Posted by Todd under book review, Todd life
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As one of my birthday presents back in August, Betsy signed me up to run a half-marathon in the fall. That weekend is coming up soon – it’ll be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, giving me two more weeks of training between now and then. (I’m thankful that I get a full day of digestion between Thanksgiving and the run. I’ll probably have to do at least a short jog on Friday to work some of the mashed potatoes out of my system before running hard the next day.)
I’m a little concerned about the run, as my training program has not been particularly consistent nor rigorous. This is mainly due to the fact that if I want to go jogging on a weekday, the only time that really works for the family is if I go first thing in the morning, before work, which means that I wake up at 4:45am to go running in the dark. So the fact that I go out running once or twice a week is actually pretty good. These end up being about 2 miles or so – long enough to get my pulse rate up, but hardly long enough for training.
The weekends are when I really get time, and I’ve pushed myself pretty far the last couple weeks, running 8-9 mile courses with some intense hills along the way. That’s still 4-5 miles short of what I’ll need to run, but since I’ve had gas left in the tank the last few weeks when I got home, I think the 13.1 miles of the half-marathon should be conquerable.

I found a nice trail near our house yesterday to go running on. It’s a nice 4 mile greenbelt trail along a creek that winds through the eastern side of West Seattle. The trail keeps stopping and dumping out onto the street before starting again a few blocks later, so it’s hardly a haven from city life, but definitely a good space for a run.
One of the factors that got me back into running this year (after another one of my frequent extended breaks from running) was the book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
, by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one of my favorite novelists, and this book is written in his trademark easy, elegant style. The book is roughly 20% memoir of his life, 20% discussion of the creative process, and 60% why he likes to go running (and some of the most memorable runs he’s gone on).

For runners, I’d consider this to be a must-read, as he describes the running process beautifully, and describes some runs which are going to be in the “aspirational” category for quite some time (including a 50-mile super marathon across the Japanese coastline). For non-runners, it’s probably of more interest to people who are already familiar with his books (and I’m happy to provide recommendations on those), but it’s well-written and thoughtful enough to be well worth a read and to help you understand those crazy friends or family of yours who can think of nothing greater to do on a Saturday than running for two hours in the cold and rain.