In Runner as Hero, Jay Kimiecik becomes an athlete again-in his case, a masters runner-as a way to revive his life. Kimiecik explores the world of aging, training, and performing through a self-experimental, self-reflective lens- merging science, mythology, and performance psychology. On his heroic journey, Kimiecik talks to aging experts, scientists, top-performing athletes, and the ghost of legendary Steve Prefontaine. Kimiecik's keen observations of everyday living and irreverent style take him on a journey to find the hero within. The result is a fascinating, inspiring tale about how the life as an athlete can serve as a motivational metaphor for feeling alive and achieving nearly anything.

Including personalized workouts and expert advice, "Fitness Running, Third Edition," contains workouts from one of America's most respected coaches.

Whether you run for health, competition, or both, "Fitness Running" includes proven programs to help you achieve your goals. Color coded and customizable, the 13- to 26-week programs cover base building, fitness, and training for short-distance events, half marathons, and marathons. Each workout is prioritized according to your goal, allowing you the flexibility to tailor the training to your schedule.

More than just workouts, this new edition of the best-selling guide includes individualized testing for assessing running health and log pages for recording runs, results, and health information. It includes recommendations for female runners and the latest information on gear and gadgets, cross-training, stretching, and recovery.

Discover what countless runners already have. "Fitness Running" is the most effective and efficient guide to the best health, times, and finishes of your life. It's the one training book you'll use again and again for a lifetime of running workouts.

In his previous book, Running Hot & Cold, Doug described his journey from couch potato in late middle age to running long-distance races across deserts, mountains, jungles and snow fields in locations as diverse as the Sahara Desert and the polar ice-cap of Greenland. Having completed major events on four of Earth's continents, Can We Run With You, Grandfather? describes Doug's ongoing journey towards his ultimate dream of running at least a half marathon on all seven continents before his 70th birthday. Still living with occasional bouts of anxiety and depression, as well as other health scares, Doug combines his running travels with motivating and inspiring others, of all ages and abilities, to discover the physical and mental health benefits that running can bring. Join Doug as he tackles new adventures including the villages and temples of central Myanmar, the heat of the Australian outback and the frozen wilderness of Antarctica.

This is the complete story of long-distance runner Lizzy Hawker's journey from a school girl running the streets of London to a world record-breaking athlete racing on mountains. Scared witless and surrounded by a sea of people, Lizzy Hawker stands in the church square at the centre of Chamonix on a late August evening, waiting for the start of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. The mountains towering over the pack of runners promise a gruelling 8,600 metres of ascent and descent over 158 kilometres of challenging terrain that will test the feet, legs, heart and mind. These nervous moments before the race signal not just the beginning of nearly twenty-seven hours of effort that saw Lizzy finish as first woman, but the start of the career of one of Britain's most successful endurance athletes. She went on to become the 100km Women's World Champion, win the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc an unprecedented five times, hold the world record for 24 hours road running and become the first woman to stand on the overall winners' podium at Spartathlon. An innate endurance and natural affinity with the mountains has led Lizzy to push herself to the absolute limits, including a staggering 320 kilometre run through the Himalayas, from Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu in Nepal. Lizzy's remarkable spirit was recognised in 2013 when she was a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. These ultimate challenges ask not just what the feet and legs can do, but question the inner thoughts and contemplations of a runner. Lizzy's astonishing story uncovers the physical, mental and emotional challenges that runners go through at the edge of human endurance - inspiring us to get out of the chair and go running in the mountains.

Running marathons back-to-back, sleeping by the side of the road, giving presentations to remote schools that had never been visited by their own kinsfolk, this is the remarkable story of personal endurance that gives an engrossing insight into the people and wildlife of South America. It is the story of two everyday runners, Katharine and David, who decided to take on a continent and learn how to run again - barefoot, pushing their bodies and minds to levels they had never considered possible in a bid to become the first in the world to run the length of South America, to give a voice to the wildlife and wildernesses they adore.Running laid them bare, stripped them of the shell people journey within, so all they had to rely on was their own bare feet. Yet this very vulnerability provided the key to unlocking communities who would fling open their doors, tuck them under their wings and whisper their secrets. Amazing animals accompanied them: gigantic vaulting stick-insects; cackling macaws who wheeled and pirouetted in the sky, desperately trying to gain a better view of them; and a giant anteater whom they stalked through a snake-infested swamp, so they could stand within an arm's length as he devoured termites upon the end of his long sticky tongue. It was also an animal, if one of the most diminutive, that nearly succeeded in ending their dreams of conquering the continent - an ant! But when their joints and muscles were screaming, when they couldn't stand the sight of one another and when prickly heat, blisters and tropical ulcers infested their skin, it was the wildlife and wildernesses that pulled them through. Day after day, for months on end, running from freezer through desert and into the biggest rainforest on earth, they survived hurricane-force winds, near 100% humidity, swarms of biting insects and some of the most crime-ridden places on the planet. The expedition nearly cost them their marriage, health, sanity and lives. But somehow, they made it to the other end of the continent, 6,504 miles and 15 months later, when they splashed into the warm and much-dreamed of Caribbean Sea.

Renowned running coach Budd Coates presents a revolutionary yet simple training method based on rhythmic breathing to help runners at all experience levels improve their performance, prevent injury, and experience the joy of running. Validating his method through a mix of accessible science, Eastern philosophy, and the experiences of test subjects, Coates shows readers how focusing on their breathing brings their minds and bodies into harmony and helps them run stronger, faster, and more comfortably.

Rhythmic breathing increases lung volume; improves awareness and control; helps prevent injury and side stitches; improves running for those with asthma; allows runners to quickly set a pace for quality training and racing; and helps athletes manage muscle cramps. This book reviews the basics of rhythmic breathing, teaching readers how to perform it while walking and, eventually, while running. Weeklong sample schedules from different programs shows readers how to apply the rhythmic breathing scale to any workout. Coates also touches on the importance of stretching, cross-training, and core training and provides detailed training plans and schedules.

Every day scientists learn more about how the body adapts to the stress of running--and how various body systems contribute to running performance. Leading the charge is a fresh generation of brilliant young exercise physiologists including Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas, whose work has demolished many long-standing beliefs about running. Now Tucker and Dugas, whose blog, Science of Sport, has already created a devoted readership, join with esteemed fitness author Matt Fitzgerald to provide a captivating tour of the human body from the runner's perspective. Focusing on how runners at all levels can improve their health and performance, "The Runner's Body "offers in a friendly, accessible tone, the newest, most surprising, and most helpful scientific discoveries about every aspect of the sport--from how best to nourish the runner's body to safe and legal ways to increase oxygen delivery to the muscles. Full of surprising facts, practical sidebars, and graphical elements, "The Runner's Body "is a must-have resource for anyone who wants to become a better--and healthier--runner.

Whether you are just getting acquainted with the joys of running or you can recite the brand and model number of your last 12 pairs of running shoes, you'll identify with this book as runners did with the popular first volume, "I Run, Therefore I Am--Nuts "

Best-selling running humorist Bob Schwartz--the Dave Barry of running--is back and will once again have you laughing as he captures the humor, craziness, and obsessions of runners--new and old--with this new collection of 43 hilarious stories.

"I Run, Therefore I Am-- STILL Nuts " brings out the humor in situations that every runner can relate to:

- Suffering from RWIA, otherwise known as running watch information addiction

- The addictive nature of high-intensity interval training

- The depths of despair upon learning your favorite shoe will be discontinued

- Embracing the saving grace of age-graded race time calculators

- Attempting to run with a reluctant canine companion

- Trying out running in the oxymoron of barefoot shoes

If you know that the iliotibial band is not an alternative rock group, wear bruised toenails like badges of honor, and know the feeling of having an elephant resting on your shoulders as you've hit the wall--this book is for you

Your 12-week Guide to Running offers an achievable step-by-step guide to help get an unfit person to a definable goal - running a 5km race in 12 weeks. The book outlines how to get started, what's needed and how to make that first step. Then using the week-by-week guide the reader works towards the target goal in very gradual steps with a weekly programme plus basic tips on nutrition, motivation, stretching and so on. The emphasis is on a very gradual approach towards achieving the goal so that the reader feels comfortable and there is constant reaffirmation of achievements as he/she works through the programme. There will also be sections for the reader's own notes, which are important for that all-important feeling of success as he/she works towards the ultimate goal of looking better and feeling fitter.