Running Book Reviews with Alan and Liz

Send us Fan Mail The Voice in My Heart is Gilbert Tuhabonye’s story of growing up in Burundi on a peaceful mountain side surrounded by family, discovering the sport of running as a child, and later being the only survivor of an attack on his school where the Hutu’s attacked about 100 Tutsi teachers and students with machetes, before putting all those that were still alive in a building which they...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a new runner trying to figure out why people love this running thing? Have you been a runner on and off throughout the years because somehow you would lose motivation or just feel like you don't like running anymore? If so, the you will love this interview with author Brendan Leonard about his new book I Hate Running and You Can Too: How to get started, keep going, an...

Send us Fan Mail Have you been ignoring your nutrition? After listening to this episode you will realize what a disservice this is for your running progression... especially if you are over 35. In this episode we speak with author Lauren Antonucci about her new book High Performance Nutrition for Masters Athletes: Fuel Smartly and Efficiently at Age 35 and Beyond. This book is all about nutrition;...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever started making huge progress in your training, and figured you would just keep improving at the same rate? If you have, then you probably already know that your porgress eventually slows down. Author and runner, Brian Green, noticed that there is a cycle of these performance jumps, and that you can do more than just training to help get yourself to the next level in...

Send us Fan Mail Bill Graham is a runner who has enjoyed the sport for over four decades. He is a multiple time sub-3 hour marathoner, ran in the UK Cross Country national championships as a youth, and has lived and run in both the UK and South Africa. Bill is also a running coach and mentor to other runners. In this episode we get to chat with Bill about his new book, Running on Tired Legs. Runni...

Send us Fan Mail We often see books for either beginner runner's or the elites, but the largest portion of runners is somewhere in between. This is why authors Anji Andrews and Martin Yelling decided to write Running in the Midpack, How to be a Strong, Successful, and Happy Runner, which is a book for the midpack runner.  Midpackers train hard and have big goals, so this book aims to help the...

Send us Fan Mail Bravey was Alexi Pappas mantra, and also the title of her memoire. Alexi is an olympian in the 10 000 m event which she ran for Greece and got the national record at the 2016 Olympic games. Although Alexi is still young and has many years ahead of her, she has also had many life experiences which she reflects on to try and tease out valuable lessons. In her book, Alexi talks about...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we had the pleasure of speaking with both Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas about the 3rd edition of their book, Advanced Marathoning. As you will hear in the episode, both of us will be using a plan from this book to train for our sub-3 hour marathon attempt, so we made sure to ask lots of questions.  The book is divided into 2 parts and has some new features, in...

Send us Fan Mail Similar to our "Throwback Thoughts on the First 10 Books" episode, we decided to go reflect on everything we learned in books 11 to 20. We know that all the things we have learned is making us into better runners. Here is a list of the books we talk about: Chasing Excellence, by Pat Melgares - https://soulsticepublishing.com/product/chasing-excellence-book/ Run to the Fi...

Send us Fan Mail Can you imagine being healthy and fit your whole life... you eat healthy, exercise, and even your career is all about fitness... and then you get a cancer diagnosis?! This is what happened to one of USA's most sought-after running event announcers, Fitz Koehler. My Noisy Cancer Comeback takes you through Fitz experience with breast cancer starting with a clear mammogram about...

Send us Fan Mail Epic Runs of the World is a compilation of running destinations, each described by a different author. The publisher, Lonely Planet, has a travel information website and has published many other travel books which are also featured on their website. We are not travelling at the moment but the website, and this book, can be a great resource for planning your future adventures. You...

Send us Fan Mail We hear a lot about Kenyan running culture, and in recent years athletes from all over the world have gone to train in Kenya, but what about Ethiopia? Ethiopia has produced athletes like Tirunesh Dibaba, Kenenisa Bekele, and Haile Gebreselassie. Out of Thin Air is the story of Michael Crawley's time living and training with some of the best runners in the world in Ethiopia. T...

Send us Fan Mail Whether you think working on running form is important, or not, this book is a must read. For the non-believers, the book makes some good arguments. For those who already believe form is important, the book will give you a different perspective on form; it is not about one component, like cadence, but about several components, including our lifestyle, which affect each other and o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we speak with ultra-runner, mother of two girls, and author, Katie Arnold, about her book Running Home . This book is a memoire about Katie’s life. She is a child of divorced parents who grew up in the 70's, and felt like she always needed to be a “good girl” and seek approval from her father. She later became a wife and mother herself, and struggled with ment...

Send us Fan Mail Matt Fitzgerald's second book release in 2020?... You better believe it! In this episode we have Matt Fitzgerald back to talk about his newest book, The Comeback Quotient,  that will start shipping in December. This book is part self-help book, part personal experience, and part compilation of inspiring stories about defying the odds. There are 9 chapters, with a portion of M...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever heard of Burro Racing? We hadn't either until we read Christopher McDougall's new book, Running with Sherman. In this book Chris shares his story of how he ended up adopting a sick rescue donkey who ended up with the name Sherman, and then training to run a race with him. Reminiscent of Chris' well known book, Born to Run, Running with Sherman is also...

Send us Fan Mail What?!! You haven't read Born to Run?! Even if you have read Born to Run, this episode should remind you of all the details you've forgotten. Born to Run is Christopher McDougal's journey to find out why running always got him injured. It leads him to discovering a tribe of running people who live in the Mexican Copper Canyons, and are so shy that very few people ha...

Send us Fan Mail Matt Hart's recently released book, Win at All Costs, gives us an insight into Nikes secretive running program, The Nike Oregon Project. It details the investigation by USADA into Head Coach, Alberto Salazar, and a Houston endocrinologist, Dr. Jeffrey Brown, and their practices with Nike Oregon Project athletes.  Matt's book is filled with stories of Nike employees and a...

Send us Fan Mail From basic equipment and training principles to the importance of psychology and dreaming “just big enough”, Run to the Finish by Amanda Brooks, is an overview of everything running. It covers a wide range of topics in an easy to understand way that is accessible to new runners, but provides information that is also good for runners who are not new to the sport and want to improve...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve realized that reading running books has changed us. This is why we decided to go through the first 10 books we reviewed to recap the things we have learned, and the things that have made us better runners. Here is a list of the books we talk about (and a link to each one on Amazon.ca): Hanson’s Marathon Method, by Luke Humphrey - https://amzn.to/3c1SQWD   Kicksology, by Bria...

Send us Fan Mail For those who have never heard of Coach Vigil, he is a legend in the coaching of US Track and Filed, Cross Country, and distance running. He has helped develop a coaching program for coaching runners, and has taught coaches all over the US, and in many other countries around the world. Although he has accomplished many things, gotten many awards, and coached dozens of Olympians, C...

Send us Fan Mail Ever wonder why someone would want to run distances longer than the marathon? Isn't the marathon hard enough? What about hundreds of miles through the woods, across the desert, or up a mountain? If you ever wondered how any runner becomes an ultra runner, and why, these are the questions explored in Adharanand Finn's latest book The Rise of the Ultra Runners. Adharanand...

Send us Fan Mail Scott Jurek, 7 times winner of Western States Ultra and one of the greatest ultra-runners in the sports history, describes in his book, North, his final herculean running challenge, the FKT (fastest known time) for the Appalachian Trail (AT). The AT is 2189 miles of rugged difficult track with over 500,000 ft of elevation change. What’s more, Scott decides to do it going in the mo...

Send us Fan Mail If you have an athletic teen girl or young woman in your life, this book should be your next gift to her. Girls Running is a book by Melody Fairchild (once the fastest girl in the world for her age) and Elizabeth Carey (writer and running coach), that aims to answer questions that girls and young women have about running, and how puberty and female hormones can affect performance....

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever dreamt of what it would be like to train like an elite runner? To have your whole life revolve around running, and see how good you could get if there were no other distractions? Accomplished endurance athlete, coach, and author, Matt Fitzgerald, did exactly this in 2017, and wrote about it in his most recent book Running the Dream.  If you are familiar with some of...