Running Sports

As recently as 1966, women were forbidden to run in the marathon. Professionals - including doctors - believed it was physically impossible and dangerous for women to run more than a mile and a half. But as with many other barriers women have faced over time, we fought our way in. Today, women make up almost half of the marathoning population. Yet most marathon training manuals are written by men. And while these men are experts when it comes to how men can and should train, women need training programs tailored to our bodies....

The road from a high school track to an Olympic starting line is long and sometimes shadowy. Obstacles like chronic injuries, under-fueled nutrition, and coercive coaching can threaten to derail careers before they’ve even begun. Frustrated by seeing young talent burn out before reaching their potential, professional distance runner Molly Huddle and college coach Sara Slattery have teamed up with trailblazing running legends and sports medicine professionals to create an essential guide to reach your running potential.

No hay imposibles para aquel que está dispuesto a darlo todo por un sueño. Así nos lo demuestra el ultrafondista Sergio Turull en este libro de superación, donde narra uno de sus mayores retos deportivos, correr 121 kilómetros por una buena causa. A través de esta exigente aventura, el autor nos cuenta cómo empezó a correr en 2012, tras mantener una conversación con un hombre que le cambió la vida.

In 2083, Benjamin Brandt is among the millions of “slummers” who are relegated to poverty and struggle on the outskirts of society. As a minority growing up in the gritty underbelly of Cleveland’s Industrial Valley, Ben sees the way genetically designed “elites” live only from a distance: from the shadows of public spaces people like him are forbidden to use, and on TV, where he watches the enhanced athletes compete at an extraordinary level. For years, a national track championship has inspired Ben to ferociously cultivate his own talent as a runner.

For runners, cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, and cross-country skiers, getting older doesn't have to mean getting slower. Drawing from the most current research on aging and sports performance, Joe Friel—America's leading endurance sports coach—shows how athletes can race strong and stay healthy well past age 50. In his groundbreaking book Fast After 50, Friel offers a smart approach for athletes to ward off the effects of age. Friel shows athletes how to extend their racing careers for decades—and race to win.

Travis Macy has summited glacial peaks in the French Alps, rappelled into limestone caves in China, and raced through parched deserts in Utah. In 2013 he famously won the Leadman Series, a combination of nearly 300 miles of high-altitude trail running and mountain biking over the course of five epic endurance races. Macy achieved all of these victories without elite professional training or even exceptional strength, speed, or flexibility.

In The Examined Run, philosopher and ultramarathon runner Sabrina B. Little asks whether running can be a laboratory for developing our character. She looks at the key ideas in virtue ethics-virtue, vice, exemplarism, moral emotions, and competition-and brings them into conversation with her experience in training and racing.

After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his life he moved from Devon to Iten, in Kenya, to eat with, interview, sleep beside and - most importantly – run with, some of the greatest runners in the world. In the distance rests his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in an epic first marathon across the Kenyan plains.

The former middle-distance Olympic runner and high-end escort speaks out for the first time about her battle with mental illness and how mania controlled and compelled her in competition but also in life. This is a heartbreakingly honest yet hopeful memoir reminiscent of Manic, Electroboy, and An Unquiet Mind.

When “Renaissance runner” (New York Times) Alexi Pappas - Olympic athlete, actress, filmmaker, and writer - was four years old, her mother died by suicide, drastically altering the course of Pappas’s life and setting her on a search for female role models. When her father signed his bereaved daughter up for sports teams as a way to keep her busy, female athletes became the first women Pappas looked up to, and her Olympic dream was born. At the same time, Pappas had big creative dreams, too: She wanted to make movies, write, and act.

For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats - walking high lines 1,000 feet off the ground without a harness, or running 100 miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality.

From Monday Night Football to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we known and love today? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture? Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all—from scout to executive to coach—and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more.

Nedd Brockmann isn’t afraid to dream big. Fresh after running fifty marathons in fifty days, the twenty-three-year-old had an idea: a 4000-kilometre run across Australia, averaging 100 kilometres per day with the aim of completing it in the fastest known time of 43 days. He wasn’t chasing fame or public recognition. He just wanted to test his limits and raise a million dollars for homelessness in the process.

Every runner knows pacing is critical. It can be the difference between a PR and a DNF. In On Pace, acclaimed running coach and author Matt Fitzgerald reveals how conventional training and device overdependence keep runners from accessing the full power of pacing. With a mix of fascinating science and compelling stories from every corner of the sport, Fitzgerald shows that pacing is the art of finding your limit—running at a pace to finish the workout or cross the finish line completely out of gas.

Why does it make sense to Ethiopian runners to get up at three a.m. to run up and down a hill? Who would choose to train on almost impossibly steep and rocky terrain, in hyena territory? And how come Ethiopian men hold six of the top 10 fastest marathon times ever? Michael Crawley spent 15 months in Ethiopia training alongside (and sometimes a fair way behind) runners at all levels of the sport, from night watchmen hoping to change their lives to world-class marathon runners, in order to answer these questions.

When Meb Keflezighi - the first person in history to win both the Boston and New York City marathons as well as an Olympic marathon medal - ran his final marathon in New York in 2017, it marked the end of an extraordinary distance-running career. Meb's last marathon was also his 26th, and each of those marathons has come with its own unique challenges, rewards, and outcomes. In 26 Marathons, Meb takes listeners on those legendary races, along every hill, bend, and unexpected turn of events that made each marathon an exceptional learning experience, and a fascinating story.

Until five years ago, Alexandra Heminsley was decidedly not a runner. Nor was she athletic in any sense of the word. She was an ordinary, curvy woman who was convinced that sports of any kind, especially running, were beyond her. But she's made running part of her life, and gets to reap the rewards: not just the obvious things, like a touch of weight loss, health and glowing skin, but self-belief, and immeasurable daily pleasure.

Twenty-six point two miles isn’t enough anymore. Obstacle course racing, which combines the endurance challenges of a marathon with the mind-bending rigors of overcoming obstacles along the way, is taking the world by storm. At the center of this phenomenon is Joe De Sena, the driving force behind the enormously popular Spartan Race. De Sena offers a simple philosophy: commit to a goal, put in the work, and get it done.

Hansons Marathon Method lays out the smartest marathon training program available from one of the most accomplished running groups in the world. Using their innovative approach, runners will mold real marathon muscles, train their body to never hit the wall, and prepare to run their fastest marathon.

Dean Karnazes has run 350 continuous miles through three sleepless nights, ordered pizza during long runs, and inspired fans the world over with his adventures. Now in this heart-pounding book, Dean reveals how he pulled off unfathomable feats with a determination that defied all physical limitations. But Dean goes beyond the story of the Endurance 50 marathons to share his invaluable secrets and advice for athletes of all levels.