Running Book Reviews with Alan and Liz Alan and Liz

Already 10 books since the last recap episode and also another marathon under our belts. This marathon didn’t go well for either of us but we’ll have another chance in October.

Here are the books we chat about in this episode:

The Mock Olympian, by Michael Long
You can get a copy here: https://a.co/d/3Fu37FX
Fast 5k, by Pete Magill
You can get a copy here:  https://a.co/d/cqjh7cg
Out And Back, by Hillary Allen
You can get a copy here:  https://a.co/d/1kIdHa3
A Runner’s High, by Dean Karnazes
You can get a copy here: https://a.co/d/7k7hfo3
Taking Life in Stride, by Harvey Mitro
The proceeds from the book are donated to Athletics Ontario and you can get a copy here: https://takinglifeinstride.ca
The Villanova Track Story, by Jerry Bouma
Proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to Villanova University and will go towards student mental health resources. You can get a copy here:  https://a.co/d/cDNB79v
Run Your Best Marathon, by Sam Murphy
You can get a copy here: https://a.co/d/0BYbeVM
Run Faster Marathons, by Chris Knighton
If you are interested in signing up for Chris’ newsletter, want to inquire about his coaching service, or are interested in getting a copy of the book for yourself, you can go to his website: https://knightonruns.com
A Beautiful Work In Progress, by Mirna Valerio
Here is a link to the REI video that we mention: https://youtu.be/c5-CSQcYeXk
You can learn more about Mirna, buy a copy of the book, or follow her on social media, you can find all of the links on her website: https://themirnavator.com
The Longest Race, by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon
You can get a copy here: https://a.co/d/2CLkecH
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
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In this episode, Alan and Liz chat about Kara Goucher’s recently released book, The Longest Race. They’ll tell you what they learned, what they thought, and why they wanted to read the book in the first place.

Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age and was offered a Nike sponsorship deal when she graduated from college. Then in 2004, she was invited to join a secretive, lavishly funded new team, dubbed the Nike Oregon Project. Coached by distance running legend Alberto Salazar, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. Although Alberto initially let her train with the team because he was more interested in her husband Adam, his focus shifted once she won a World Championship medal. She later went to the Olympics, and stood on the podium at the New York and Boston marathons, just like her coach. Those podiums are what the world saw, but behind the scenes, Salazar pushed the limits of anti-doping rules, and created what Kara experienced as a culture of abuse, the extent of which she reveals in her book for the first time. Meanwhile, Nike stood by Alberto for years and proved itself capable of shockingly misogynistic corporate practices.

Kara Goucher is a three-time NCAA champion, two-time Olympian, winner of the silver medal at the 2007 World Championships in the 10,000 meters, and a podium finisher at the Boston and New York Marathons. She is a running analyst for NBC Sports. She cohosts the hit running commentary podcast Nobody Asked Us with Des & Kara, as well as the Clean Sport Collective podcast, promoting fair play in sports. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her Olympic-runner husband, Adam, and their son, Colt. Her website is KaraGoucher.com.

Mary Pilon is a journalist focused primarily on the worlds of sports and business. She is the author of the bestselling books "The Monopolists" and "The Kevin Show," the co-editor of “Losers: Dispatches From the Other Side of the Scoreboard,” and co-host and co-author of the audio series “Twisted: The Story of Larry Nassar and the Women Who Brought Him Down.” Her work regularly appears in the New Yorker, Esquire, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Vice, New York, and The New York Times, among other publications. She has worked as a producer with NBC at the 2016 Rio Olympics and on HBO’s forthcoming documentary “BS High.” She is currently co-directing a documentary about pickleball for Peter Berg’s Film 45. Pilon previously was a staff reporter with The Times on the sports desk and at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered various aspects of business and finance. A native of Eugene, Ore., Mary started reporting for her hometown paper, the Register-Guard, as a teenager.

If you’re interested in getting a copy of this book, you can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.ca/Longest-Race-Inside-Deception-Running/dp/1982179147
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
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A Beautiful Work in Progress is Mirna’s memoir and the story of how she got into ultrarunning and subsequently finishing her first 100k race. Although the book starts with her running, she goes back to her childhood and talks about her family, how she grew up surrounded by cousins, and the time she spent outside with them. Mirna grew up in a body positive environment where all the women who surrounded her were curvy, and where she was never described as “fat” until much later in life. She also watched her mother lose both her best friend and her youngest brother to heart attacks, and she has made it her mission to stay active so that that she can stay healthy but without a focus on weight loss. By the end of the book, Mirna is successful in her first 100k race at the Javelina Jundred, but if you are already following her on social media, then you know that is not where her sporting journey ends.

Mirna Valerio is a native of Brooklyn, NY, a former educator and cross-country coach, ultramarathoner, cyclist and newish skier, DEI practitioner, and author of the memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress. She began running in high school, recommitted to the sport after a health scare in 2008 and started her blog Fatgirlrunning - about her experiences as a larger woman in a world of thinner endurance athletes - while training for her first marathon. Mirna's athletic story has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Runner’s World, on NBC Nightly News, CNN, and in the viral documentary short, REI Presents The Mirnavator. Her writing has been featured in Women’s Running, Self, Outside, and Runner's World. In 2018 she was chosen as a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, and in early 2020 appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show and Access Daily, and most recently was featured on the Today Show. Her partners include LLBean, Ford Bronco, Lululemon, Salsa Cycles, InsideTracker, Hydro Flask, and Garmin.  She currently lives and trains in Vermont and is wholeheartedly enamored and obsessed with downhill skiing.

If you would like to watch the REI video that we mention a few times during the podcast, it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5-CSQcYeXk

If you would like to learn more about Mirna, buy a copy of the book, or follow her on social media, you can find all of the links on her website: https://themirnavator.com

You can also find the book on Bookshop.org which allows you to support a local book shop at the same time: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-beautiful-work-in-progress-mirna-valerio/11275343?ean=9781503943391
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runningbookreviews/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/reviews_running
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Podcast webpage: https://runningbookreviews.buzzsprout.com
If you have been enjoying the podcast and are wondering how you can help us out, you can now buy us a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AlanandLiz

 Run Faster Marathons is dedicated to providing advice that you can incorporate onto your marathon training, to make you faster. The information is divided into 3 sections:
Essential Concepts for Marathon Success – Which talks about knowing your “why?”, some running rules, the right way to increase mileage, improving running form, and the importance of a good warm-up.The Six Phases of Marathon Training – Which explains each of the 6 phases of marathon training starting with base building, and ending with post-race recovery.Supplemental Practices to Go Beyond “Just Running.” – Which talks about strength training, stretching, massage, and choosing running shoes.This book is just the facts without all the stories about study results etc., and so you can read it quickly and get started with implementing some of the advice.

Chris Knighton is a USATF Level 1 Coach. He is the head coach at Knighton Runs Marathon Coaching, and Track & Field and Cross Country Coach at St. Mary’s Academy in Riverside, Rhode Island. Knighton Runs Marathon Coaching was founded in the Summer of 2019, and their mission is to help passionate athletes run faster marathons and develop their confidence to take on any life challenge. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Chris didn't start running until his late twenties but grew up watching the Boston marathon which is what later inspired him to try and qualify. He has been a vegan athlete for his entire adult life and credits much of his success in sports to making healthy diet and lifestyle choices. In 2014, Chris left his job to pursue his dreams. He thru-hiked the 2180-mile Appalachian Trail that summer and realized if he had the courage and capacity to accomplish this journey, he should easily be able to take on any life challenge. Chris brings this mentally to his own running and coaching. He believes that the skills and confidence we develop to run faster marathons directly correlate to what’s needed to overcome any personal or professional challenge. Chris is also a husband, and a father to a 9-month old girl.

If you are interested in signing up for Chris’ newsletter, want to inquire about his coaching service, or are interested in getting a copy of the book for yourself, you can go to his website https://knightonruns.com
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runningbookreviews/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/reviews_running
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningbookreviews/
Podcast webpage: https://runningbookreviews.buzzsprout.com
If you have been enjoying the podcast and are wondering how you can help us out, you can now buy us a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AlanandLiz

Run Your Best Marathon is a guide to training and racing the marathon distance. The marathon has many challenges if you are trying to run at your full potential; you need to run at a hard effort while managing fuel stores and try to stay focussed for several hours. This book uses science as a base, for concrete tips and recommendations for approaching everything from training, to race day execution and many other topics in between.
The book has 19 chapters which are divided into 6 sections:
Section 1: On Training
Section 2: The marathon programmes
Section 3: The practicalities
Section 4: Body maintenance
Section 5: On your marks
Section 6: Nutrition and hydration

Sam Murphy has spent her career in journalism and took time off to complete a BSc in Sport and Exercise Science. She has been a lifelong advocate for spending time outside and has participated in a variety of endurance sports including running distances from 5k to ultramarathons, swimming, and triathlon. Sam is an England Athletics-qualified coach and has been writing the Murphy’s Lore column in Runner’s World (UK) magazine for several years. She is also not a first-time book author; Sam has written 4 other books including 3 more about running and one called The Official British Army Fitness Guide.

If you are looking to get a copy of the book, Sam suggests getting it through bookshop.org, and you can choose your favourite local bookshop to give the sale profit to (...but it looks like this only works in the US, UK, and Spain). Here is the book on the website: https://bookshop.org/p/books/run-your-best-marathon-your-trusted-guide-to-training-and-racing-better-sam-murphy/17856726?ean=9781472989529

If you would like to know more about Sam, she can be found on Instagram and Twitter as @sammurphyruns, or you can head to her website where you can find this book and also her previous books: https://www.sam-murphy.co.uk
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runningbookreviews/
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Podcast webpage: https://runningbookreviews.buzzsprout.com
If you have been enjoying the podcast and are wondering how you can help us out, you can now buy us a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AlanandLiz

The Villanova Track Story is the story of Villanova University’s dominance in the DMR, distance medley relay, at the Penn Relays from 1966 to 1981. The book features this piece of running history, the athletes involved, and the circumstances that brought it all together. The author, Jerry Bouma, was himself a scholarship athlete from 1970 to 1974, but he tells the story by piecing together information gathered from many people who were present during a more than 16-year span.

Jerry Bouma grew up on a family dairy farm in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, and was the first Canadian to receive a track scholarship to Villanova University. After graduating from Villanova with a bachelor of science of mathematics, he went on to earn a Masters degree in agricultural economics from the University of Guelph, has spent his professional career in the agriculture and food industry, and currently lives in the province of Alberta, Canada. Jerry started off his running career, before joining Villanova, as a self-coached athlete and was the holder of several under-18 Canadian records in the 800m, 1500m, and mile events. In 1976, after graduating from Villanova, Jerry continued running at a high level and was 6th in the Canadian Olympic trials 1500m in a time of 3:44.8. He has not only represented Canada internationally as a runner, but has contributed to the Track and Field community by helped organize large scale athletic events in Canada like:
The 2001 Legends of Gold Gala
The 2015 Pan-American Junior Championships
The 2016 Canadian Athletics Olympic Trials
As an author, this is not Jerry’s first writing venture. He has done technical writing, and previously published 3 poetry books.

Proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to Villanova University and will go towards student mental health resources. You can get a copy on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Villanova-Track-Story-1966-1981-Greatness/dp/0993670261
Support the showAny feedback or suggestions on this review or any of our other podcast episodes would be greatly welcomed. Leave us a review using your favorite podcast player or contact us on social media.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runningbookreviews/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/reviews_running
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runningbookreviews/
Podcast webpage: https://runningbookreviews.buzzsprout.com
If you have been enjoying the podcast and are wondering how you can help us out, you can now buy us a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AlanandLiz