote or about what they were talking about. There are chapters on everything from sprints to the marathon, and from training to racing to recovery. It is a great reference not only to get inside the heads of some amazing athletes in their day, but also to see how those athletes perceived their sport and each other. What I find interesting is how often I will hear somebody say something at a race, and I will know who they are quoting because I originally saw it compiled in this book. I also wrote a review of The Quotable Runner.

Best How-To Manual
The Complete Book of Running is still, to my mind, the most comprehensive tutorial on how to become a runner. The training advice is a bit antiquated at this point, but the book is still dead on with its advice on the physical and psychological benefits of running and how to incorporate it into your lifestyle. This book was largely responsible for the attraction to running in the late ’70s and early ’80s in the United States. Jim Fixx died of a massive heart attack after a run, but there is no doubt that his taking up running to replace an unhealthy lifestyle added the decade to a decade and a half that he lived past his father and grandfather.

Most Inspirational Collection of Essays
This Running Life is my personal favorite, but just about any book by the late Dr. George Sheehan can fit into this category. He may not have been the fastest man ever born, and he may have come to running later in life, but he knew how to put into words what running is all about. This reminds me that I have yet to pick up a copy of Chasing the Hawk, which was written by Dr. Sheehan’s son.

So there you have it, a collection of a few of my favorite running books. I have (quote) a few others on my shelf, but these are the ones that I open up and look at again the most often. For somebody new to the sport, they provide a great group of books to pick up and take a look through. Other than Coast to Coast, they all tend to be somewhat older books, so if anybody has some good suggestions on more current works that I should pick up and read I would love to hear about them.

You can catch up with the runners at the book signing, or pick up a copy of the book for $19 at the Brick City 5k. $19 is a good price; that’s less than you can buy it online for after shipping and taxes!

When talk of writing a book about the experience came up, months after the relay, the task fell to Ryan Pancoast, a.k.a. Sanford, who elicited personal accounts from teammates, advisors and drivers to add to his narrative. He prefaces the collaborative account, “Coast to Coast: The Story of the 2004 R.I.T. Transcontinental Relay Run” with the disclaimer: “For some of us, it was the best experience of our lives. For others, it was torturous. For most of us, it was somewhere in between.”

The book is now available at Amazon.com and will soon be available in Border’s bookstores. I highly recommend you pick up a copy. You can also read my review of Coast to Coast.

If it’s not fun, you’re doing something wrong.

The authors talk very little about actually having fun and more about finding the clicking point where you realize that you enjoy lifting and what it can do for your body. If you do not enjoy what you are doing, then you will not be in it for the long haul which is what is necessary to get the most out of any program and to maintain a healthy body.

I have to agree with the sentiment though. If you are not enjoying yourself, you need to try something else until you find something that you do enjoy. Weight lifting, running, bicycling, swimming, basketball, turning cartwheels in your front yard: they are all just a means to an end. Keep moving along until you find something that you like. Also, don’t forget to go back to things you tried before and try them again. You may find that you enjoy them more when you are coming at them from a slightly better fitness base gotten from some other activity.

When you combine serious strength training with serious endurance exercise, your body will probably choose endurance over muscle and strength.

The authors contend that if you mix strength training and endurance exercise, the workouts will actually interfere with each other. In general, you will get the benefits from the endurance exercise. If you were working out 3 days a week in the gym and 3 days a week out running, then your body will choose endurance over muscle growth, strength and power. If you did want the best of both worlds, you would need to combine the workouts and do your running and your strength training in the same workout session.

I generally run and lift throughout the year. However, I always have a focus on one or the other. When I finish my racing season, I tend to cut back on my running and concentrate on my lifting. The general idea is to put on a few pounds and to work on building muscle mass and strength. Then, when my marathon training comes back into focus, I will cut back on my lifting to two days a week and start running five or six days a week. The continued strength training is not meant to build a lot of extra muscle mass, but to maintain the strength that I do have and to provide another outlet for improving upon my endurance without further stress that is exactly the same as running.

You don’t need endurance exercise to burn fat.

The idea is that weight training can lead to an increased metabolism for a few days, while endurance exercise only revs up your metabolism for a few hours after you are done working out. If you work out hard enough in the gym and eat properly afterwards, then you will have no trouble losing weight.

I can not really comment on this. I agree that after a really tough workout in the gym I tend to be really hungry afterwards, but I am also really hungry after a tough running workout. My regimen usually includes a fairly balanced mix of weight lifting and running, and the only problems that I have controlling my weight are making sure that I eat enough to not waste away.

Aerobic fitness is not a matter of life and death.

The authors want to paint a distinct line between “exercise training” and “endurance training”; they do not believe that aerobic exercise is necessary to be healthy. They are right about it not being necessary, but I do not like their take on the matter.

Whether aerobic and endurance exercise is necessary depends upon your goals. Obviously, since I am a marathoner, I am not going to do very well in my races if I do not go out and run hundreds of miles. If I was just starting to work out for the first time and my only goals were to lose weight or make myself healthier then I would not worry as much about it. As is, my goal is to work my weight lifting around my running schedule rather than the other way around.

Lifting by itself may increase your flexibility.

The authors debunk the myth that lifting can make you “muscle-bound”, which means that all those big muscles stiffen you up compared to the non-muscular population. The truth is that any sort of activity can make you more flexible than somebody that sits around all day. Sitting shortens your hip flexors and overstretches your back muscles. Lifting weights encourages good posture and stretches out the muscles which will help lead to flexibility.

The authors admit that research on stretching can be found to hold up basically any theory. I can not really speak to whether my lifting makes me more flexible or not, though. I run more than I lift, and I stretch often. I am naturally a very flexible person to begin with. I have friends that have lifted and run just as much as I have though that can barely get their hands past their shins, which strikes me as not quite right.

Coast to Coast is about the November 2004 relay run by the cross country team of the Rochester Institute of Technology. They began the relay by dipping their batons in the Pacific ocean, and finished the relay by jumping into the Atlantic ocean. The relay took 12 days 3 hours and 48 minutes, and the baton moved continuously forward (mostly) on it’s 2,730 mile trip across the country the entire time. Each runner ran for 2 miles at a time and then resting for three and a half hours until it was their turn to run again. The book documents everything from the planning stages to the execution of the relay, and touches on a few ways that the run effected the athletes afterward.

The book includes a lot of information about the trip, such as:

• a map of the route
• the author’s sketchbook
• the specs and layout of the RVs
• Short bios of all the runners and drivers

What I liked about the book is that it is a fast read that makes you feel as though you are there with them. The good things to happen on the trip are mentioned and receive the majority of the focus, but they did not shrink from allowing us to see the turmoil and the problems that they had as they went along. There are a lot of great pictures in the book (95 total) that really help to show what is happening. It was a lot of fun to read through the sketchbook at the end and compare the descriptions of events and people to what was drawn in the sketchbook.

I really like how the chapters are broken up by the accounts of other runners, the advisors, and other folk involved in the run (such as the President of RIT and the father of one of the runners). The book has a great flow and is well organized.

There were a few things that I did not like about the book. The map works really well for the 2004 route that was taken, but the 1979 route does not show up very well at all. There is no picture index, so if you are trying to find a picture you need to remember what state it was taken in or else just flip through until you find it.

The book is very reasonably priced, costing just $14.95 for the paperback version and $25.42 for the hardcover version. Because the book is produced on demand, it can take a couple weeks to receive it.

You don’t need to warm up to stretch.

The authors do not believe that you really need to warm up before you stretch. Their example is that unless you are trying to put your foot behind your head as the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning, you will not have to worry about hurting yourself.

I just want to point out that they did qualify this rule. In general, stretching at any random time can be good for you. If I am going to spend an extended amount of time stretching, however, I prefer to warm up a little bit as it makes the stretching a much more pleasant activity and I don’t “pop” my bones as much in the process. As such, most of my concentrated stretching happens after my gym workouts or my runs.

(Photo by Matt Hartman)

In November 2004, some former teammates of mine ran from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean. The goal was to beat the time it took a similar team to accomplish the feat 25 years earlier. They ran day and night for 2,730 miles for a total of 12 days 3 hours 48 minutes. They ran through the desert, the mountains, the snow and the rain. Coast to Coast is a record of their relay straight from the mouths of the athletes.

This is your chance to win a free copy of Coast to Coast.

I encourage everybody to buy a copy of Coast to Coast. You can get Paperback versions of the book for $14.94, and hardcover versions are available for $25.42. I will be giving away a copy of the paperback version through this contest. Official rules are included below. Go to my contact page if you have any questions or need any clarifications. If you have any questions for the author, Ryan Pancoast, then I would be more than happy to forward them along for you.