What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Enjoyable to read a book about running - a first for me since doing more running/training.

Murakami had many useful quips about life and I found his ways to remain optimistic and his motivations behind running (solitude, weight loss and because he wanted to and likes it) very relatable! He writes beautifully and this felt like a conversation with him. I was surprised that the book took me longer to get through than expected but I wanted to really read it and absorb it. 

Quotes I liked:
p.vii (running mantras): Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

p.20: Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. ... It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside ... I've had to constantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and to put it into perspective.

p.51 (on increasing exercise over time): The body is an extremely practical system. You have to let it experience intermittent pain over time, and then the body will get the point.

p.142: Dave Scott wrote that of all the sports man has invented, cycling has got to the most unpleasant of all. [I'm not 100% I agree, but it is a good line nonetheless!]

p.172: