Running book binge

Okay, so I went a little crazy in the book shop this weekend and before I knew it I had FIVE new running books! It was all inspired by my birthday and having had the Murakami "What I talk about when I talk about running" book recommended to me by a colleague whose partner is a runner and loved reading it. So that was one book, the others came about through an as it turned out wallet denting chain of associations - the Jane & Mike Tomlinson book / biography from of the fact that I had heard an inspiring interview with Mike on the Marathon Talk podcast - the "Born to Run" book from having read about passing of Micah True on a blog I read some many months ago, and at that time reading something of his relationship with the Tarahumara of Mexico (the book centres on him and the adventures his Mexico I understand).

My new collection of running books (which should keep me busy when I'm not running and doing all those other things I do!!)

The last two were pure and simple impulse buys, at that point the ball was well and truly rolling and so I picked them up and popped them in the basket. "Why we run" caught my attention because of the subheading "A story of obsession" which seemed very appropriate to my current mental approach. It could be that element of personal obsession that led me to pick up the fifth book, I mean "Racing weight" (?) that is phrase I have pondered for at least 3years of running now (I'll get there one day!?!?).

It has to be said that I am already half way through the Murakami book already (and I have only had it for 2 days), it is that kind of absorbing a read. The style, the approach, the ethos / philosophy is just spot on and utterly engaging. When I finish it, ahem very soon, I will review it properly.

In other news, I ran my first hill repeats today, and racked up 12 repeats of a short sharp hill not far from home. Each repeat turned out to be slightly quicker than the previous one which I was very very pleased about, especially as I really wasn't sure how hard to go at the session. True I walked the recoveries for the second six repeats, but I reasoned this was sensible and did mean I could maintain my form better through the latter efforts. All in all its been a good period of running having negative split my way through a 9.8mile session on Saturday too.

Diary - windy, cold, dry. Glad to be the father of two fabulous kids, and blessed with a wonderful wife (who has taken it upon herself to use me as a recipe tester of late - not that that is why she is wonderful, she has always been wonderful). Life has a good balance at the moment, not perfect but then that would probably be dull :-)