Three Tomes To Tempt You To Trot

A metal baker's rack sits an arm's length from the bathtub (directly across from the commode) in the main bathroom of our house. At any one moment, six-to-eight books and magazines, which my wife and I are reading, can be found filling the middle shelf. Her reading preferences usually lean toward Wired magazine, techno-geek tomes or science fiction...oh, and a copy of Robert Heilbroner's "The Worldly Philosophers."

Occasionally a catalog from Kiefer Swim, Bike Nashbar, or Road Runner Sports will spend a brief (one bathroom visit) stay on the rack. Sporting goods porn, we call it. My latest reading materials are the two major John L. Parker novels, "Once A Runner" and "Again To Carthage," and an anthology of Tim Cahill short stories. Cahill is not as good as Hemingway, but I can more readily find a laugh after a day of work with the former than the latter.

There was a time I didn't have a television set, which meant I did a great deal of reading when not working, eating or sleeping. If not for the painful fact that sporting events are televised I could probably live without a television. Reading is more fun. Books allow the reader to think. At their own pace. It's fun to have the ability to backpedal a page or two, or to a particular passage which catches ones' attention.

One of my "summer vacation" athletes is in the "honeymoon" phase of running. She's gotten past the high school crush version; it's all for the team, the heartbreak can happen at any moment...and when it does it's earth-shattering. She asked during a warm-up jog last week, about good running books: "I've been looking for good running books since I've been on vacation. Are there any books you would recommend?"

So I promised I'd scribble a short list of fiction and nonfiction works which I found inspiring; one of those books which makes you want to lace up the shoes and go out for 30 minutes after a particularly good chapter. Here's my "very" short list...

1. "Once A Runner," John L. Parker Jr.

The American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, "all philosophy is a footnote to Plato". All running fiction is a footnote to Parker, especially this work, first published in 1978. My college cross-country team used to spend summer morning runs discussing, in cabalistic tones, which Parker character aligned with which former Florida Track Club member. Not long after that summer we began to meet some of the runners who inspired the characters... When we sat in a running seminar during the spring of 2001 Parker would not say directly which real life runner inspired what character, however, "Bruce Denton" and I tapped a keg together while working the road race the next afternoon. Nicest guy you'd ever meet.

If you find a first edition which is in good condition for less than 150 dollars, purchase it. Otherwise, the second edition, printed by a publishing house in Australia, will serve.

2. "Again To Carthage," John L. Parker, Jr.

Rare is the sequel which meets fan expectations. Runners are not only discerning consumers, they get Pavlovian, if not rabid, when the rumor mill begins to grind. A "promotional trailer" video posted on YouTube had the LetsRun.com crowd wondering whether someone was going to turn Parker's "doppelganger," Quenton Cassidy, into celluloid. We were soon disappointed to learn this was a film and cinematography project rather than the answer to our fevered dreams (ah, but it did look good). It's probable that Parker took three decades to write a tome, which does to road racing what "Runner" did for track-and-field, because of the 'how do I follow THIS?' feeling each time he sat with his journal books and typewriter. I was delighted to see more real-life runners show up in this fictional work, including some of my dearest running friends and former coaches. This work also answers one of the best running trivia questions nobody knows: "Who was the last American to win the Olympic gold medal in the 5,000 meters?"

3. "Running With The Buffaloes," Chris Lear

I ran track during my last year of high school and cross-country during my last year of college. Both occasions were similar in the fact I had time to spare during that semester, as well as that the coaches were willing to let another guy come out and play. The dynamics of a track team and a cross country team are stark: Sprinters have their own little cliques, weight specialists kind of do their own thing. Distance guys are looked upon as freaks or guys who aren't fast enough to sprint. Even buses were segregated that way. Cross-country is like boot-camp...you slog through muck and mire with a little band of brothers/sisters; long, hot road runs in the summer, and 15-passenger van trips in the fall.

Lear captures the "Saint Crispin's Day" feel from Shakespeare's "Henry IV" throughout the entire book, touching on the personalities and idiosyncracies of both athletes and coaches. He also looks at the highest levels of collegiate competition, as the Colorado teams train, bond, travel and compete in the 1999 NCAA national championships.

These three works are only the tip of the inspirational iceberg for me. I've loaned, lost and re-purchased copies, read and re-read these books on a yearly basis, because there's always a little something which jumps out and grabs your attention.

Are there any books which make you want to go for a run, or are an absolute must-read the night before a big race?

Ask Coach - March 2008

When I took over the coaching position for ECRT, I originally wrote the club's newsletter. Since I'm a typical guy (literal translation: lucky to do one thing correctly at a time) multitasking - it was a choice between writing communications and writing workouts. So, I chose workouts and told the new club secretary he would write the newsletter. He decided to throw rhetorical/actual questions he thought of and heard from folks asking about our training, etc., at me each month. Here's a sample of the ones from this month...

Which books on running do you recommend? Sometimes I need a little motivation to come work out on these cold nights.
I have good news and bad news. We won’t have too many cold nights after this month… that’s the good news. The bad news is we’ll have 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. But I digress. I’ll give three non-training-focused books I think every runner should read at least once, or once a year.

The first, ‘Once A Runner,’ is a classic, a book you search for your entire life, then read at least once a year (Stacie Rockhill has my copy, and I want it back!) during those dreary days when you cannot get out to run. John Parker wrote this novel loosely based on his time at the original Florida Track Club, back in the days when Olympians Jack Bacheler and Frank Shorter were there. I had the supreme pleasure to meet (and train with) the inspiration for a couple of characters in the book during while in college. I asked my wife to read it when we were first dating to help her understand the idiosyncrasies runners possess. However, if it comes to the choice between purchasing warm technical gear to wear on cold workouts and buying OAR, the price might be equal, as this book is out of print and hard to find. If you are fortunate enough to get Parker’s follow-up, ‘Again To Carthage,’ wait to read it until you read ‘Once A Runner.’

The second, ‘Running With The Buffaloes,’ chronicles a season with the University of Colorado cross-country team and their coach, Mark Wetmore. Chris Lear’s development of a team dynamic and the trials of collegiate athletics are only two of the major themes in this book. Reading Wetmore’s philosophy of coaching and the method by which he develops training plans will help you understand some of the challenges as you look at your own training.

While I want to recommend Lear’s follow-up book, ‘Sub-4:00: Alan Webb and the Quest for the Fastest Mile,’ I think Dean Karnazes’ ‘Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner’ is better motivational material. “Karno” runs the gamut from talking about his passion for Starbucks, to describing his first (failed) effort at running the Badwater 150-Mile Run, to balancing corporate life with family and running. Two visuals come to mind as I recall the book: First, the starter who climbs a boulder to read the soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Henry IV (the “band of brothers” speech), before firing a shotgun to start the Western States 100-Mile Run. Second (and there’s a photo on the back cover), the photo of Karnazes at the South Pole showing what it takes to run in Antarctica…makes me laugh out loud. The dietary list from his 250-plus-mile run that frames this book (It’s an appendix, but don’t read it until you get to the end, okay?) is enough to make you topple. Or input the number to the nearest Round Table Pizza on your cell phone. I disagree with Outside magazine’s description of Karnazes as ‘America’s Greatest Distance Runner,’ but he definitely has a rare and special quality.

I’ve read that a serious runner should get in interval miles, long miles, tempo miles and easy miles. At the track, aren’t we overemphasizing interval training at the expense of the other types of training?

I‘ll start with the rhetorical question, ‘what is serious? And what does that mean to me as a runner?’

What we do at the track should only be a small part of your training, with long miles, (more) tempo miles and easy miles on the days you aren’t there. For example, I run easy on Monday afternoon, do interval work on Tuesday and Thursday, and a long tempo run on Wednesday. Sunday is my day to do either a long, easy run or a long bike ride (I also swim and ride a stationary bicycle as cross-training and to train for multi-sport events.). Some of what I have been reading says (in contrast) older or less-experienced runners will benefit more from increased aerobic-pace training than from interval work; after a time the younger runner needs interval work to continue speed development. But, don’t get hung up on what you read and consider it as the norm. Remember what works for the local running stud (or stud-ette) or the elite runner might not fit your needs. If you need help in developing a training plan to meet your running goals and touches all of those elements, (and includes rest,) please speak to me at the track, at the Deli on Friday night, or any time you can dial my phone.

This isn’t a question, just a comment – I am so glad that we are running the trail for our warm-up instead of two miles on the track!

I’m as glad for it as you are. We all need a little bit of diversion, and the trail warm-up allows that. You’ll get to run out on the trail as warm-up for a longer period this summer: I draw the line after I receive a bite from those nasty yellow flies.