Going Down Slow, The Times of an Old Man Who Runs. The word "runs" appears in the subtitle of this memoir, and the act of running spans the breadth of it. So it is perhaps fair if some call this a running book. Running, however, is not the main topic. Adventure is. Author Dallas Smith is drawn to the adventure his hobby brings. Running is indeed a constant presence in the stories, but mostly as a current that sweeps him along, the reason he encounters the places he describes, the people he meets, and the adventure he finds. Running connects him to everything and everyone. Events and episodes vary widely, as do the locales where they play out, stretching from the urbane glamor of Stockholm, Sweden to Spain's El Camino de Santiago to the tussocks of the Arctic tundra to a flood-scoured gorge in Tennessee-and places in between. A run through Central Park suddenly shifts and takes the reader on a fishing trip where three adolescent boys of a distant time and place pulled sagging carp out of a muddy swamp and lugged their haul home. Smith finds adventures and brings them home. This sprawling story delights and surprises readers. Smith brings observation, insight, and wit. His narrative flows like the smooth stride of a fast runner and makes the reader feel as if he, too, were there experiencing the color and danger of these episodic adventures.

The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner is one comparatively unfit 39-year old Londoner's humorous account of his attempt to run the New York marathon from scratch. (He chose the pre-Thanksgiving race in the Big Apple to avoid adding to his ordeal by having to train during the British winter.) Inspired by the charity running of friends, Russell Taylor set himself the challenge of doing what Pheidippides first had done. But to spare himself the post-event trauma of trying to extract money from the reluctant grasp of his sponsors, he decided to write a book about his experiences and donate the royalties to charity instead. This book follows our intrepid road-runner from the treadmills of a north London gymnasium via his first tentative fun run to the mean streets of the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan. Along the way, we encounter indescribably tasteless isotonic drinks, sweaty singlets, sports injuries, personal bests, split times, anxious queuing for the public toilets and an unfeasibly large quantity of bananas. We also discover what lurks within the breast of the endurance athlete: an unreasonable hatred of his fellow runner (except the nubile females of the species), a contempt for the idiocy of stadium announcers and a strange fear of spectators who line the route inanely shouting "Keep Going!" by way of encouragement. The narrative is interspersed by jocular reviews of films about running - not least The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - and a tongue-in-cheek description of the history of the marathon from its Ancient Greek origins to its modern-day revival as an Olympic event. Written with considerable panache and a self-deprecating sense of humour, this illuminating tale of obsessive and foolhardy sporting endeavour will make entertaining reading for (in descending order of athletic accomplishment) manic ultra-marathon runners, dedicated pavement pounders, occasional joggers and the simply curious alike.

Train for your next race with the man who has been called “the world’s best running coach.” With more than 55 years of experience, Jack Daniels is a legendary figure in the running community. Named the National Coach of the Year by the NCAA and honored as the Division III Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Century, Daniels has mentored some of the greatest names in running, including Jim Ryun, Ken Martin, Jerry Lawson, Alicia Shay, Peter Gilmore, Magdalena Lewy-Boulet, and Janet Cherobon-Bawcom. In Daniels’ Running Formula, he has shared training advice with hundreds of thousands of runners. Now in this updated—and definitive—fourth edition, he again refines his methods and strategies to help you run faster and stronger. Building upon his revolutionary VDOT system, Daniels incorporates new insights gained from studying participants in his unique Run SMART Project. You’ll be guided through the components that make the training formula work and then learn different types of training—including treadmill training, fitness training, and training at altitude or in other challenging environments—along with age-related modifications for runners from ages 6 to 80. Everything comes together with expert advice on event-specific training ranging—for runs ranging from 800 meters to ultradistance events and triathlons. You will find advice on setting up your own seasonal plan, or you can follow one of Daniels’ 31 proven training plans and workouts. You’ll even find four fitness running plans, from novice level to elite level, to get in shape or regain conditioning after injury. Join the thousands of runners who have relied on Jack Daniels to help them reach their peak running performance. Using the programs outlined in Daniels’ Running Formula, you too can achieve the results you seek every time you train and race.

Harold Watkins gets a wake-up call after his annual physical. He is out of shape, inactive and almost needs to go shopping for a coffin. The grim reaper is out looking for him. He could try and hide.

Instead, he decides that drastic changes are needed in his life and so he enlists the help of two friends and sets out on a long journey to fitness through the unlikely (for him) sport of running. He soon discovers that there is a lot more to life than sitting in front of a television set and chomping down on burgers and fries.

Throughout the journey Harold experiences every emotion possible from the pain and low esteem of the early beginnings, to the sheer joy and satisfaction of achieving long term goals he had not thought previously possible.

Harold's helpers turn out to be his best friends as well as two very good coaches and have many hilarious runs and training incidents on the way. Harold pushes the word friendship to the limit. At the end of the journey he emerges a completely transformed and totally different person with a whole new outlook on life.

Anyone who runs, or is thinking of taking up running, needs to read this book and use Harold's motivation and perseverance to help with their own personal journeys. If Harold can do it, so can you.

Despu s del diagn stico m dico desalentador y saber que poco a poco perder a la movilidad en todo mi cuerpo, aceptar y asumir la dolorosa enfermedad y comprender el gran valor que tiene el dar un paso, s lo un paso a la vez y decidir que mientras pudiera y Dios me lo permitiera me mantendr a en movimiento corriendo, trotando o caminando, comienza una aventura en kil metros, que a n a contra diagn stico me ha ayudado a mejorar por mucho mi estado de salud, encontrando a lo largo de este reto, lecciones de vida que deseo compartir contigo en estas p ginas, con el nico fin que t, amigo lector, encuentres una esperanza, una motivaci n o una puerta abierta hacia el poder del movimiento, la convicci n, el esfuerzo, la buena actitud ante las circunstancias y de fe. Tambi n con el fin de que esto te lleve a lograr tu propio prop sito, a disfrutar y hacer de cada momento de tu vida, el paso peque ito que te llevar a tu propio gran marat n.

In an era far removed from the African American celebrity athletes of today, Olympic great Jesse Owens achieved fame by running faster and jumping farther than anyone in the world. Author Jacqueline Edmondson explores Owens' struggles and hard-earned accomplishments, as well as how he paved the way for future generations of athletes, including color-line shatterer Jackie Robinson. It is difficult to imagine a time when African Americans were not part of professional sports in the United States. So many admired and beloved African-American athletes are national heroes today: Michael Jordan, Venus and Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Florence Griffin-Joyner, Shaquille O'Neal, Muhammad Ali, to name a few. No such celebrity athletes appeared on magazine covers when Jesse Owens was a boy in the 1920s, no African American stars for him to hope to emulate. As the first American in track and field to win four gold medals in a single Olympic Games, Owens' athletic accomplishments were achieved despite seemingly insurmountable odds. This insightful biography tells the life story of a boy who grew up in poverty in the Deep South, won Olympic gold in Hitler's Germany by running faster and jumping farther than anyone in the world, and achieved fame and sometimes fortune in the midst of the Great Depression and a nation deeply divided by race. Yet while Owens broke world records in track and gained attention from the general public, few athletes could understand his experiences, including the overt racial discrimination he faced-even fewer who understood the complexities his fame brought. Author Jacqueline Edmondson explores Owens' struggles and hard-earned accomplishments, as well as how he paved the way for future generations of athletes, including color line shatterer, Jackie Robinson. A timeline, photos, and extensive bibliography of print and electronic sources supplement this biography of one of the greatest Olympic athletes in American history.

This book tells the story of two of Great Britain's finest Olympic athletes, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. Their achievements at the 1924 Paris Olympics, immortalised in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, are the stuff of legend. They both won Olympic gold medals and became heroes of the day. But they also went on to lead fascinating lives after they retired from running. This beautiful book tells their remarkable stories with great charm and confirms the view that, as men, they shall always rank as among the finest this great sport of athletics has ever produced.

This book is needed to help guide the conversation around ways to address the great disparities that impact African American males in intercollegiate athletics. In particular, scholars and practitioners have grappled with issues surrounding the climate and opportunities presented to African American males as student-athletes and coaches. Yet, there has not been a single text dedicated to identifying issues pertaining to the success and pitfalls of Black males not just as student-athletes, but also as coaches, administrators, and academic support staff in intercollegiate athletics. By addressing such topics as the economic realities of athletic competition, academic achievement, mental health, job opportunities, and identity, a new discourse will emerge on the role of African American males in college sports. This work will revisit old issues and explore the new complexities surrounding Black males in the realm of athletics in higher education with the purpose of improving their plight.