Japanese have been fervid long-distance runners for many centuries. Today, on a per capita basis, at least as many Japanese residents complete marathons each year as in the United States or any other country. Marathon Japan is the first comprehensive English-language chronicle of the history of this important part of Japanese sports culture. It traces the development of distance racing beginning with the Stockholm Olympics of 1912, when the Japanese government used athletics, and above all the marathon, as a means to continue its late nineteenth-century project of winning the respect of Western countries and achieving parity with the world powers. The marathon soon became the first event in a Western-derived sport in which Japanese proved consistently superior to athletes from other countries. During the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese runners regularly produced the fastest times in the world, and twice in the period after World War Two - in the 1960s and late 1970s-1980s - Japanese men again dominated world marathoning. Japanese women likewise emerged as some of the world's fastest in the 1990s and early 2000s. Meanwhile the general public took up distance running with enthusiasm, starting in the 1960s and continuing unabated today, symbolized most recently by massive open-entry marathons in Tokyo, Osaka, and other Japanese cities comparable in scale and challenge to major world races in Boston, New York, Chicago, London, and Berlin. In this book, Thomas Havens analyzes the origins, development, and significance of Japan's century-long excellence in marathons and long-distance relays (ekiden), as well as the reasons for the explosive growth of distance racing among ordinary citizens in more recent decades. He reveals the key role of commercial media companies in promoting sports, especially marathons and ekidens, from the 1910s to today and explains how running became a consumer commodity beginning in the 1970s as Japanese society matured into an age of capitalistaffluence. What comes to light as well are the relentlessly nationalistic goals underlying government policies toward sports - above all marathons, where Japanese have been so successful - throughout the modern era. The public craze for distance racing, both watching and running, has created a shared citizenship of civic participation among young and old, male and female, persons of every social background and level of education. The combination of speedy elite athletes and huge numbers of general-citizen runners means that Japan today is truly a marathon nation. Marathon Japan will appeal to Japan specialists interested in modern cultural and social history. It will engage recreational runners in Japan and abroad as well as anyone interested in the history of sports.

On March 31, 1929, seventy-seven men began an epic 3,554-mile footrace across America that pushed their bodies to the breaking point. Nicknamed the ""Bunion Derby"" by the press, this was the second and last of two trans-America footraces held in the late 1920s. The men averaged forty-six gut-busting miles a day during seventy-eight days of nonstop racing that took them from New York City to Los Angeles. Among this group, two brilliant runners, Johnny Salo of Passaic, New Jersey, and Pete Gavuzzi of England, emerged to battle for the $25,000 first prize along the mostly unpaved roads of 1929 America, with each man pushing the other to go faster as the lead switched back and forth between them. To pay the prize money, race director Charley Pyle cobbled together a traveling vaudeville company, complete with dancing debutantes, an all-girl band wearing pilot outfits, and blackface comedians, all housed under the massive show tent that Pyle hoped would pack in audiences. Kastner’s engrossing account, often told from the perspective of the participants, evokes the remarkable physical challenge the runners experienced and clearly bolsters the argument that the last Bunion Derby was the greatest long-distance footrace of all time.

This book was first published twenty years ago in the early days of the sport. It has continued to sell to beginners and recreational multisport athletes by showing them how, starting as a fitness novice, they can cross the finish line happily and healthily, and have fun doing so, without turning their lives upside down along the way. Steven Jonas, a former nonathlete who began racing in middle age, now has over 160 multisport races and two decades' worth of evidence that his training program works to his credit. This twentieth-anniversary edition features a friendly, wider format; the latest advice on equipment, race choice, and preparation; and Jonas's programs that will train you for standard-distance duathlons and triathlons on 31/2 to 5 hours per week for 13 weeks. It even shows you how you can do the ironman distance."

In 2019, Nick Butter became the first person to run a marathon in every country on Earth. This is Nick's story of his world record-breaking adventure and the extraordinary people who joined him along the way.

On January 6th 2018, Nick Butter tied his laces and stepped out on to an icy pavement in Toronto, where he began to take the first steps of an epic journey that would see him run 196 marathons in every one of the world's 196 countries. Spending almost two years on the road and relying on the kindness of strangers to keep him moving, Nick's odyssey allowed him to travel slowly, on foot, immersing himself in the diverse cultures and customs of his host nations.

Running through capital cities and deserts, around islands and through spectacular landscapes, Nick dodges bullets in Guinea-Bissau, crosses battlefields in Syria, survives a wild dog attack in Tunisia and runs around an erupting volcano in Guatemala. Along the way, he is often joined by local supporters and fellow runners, curious children and bemused passers-by. Telling their stories alongside his own, Nick captures the unique spirit of each place he visits and forges a new relationship with the world around him.

Running the World captures Nick's journey as he sets three world records and covers over five thousand miles. As he recounts his adventures, he shares his unique perspective on our glorious planet, celebrates the diversity of human experience, and reflects on the overwhelming power of running.