Month: October 2008

50/50: Secrets I learned while running 50 marathons in 50 days, Dean Karnazes’ second book about running that I have read. The first one was Ultramarathon Man which was basically race reports strung together to give a history of his running life. 50/50, while different from the first in many ways, still has the same passion of someone telling a story, yet teaching lessons as he goes along.

The first couple of chapters are narratives about how the idea of running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days came about and how the first few races went. Scattered in the narrative are tips and tricks he learned in his running career that a new runner could benefit from. A few chapters into the book the amount of narrative and teaching switch roles. He begins to spend much more time talking about running and preparing yourself for your first marathon than telling details of each marathon run during the event.

The style of the work is exactly what I like in a book. The chapters are short. He focuses on one main theme for each chapter. He relates the events in an enjoyable, east-to-read, style. And since I love biographies and non-fiction of just about any kind, the interweaving of race reports with training guide is exactly what appeals to me.

Whatever you think about Dean and his shameless self promotion, you have to admit that there are many more people enjoying the sport of running because of Dean Karnazes. I was a runner before I ever heard of Karno, but the idea of pushing towards running my first marathon, and hopefully many ultras in the future, can be traced back to Ultramarathon Man.

I highly recommend this book for newer runners and marathoners. While more experienced runners may enjoy the story behind the 50/50 event, I don’t know if they will get as much out of the book as a newer runner will.

I will add the same disclaimer to this as I did on Ultramarathon Man: there is some profanity in the book which is unnecessary and dissappointing Therefore I caution readers about buying it for younger runners.

I want to thank Steve at Run Bulldog Run for having the drawing in which I won the book. Also I thank the publisher for overnighting a copy of the book to me the day they learned my first copy was lost in the mail.

Running
The goal is to run 1000 miles this year. I have accomplished 723.5. The month of September was my biggest month so far with 104 miles logged. I am needing to run a bit over 90 miles each month for the next 3 months to make the goal. It should be very do-able. I did these 100 miles in 12 runs. That is probably the least number of runs in a month all year, but there were 2 runs of 20 miles each.

I rode my bike quite a bit this month too. Getting the new road bike and being home more often really helped with that. I put 55 miles on my bike.

Reading
My reading has not gone as well as planned, but I am still hitting the books and pulling in content. If I knew a way to quantify my on-line reading, then my number of pages would go through the roof. I read 645 pages in 6 books. The only one of real interest is Metal Cowboy. I just started that this week and am really enjoying it. I plan to write a review of it soon. I read a book about Eric Liddell (the Chariots of Fire guy) and am reading another one about him. I plan to do a Missionary Talks episode about his life.

Just plugging away. Next month will be my marathon. I also will be away from home most of the month. My bike riding numbers will be almost nothing while my running and reading should get better.