Once a Runner

I've been craving another running book which led me to Once a Runner. Held in high esteem by the running community it's certainly geared to the serious runner. It's all inside baseball from the first chapter with the codified language of the runner. On the whole it reads like so many self help books where the message is wrapped up in some propulsive, action. I'm thinking the Celestine Prophecy with it's pulpy train wreck of a story.

But buried within was the small nugget of truth to running. I'm too early in my running career to truly appreciate the grueling rigors of the distance runner. I will never run a sub 4 minute mile, compete at Olympic levels or escape to some wooded hideaway to seriously train but I can still be gripped by his recounting of a mile race and pushing past the pain and fear.