To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking on a 5-K Makes You a Better Person and the World a Better Place Paperback – 1 January 2019

Entertaining and informative but especially meaningful in that it provides insight into this wonderful writer’s mind.One of my pastimes in retirement is reading Martin Dugard’s books.

Very well written and highly interesting, motivates the armchair adventurer to turn into a real adventure runnerinspirationalrunning adicted

Decent read. He covers a lot of personal running journeys etc. The insight on coaching and writing books is ok too.

I checked this book out at the library one day and loved it so much that I renewed it so that I could read it again. I was so enthralled with the insights that I then ordered it through Amazon. If you are a runner or wanting to be a runner, this book is for you! At the end of the day, you will be a better person by applying these principles and it will take your running to the next level!

Sports journalist (Christian, cross country coach, trail running aficionado) Martin Dugard's collection of just over 30 short, running-themed stories can best be described as: adequate. That the author would settle for good enough when, with a little more focus, he could have achieved greatness, should be as disappointing to readers as a runner's decision to just finish a race rather than go for broke would be to a coach. While Dugard completes his title phrase, To Be a Runner ("....is to learn continual life lessons), he doesn't do same with his subtitle: How Racing Up Mountains, Running With The Bulls, Or Just Taking On A 5-K Makes You A Better Person (And The World A Better Place). He also: leaves readers hanging as to which specific Olympic event in which he once aspired to take part; spends an entire chapter explaining his love of trespassing, I mean running, on golf courses; makes the collection less family friendly by choosing to use the f word (p 74) and an unnecessary reference to intercourse (p 146); and recounts several negative experiences involving women: (p 39) an assistant coach, (p 51) a coach, (p 67) an equestrian and (p 103) an aerobics instructor. Unfortunately, my reading experience of To Be A Runner began in a bad way. On the first page of the prologue, the author lightheartedly recounts steering a van filled with 14 cross country runners, some unrestrained by seat belts, while interviewing Lance Armstrong (complete with note-taking), "I drove with my knees...My team watched me drive with one hand, take notes with another, and conduct an interview...at seventy-five miles per hour, cell phone squeezed between ear and shoulder." Whether or not such behavior was not yet illegal is irrelevant. These children's parents would certainly agree that the coach's behavior on behalf of bookwriting was highly irresponsible.The book, he explains, "is about the process of seeking that better version of ourselves through the daily, mind-altering discipline of challenging personal limits." This interesting hook, combined with the fact that I'd had actually purchased the book, compelled me to read through to the end even though I'd had enough at about the three-fourths point. Having finished reading the stories and spending some time since (mostly while running) thinking about them, I have yet to figure out the author's purpose. I imagine the collection being put together like this: over a period of time, Mr. Dugard writes enough running-themed stories (anecdotes, musings, meditations) of a certain length to achieve the minimum number of pages required to publish in book form (about 200 pages?). At this point, he categorizes them (complete with obligatory inspirational sounding quotes) and voila, a collection is born. Although he's divided his stories into six subsections, their categorization seems no more logical as is than if they had been ordered chronologically. The stories themselves read like your standard magazine articles on the subject of running, though less in depth. What I found most frustrating was finding out something new about a subject, like (p 25) stretching, (p 83), or (p 56) vVO2 max, only to find he'd changed gears and moved on to something different while I was still wanting to learn more about it. Sometimes (in the case of both Excuses, Excuses and Weather Or Not) he goes on (and on) about a topic that could have been covered more succinctly, (p 18) "Excuses limit us and prevent us from being the best possible version of ourselves," (enough said) leaving time for him to give readers more of the odd, unusual, and informative stuff. Obviously, it's not intended to be a How To book, but a few page glossary on running terms (for example, tempo run) would have made the book worth keeping in a easy to reach place on the shelf.Having beaten the book up a bit, I must say that even with a lack of focus, it contains something for everyone: humorous moments, (p 197) "If I had my way, runners the world over would be banned from running in place at stoplights;" history, (p 31) "When Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to announce the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon...;" religious references (p 40, 78, 84, 93, 100, 111, 133, 152); running tips, (p 83) "If I could pick just one workout to build great runners, I would direct them to the nearest dirt hill," and (p 198) "...running for time beats running for distance any day;" recollections of races (my favorite, Tough Guy and The Wild Place) and a few pearls of wisdom, (p 7) "Running has taught me that I can do anything, just so long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other," and my favorite, (p 93) "A lifetime of running has brought me a quiver of personality traits: self-reliance, perseverance, heightened mental and emotional awareness, and an unshakeable reverence for pain and suffering." In summary, To Be A Runner will likely prove an adequately interesting read for runners. Better: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, The Long Run by Matt Long and (for women) Second Wind by Cami Ostman.