best running books...

Fiftyplus

The Ghost Runner is a fine read

tailgunner

"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite books - read it long before I ever took an interest in running myself. I'd say you'd want to have at least a mild interest in the author to enjoy it though.

ultrapercy

Fiftyplus wrote: »

The Ghost Runner is a fine read

Yes my favourite running book by a mile and in my top 10 of all the books I have read.

Bungy Girl

tailgunner wrote: »

"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite books - read it long before I ever took an interest in running myself. I'd say you'd want to have at least a mild interest in the author to enjoy it though.

Love this book! Funnily enough I never knew anything about Murakami beforehand, just heard it was a good read. I've since read some of his fiction which is super.

Looking forward to getting my hands on some of the suggestions here....and then of course getting the time to read them :rolleyes:

ploughon

I've just finished "Meb For Mortals". Pretty good read, plenty of info on stretches, drills and conditioning work, 6/10.

I'm about half way into "1.59", which is a really good read 8/10 so far.

tang1

Finding Ultra - Rich Roll
Kings of the Road - Cameron Stracher
From Last to First - Charlie Spedding
Running Commentary - Frank Greally
Keep on Running - Phil Hewitt
Running Beyond Limits - Andrew Murray
Eat & Run - Scott Jurek
Road Racing for Serious Runners - Pfitzinger & Douglas
Fatman to Greenman - Ira Rainey
Tough as Leather - Con Dennehy
The Running Dutchman - Diederik van Hoogstraten
Run to Overcome - Meb Keflezinghi
Duel in the Sun - John Brant
Born to Perform - Gerard Hartmann
Marathon Man - Bill Rodgers
The Ghost Runner - Bill Jones
Who Dares, Runs - Gerry Duffy
Run! - Dean Karnazes
The Runners Guide to the Meaning of Life - Amby Burnfoot
Pre - Tom Jordan
Tick, Tock, Ten - Gerry Duffy(Signed)
Terry Fox, His Story - Leslie Scrivener
The Irishman who ran for England - Jim Hogan
Running Crazy - Helen Summer
Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes
26 miles to Boston - Michael Connelly
The Last Pick - David J McGillivray

If anybody fancies a lone of any of the above books drop me a PM with your address and i'll send them onto you. Gathering dust in my house.

Luighne

Not a book, but is there many here who subscribe to irish runners magazine? Is it worth the 30 euro ?

ultrapercy

Luighne wrote: »

Not a book, but is there many here who subscribe to irish runners magazine? Is it worth the 30 euro ?

I think it has improved again recently. It was struggling to get a balance between performance and recreational running/athletics but has addressed that a fair bit in recent issues. Type of mag it is its never going to address controversial or provocative issues head on but for 30 euros it's not money down the drain.

TFBubendorfer

The Kindle edition of Scott Jurek's "Eat and Run" is available for £1.09 at amazon right now (possible only for today).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008BTC5E6/

adrian522

Has anyone read the Steve Magness book "The science of Running" and if so, any feedback?

Myles Splitz

adrian522 wrote: »

Has anyone read the Steve Magness book "The science of Running" and if so, any feedback?

Probably one of the better training manual's out there. Good science debated for the 1st half. Not a huge fan of the Marathon plans (Krusty will probably disagree with this as he has had a pretty successful cycle on the marathon plan coming off some great improvements from the 10k plans) but the others are great

Like Daniels though don't just read the plans the best part of the book is the 1st half.

One Caveat is there are an awful lot of typo's so be prepared to do a little bit of figuring out on some of the sessions regarding paces etc.

adrian522

I wasn't planning on following the plans, just thought it would be interesting to read having previously read the Daniels and P&D books.

dna_leri

adrian522 wrote: »

Has anyone read the Steve Magness book "The science of Running" and if so, any feedback?

Worth the read (and re-read regularly).
The science section in the first half is hard work but worth the effort, even if you do not understand or remember it all.
The second half is also very good, not just the plans but the logic and structure behind them, which for me is the best part.

I have used the plans for a few training cycles now and while I did not PB with them, I keep going back and making adaptations based on the information in the book.

Tje typos are a pane the aras at Times.

ClashCityRocker

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

The Kindle edition of Scott Jurek's "Eat and Run" is available for £1.09 at amazon right now (possible only for today).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008BTC5E6/

I bought Adharanand Finn's Way of the runner for the kindle last week for £2.39. The price has increased to a whopping £2.84 now!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SEU8848?keywords=adharanand%20finn&qid=1452700958&ref_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

Sacksian

adrian522 wrote: »

Has anyone read the Steve Magness book "The science of Running" and if so, any feedback?

A lot of material drawn from the literature review for his Master's thesis so that element of it is actually a fairly objective review of relevant research.

What I liked about the general tone of the book was that he didn't seem particularly dogmatic about any one approach and was very much of the "experiment of one" model for coaching runners (as expressed in the short "My Rules of Everything" and "My Rules of Training" sections).

However, I did feel the general philosophy was undermined slightly by the prescriptive detail of the training plans. Maybe they're just presented in that way because that's how you sell books about training?

I'm also a bit sceptical about the really complicated sessions, simply because so few athletes buying this sort of book know, and/or are disciplined enough to differentiate, their 1500m vs. 3k vs. 5k. vs. 10k paces in a single session, so the sessions can end up a random collection of efforts/paces pulled from the air (which sort of devalues them). I'm not convinced they work that well unless you really have control of your paces.

Some stuff I found incredibly useful - particularly the bits around tailoring sessions/tempos/long runs, etc differently for slow-twitch and fast-twitch runners. As well as the various appendices on progressions of specific endurance sessions for various distances / hill circuits, etc (which are applied to a degree in the plans).

I was a bit underwhelmed by the Periodization section, which was the bit I was most interested in, but it's a little badly edited and the most practical useful stuff is all contained on a single page.

Loads of interesting stuff and loads of useful stuff, apart from the plans themselves.

This is all a bit rambling but,if I lost it, I'd buy another copy. I'd recommend it.

adrian522

Thanks all, I'll take a look at it I think.

rom

dna_leri wrote: »

Worth the read (and re-read regularly).
The science section in the first half is hard work but worth the effort, even if you do not understand or remember it all.
The second half is also very good, not just the plans but the logic and structure behind them, which for me is the best part.

I have used the plans for a few training cycles now and while I did not PB with them, I keep going back and making adaptations based on the information in the book.

Tje typos are a pane the aras at Times.

Would say the same. It make the Lore of running seem like a first class book.

Krusty_Clown

Tempted to put this in the rave thread, but... Finally, a biography on Emil Zátopek in print, and it's written by Richard Askwith, of Feet in the Clouds fame. Here's an article by the author, to whet the appetite. Looking forward to this one.

Battery Kinzie

Which is the best book for learning about training plans?

Myles Splitz

Battery Kinzie wrote: »

Which is the best book for learning about training plans?

Are you looking for a training plan or looking to learn enough about the sport to make your own?

What distances are you looking for training plans for?

What sort of background are you (or the person you are looking to devise plans for) coming from?

Battery Kinzie

Myles Splitz wrote: »

Are you looking for a training plan or looking to learn enough about the sport to make your own?

What distances are you looking for training plans for?

What sort of background are you (or the person you are looking to devise plans for) coming from?

I'm looking to make my own and to generally know when and why some type of runs are better than others, e.g . slow tempo vs fast tempo vs intervals, etc..

Distances would be anything and everything from 5k to half marathon, for the moment anyway.

I've been running for just under a year at this stage and want to learn as much as I can really. My 5k time is about 20 minutes and I'm 22.

chickey2

Battery Kinzie wrote: »

I'm looking to make my own and to generally know when and why some type of runs are better than others, e.g . slow tempo vs fast tempo vs intervals, etc..

Distances would be anything and everything from 5k to half marathon, for the moment anyway.

I've been running for just under a year at this stage and want to learn as much as I can really. My 5k time is about 20 minutes and I'm 22.

I'd recommend "Faster Road Racing - 5k to half marathon" by Pfitzinger and Latter. It has plans in it but goes into detail about how and why you do each session.

Coffee Fulled Runner

chickey2 wrote: »

I'd recommend "Faster Road Racing - 5k to half marathon" by Pfitzinger and Latter. It has plans in it but goes into detail about how and why you do each session.

I second that

adrian522

Daniels running formula would also be worth a read for a different perspective.

El Caballo

If you want to understand the concepts on which all modern distance training is based. Running to the top by Arthur Lydiard or Healthy intelligent training by Keith Livingstone is the place to start. It's not really a scientific book as such but more of a coaching guide and will help you to learn more down the road.

Edit: Healthy Intelligent training would probably be better actually, more modern and not as typo ridden.

Firedance

chickey2 wrote: »

I'd recommend "Faster Road Racing - 5k to half marathon" by Pfitzinger and Latter. It has plans in it but goes into detail about how and why you do each session.

You've just reminded me I wanted to get this book - perfect timing

Dubgal72

Charlie Spedding, From Last to First

I borrowed this from my coach and sped (;) ) through it in three days. Picked it up again last night and am going to read as much as I can again before I *have to* give it back tomorrow waaah.

I am going to buy 10 copies and give one to everyone** because if you like running in any way, this book will stay with you. Forever. It's currently top of my list and I reckon it will stay there for a good while yet.


**I know, I know. My maths is a work in progress.

adrian522

Dubgal72 wrote: »

Charlie Spedding, From Last to First

I borrowed this from my coach and sped (;) ) through it in three days. Picked it up again last night and am going to read as much as I can again before I *have to* give it back tomorrow waaah.

I am going to buy 10 copies and give one to everyone** because if you like running in any way, this book will stay with you. Forever. It's currently top of my list and I reckon it will stay there for a good while yet.


**I know, I know. My maths is a work in progress.

Bought this for 0.99 on my Kindle there around 2 years ago, are you saying it might be worth opening at some point?

Wottle

adrian522 wrote: »

Bought this for 0.99 on my Kindle there around 2 years ago, are you saying it might be worth opening at some point?

Agree with Dubgal, best running book I've read.
Love the part when he's sitting in the pub trying to figure things out and over hears a conversation from the table beside him, penny drops and totally changes his mental approach going forward.

Dubgal72

adrian522 wrote: »

Bought this for 0.99 on my Kindle there around 2 years ago, are you saying it might be worth opening at some point?

Yup. Put the phone on silent and off you go