Washoe County Library System

The author of "Running With the Kenyans" turns his attention to Japan, the most running-obsessed country on Earth, revealing a running culture that explores why people run and how it can be done better.

Provides an introduction to training for long distance running, covering such topics as choosing running shoes, balancing dietary needs, using warm up exercises, protecting oneself from injury, and running schedules with different levels of difficulty.

When Mina discovers that she can run faster than her athlete friend, Ruth, she thinks she must choose between running and friendship.

Having competed in over 600 long-distance races across fifty-five years, Ed Ayres is arguably the most experienced American distance runner still competing today. A book no one else could have written, The Longest Race is his urgent exploration of the connection between endurance athletes and a sustainable society. The Longest Race begins with Ayres at the starting line of the 2001 JFK 50 Mile-- the nation’s oldest and largest ultramarathon and,...

At age 38, the author's substance abuse, nutrition-free diet, and dire lack of sleep landed him in the ER, where a doctor said that at the rate he was going, he wouldn't live to see his son's high school graduation. That's when Magill became a born again runner...Over time his new "addiction" set him free from the old ones. His health dramatically recovered, his mood lifted, and he went on to become one of the fastest-ever masters runners and a sought-after...

An Australian sheep rancher who eats pumpkins for energy enters a race from Melbourne to Sydney, despite people laughing at his eccentricities.

In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and--even more important--on his writing.--From publisher description.

Peter Sagal, the host of NPRs Wait Wait...Dont Tell Me! and a popular columnist for Runners World, shares lessons, stories, advice, and warnings gleaned from running the equivalent of once around the earth. At the verge of turning forty, Peter Sagalbrainiac Harvard grad, short bald Jew with a disposition towards heft, and a sedentary star of public radiostarted running seriously. And much to his own surprise, he kept going, faster and further, running...