In chapters 24 and 25 (there are 26 chapters in the book, reflecting the 26.2 miles of a marathon) he tells the story of taking on the World Marathon challenge about a year after he had retired from professional running. Despite these accomplishments, the part of the book that I found most interesting (and most motivational) had nothing to do with the records that Hall has set. Hall participated in the 20 Olympics, he holds the American record for the half marathon (59:43), and he is the only American to run a sub-2:05 marathon. Unlike the other memoirs I mentioned, Run the Mile You’re In is written by a world-class runner. Ryan Hall’s new memoir has plenty of running stories, and it aims to motivate its readers to success in all areas of life. As I read other runners recount the joys and struggles of racing, training, or just leisurely runs, I consistently find new reasons to get excited for my weekly long run.
Segel’s recent book is a hilarious and at points moving account of his running experiences, including finishing the Boston Marathon in 2013 shortly before the bomb went off at the finish line. Cheever combines fascinating personal anecdotes from his own amateur running career with historical vignettes about running. A couple of my other favorites are Benjamin Cheever’s Strides: Running Through History with an Unlikely Athlete (2007) and Peter Segel’s The Incomplete Book of Running (2018). Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007) is the classic running memoir. One thing that contributed to the shift from experiencing running as drudgery to running as enjoyable – at times even joyful – was reading about the stories and experiences of other runners. It took about a year of forcing myself out the door and onto the pavement every few days before I actually started looking forward to each run. What changed in between? I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but running went from something I felt I should do to something I love to do. Fast forward to April of this year, and after months of training, I was crossing the finish line in my first marathon.
So, I laced up an old pair of tennis shoes and ran a slow, painful 2 miles around my neighborhood. However, my 30th birthday was right around the corner, and I felt like I needed to do something to counteract my increasingly sedentary lifestyle. In the fall of 2015, I hadn’t run so much as a mile since college. Sure, I’d run in high school as part of conditioning for basketball and baseball, but I never enjoyed it. Just a few short years ago, I would have told you how much I hated running.
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