Sometimes when it’s cold, it’s raining and it’s dark outside, even the most committed among us might struggle to find the enthusiasm to get our gear on and step out for the training run we’d planned. When this situation arises ( as it quite often does ) there are usually two options: The first is to draw on your inner strength and persuade yourself that once you’ve got out the front door and made a start it will be OK. This usually works, and when you get back home you’ll invariably be glad you made the effort. The other option is to pull the curtains, put your feet up and relax with a book or the TV. The second option is much more appealing in the short term, and if you’re genuinely feeling a bit jaded might actually be just what you need, but it isn’t a habit that you would want to get into.
So on those occasions when going out feels impossible, but not going out feels like failure, the answer may be found between the covers of a good book. There are so many great and inspiring books with running as their theme that it would be hard for me to single out many as being better than the rest, but as I add to my small but growing library of such books, I’ve read a few that I’m happy to recommend. In my previous posts about ultra running I named three books which are stories of triumph over adversity in circumstances few of us will endure: North by Scott Jurek, Running and stuff by James Adams and There’s no map in hell by Steve Birkinshaw. A few pages of those will soon make the prospect of your 5 miles in the cold and rain seem a bit less daunting.
Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run is a quirky book which delves into the secretive world of the legendary Mexican Tarahumara Indians, famed for their amazing feats of long distance running. A true story, it reads a bit like a novel. Check it out.
Biographies of running legends always make interesting reading: Sydney Wooderson – a very British hero by Rob Hadgraft, Endurance – the biography of Emil Zatopek, The Impossible Hero by Dick Booth which tells the story of the enigmatic Gordon Pirie, and Joss by Keith Richardson – the story of the still unstoppable fell running legend Joss Naylor are among those I’ve greatly enjoyed and recommend.
But the Daddy of them all just has to be “The long hard road” by Ron Hill. Delivered in two volumes as part one “Nearly to the top”, and part two “To the peak and beyond”, this is the autobiography of probably the greatest long distance runner this country has ever produced. For utter dedication and determination over a long lifetime of running he’s unrivalled. Having performed at the very highest level, breaking national and world records and competing in Commonwealth, European and Olympic games, his love of the sport included an almost obsessive hunger for racing, and the dedication to set a record of running every single day without exception for over 52 years, before a heart problem and then the onset of dementia in the past 2 years has finally slowed him down. The book gives a really detailed insight into his life from the earliest days, through his years of triumph and onward into gentle decline. Search the book out online. You’ll be well rewarded.
Next up…..whatever the weather!
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