From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her year-long exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia—9 countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running—investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world. Fresh off a successful collegiate running career—with multiple NCAA All-American honors and two Olympic Trials qualifying marks to her name—Becky Wade was no stranger to international competition. But after years spent safely sticking to the training methods she knew, Becky was curious about how her counterparts in other countries approached the sport to which she’d dedicated over half of her life. So in 2012, as a recipient of the Watson Fellowship, she packed four pairs of running shoes, cleared her schedule for the year, and took off on a journey to infiltrate diverse running communities around the world. What she encountered far exceeded her expectations and changed her outlook into the sport she loved. Over the next twelve months—visiting 9 countries with unique and storied running histories, logging over 3,500 miles running over trails, tracks, sidewalks, and dirt roads—Becky explored the varied approaches of runners across the globe. Whether riding shotgun around the streets of London with Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt, climbing for an hour at daybreak to the top of Ethiopia’s Mount Entoto just to start her daily run, or getting lost jogging through the bustling streets of Tokyo, Becky’s unexpected adventures, keen insights, and landscape descriptions take the reader into the heartbeat of distance running around the world. Upon her return to the United States, she incorporated elements of the training styles she’d sampled into her own program, and her competitive career skyrocketed. When she made her marathon debut in 2013, winning the race in a blazing 2:30, she became the third-fastest woman marathoner under the age of 25 in U.S. history, qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Trials and landing a professional sponsorship from Asics. From the feel-based approach to running that she learned from the Kenyans, to the grueling uphill workouts she adopted from the Swiss, to the injury-recovery methods she learned from the Japanese, Becky shares the secrets to success from runners and coaches around the world. The story of one athlete’s fascinating journey, Run the World is also a call to change the way we approach the world’s most natural and inclusive sport.
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This was an interesting read. I definitely enjoyed the adventure aspect of traveling the world – such a crazy and exhilarating tour Wade took! I also loved learning the differences between how each culture trains and how they eat. There are even recipes from each country.
Although I did enjoy reading Run the World, I did get a little bored at times, because there are certain aspects of the running world I didn't know or care so much about. There's a lot of name dropping in this book, as Wade meets some of the most famous and successful runners in the world. I did recognize some of the names (like Usain Bolt, for instance), but she would go on tangents about how amazing certain runners were and what their times were for certain races, and these parts were a little snooze-ish for me.
If you like running and/or running culture, you'll enjoy this read. I found myself skimming through some of the parts I found boring, and enjoying the parts that were interesting to me. I would definitely like to try the ugali recipe!
Full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/07/book-tour-review-run-world-becky-wade/
