Book # 100!
Dec. 22nd, 2011 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
e_phemerart100) Harvie, Robin. LURE OF LONG DISTANCES. Public Affairs: 2011.
Robin Harvie was a fairly ordinary runner. He ran his first marathon after a bet. Then he found that although he couldn’t run fast, he could run long distances—very long. A casual hobby turned into a 120-miles-a-week obsession, and a training route along the River Thames morphed into a promise to himself that he would tackle the oldest and toughest footrace on earth: the Spartathlon, 150 miles from Athens to Sparta.
The author writes with a true memoirist’s tone, exploring the reasons why he runs – grief, ambition, boredom – with an almost brutal honesty, as he relates his experiences from the mundanity of daily training routes to the extremes of ultra running. LURE is also filled with analogies and quotes from explorers, poets, historians and artists, readers learn a thing or two about the history and lore of running, as well as what it takes to muster up the courage to continue.
Robin Harvie was a fairly ordinary runner. He ran his first marathon after a bet. Then he found that although he couldn’t run fast, he could run long distances—very long. A casual hobby turned into a 120-miles-a-week obsession, and a training route along the River Thames morphed into a promise to himself that he would tackle the oldest and toughest footrace on earth: the Spartathlon, 150 miles from Athens to Sparta.
The author writes with a true memoirist’s tone, exploring the reasons why he runs – grief, ambition, boredom – with an almost brutal honesty, as he relates his experiences from the mundanity of daily training routes to the extremes of ultra running. LURE is also filled with analogies and quotes from explorers, poets, historians and artists, readers learn a thing or two about the history and lore of running, as well as what it takes to muster up the courage to continue.
