As the new year quickly approaches, you’re probably looking forward to all of the exciting things you’ve planned to ring in the new year. That could be traveling, eating good food, seeing friends, or even just sitting from the comfort of your own home while watching the ball drop. Whatever it may be, you’re probably also thinking of a new year’s resolution for once the celebrating is over.
And if you picked running as your goal for the new year, you may feel a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Starting can seem like a daunting task, after all — as someone who got into running a little over a year ago, I can relate. There’s a lot of questions that come up in the beginning. How far should I run? What should I wear? And how do I stop chafing so much? (All questions I’ve asked myself)
Since I’ve started, I’ve learned a lot about the joys of running and come across many books on the subject. And today, I’d like to share some of my favorites with you. They cover a range of topics like how to get started, why to get started, and how to keep going, all while offering some helpful tips that runners of all levels can appreciate:
Slow AF Run Club : The Ultimate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Run (2023) by Martinus Evans
Ten years ago, Martinus Evans got some stern advice from his doctor: “Lose weight or die.” First defensive, but then defiant, Evans vowed that day to run a marathon, though his doctor thought he was crazy. Since then, Evans has run eight marathons and hundreds of other distances in his 300-something body, created his own devoted running community, and has been featured on the cover of Runner’s World.
This book is a blueprint for those who may not fit the image of a “traditional” runner – that is, someone who is larger in size, less athletic, out of shape, or dealing with any kind of health issue that slows them down – to feel empowered to lace up their shoes and embrace the body they have right now.
As Evans says, the incredible benefits of running – better sleep, strong muscles and bones, better cardiovascular and mental health, and a sense of community – can and should be available to all of us.
This practical handbook contains specialized advice to make getting started less intimidating, covering everything from gear and nutrition to training schedules, recovery tips, races (it’s okay to come in DFL! [i.e., dead f*cking last]), and finding a running group.
Full of essential advice and humor from a former newbie who fell off a treadmill on his first run (literally), The Slow AF Run Club is for anyone who wants to pick up running for the sheer joy of it.
I Hate Running and You Can Too: How to Get Started, Keep Going, and Make Sense of an Irrational Passion (2021) by Brendan Leonard
I Hate Running and You Can Too is a humorous, punchy, motivating guide to running longer distances than some might think sensible-whether that’s a 5K or a marathon. Outside magazine columnist, chart-ist, and longtime runner, Brendan Leonard gets real on the love/hate relationship all runners have with the sport.
He breaks down running in terms that speak to everyone who has ever struggled to get out the door and go for a run: getting comfortable being uncomfortable, how to start small and stick with it, that walking is a completely legitimate running strategy, and devising your own definition of success.
Filled with 75 charts and graphs that give readers a sensible way to think about running, I Hate Running and You Can Too breaks down the reality of the training miles versus race miles, how to stay motivated, and what to do when faced with setbacks.
I Hate Running and You Can Too shows readers that you won’t always like running (sometimes you’ll even hate it), but if you just keep going, you might learn to love it too.
Let Your Mind Run : A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory (2018) by Deena Kastor with Michelle Hamilton.
From an Olympic medalist runner and the record-holder in the women’s marathon and half-marathon, a lyrical, inspirational memoir on how harnessing the power of the mind can unlock hidden potential.
Deena Kastor was a star youth runner with tremendous promise, yet her career almost ended after college. Her competitive method – run as hard as possible, all the time – brought her to the brink of burnout and fostered a frustration and negativity that threatened to obscure her success.
On the verge of quitting, she took a chance and moved to the high altitudes of Alamosa, Colorado, where legendary coach Joe Vigil had started the first professional distance-running team. There she encountered what would become the dominant theme in her running career: the idea that building an elite runner meant developing the mind.
Every gain in physical fitness would be dependent on and compounded by gains in mental fitness, which in turn depended on developing a mind-set that could marshal powerful forces of belief and confidence capable of conquering negativity in all its forms.
Building a mind so strong would be a decade-long project, but it would propel Kastor to the pinnacle of running – to American records in every distance from the 5K to the marathon, and to America’s first Olympic medal in the marathon in twenty years.
Let Your Mind Run is a granular look inside the mind of an elite athlete, a remarkable story of achievement, and a fascinating primer on how the small steps of cultivating positivity can lead to outsize gains in performance.
An Accidental Athlete : A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Middle Age (2011) by John Bingham
John Bingham is a beloved evangelist of running. Known by fans as “The Penguin” for his gentle humor and back-of-the-pack speed, Bingham’s memoir An Accidental Athlete explores with wit and poignancy his evolution from a bespectacled fat kid in the 1950s to unlikely hero of the modern running movement.
Bingham remembers unfulfilled childhood dreams of athletic glory seen through Coke-bottle glasses, his unhealthy sedentary years as he chased a career, and his epiphany at age 43, when he stirred from the couch, found his mojo, became a runner, and rediscovered himself.
An Accidental Athlete is a warm, engagingly written, feel-good book for the everyday athlete who is sure to recognize him or herself somewhere in these pages.
The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances (2014) by Matthew Inman
From #1 New York Times best-selling author, Matthew Inman, AKA The Oatmeal, comes this hilarious, beautiful, poignant collection of comics and stories about running, eating, and one cartoonist’s reasons for jogging across mountains until his toenails fall off.
*Descriptions provided by the publisher
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