Let S Run

Peter is putting on a show. He's a bit stressed. In the show, he will read from a manuscript. It's a large manuscript, but don't worry, he's only going to read the parts about him, and there aren't many. It's a memoir written by someone who abandoned him twice--once as a baby and once when he was a young man of thirteen. This person has figured prominently in Peter's life for over fifty years now, but judging by the memoir, he has not figured so much in theirs. So perhaps it's going to be a very short show? Again, don't worry, Peter has other skills which he will share. And if Peter can keep his cool, and if the people who work at the theatre can help him set everything up, and if the audience can just give him a little bit of their time and their attention and their silence, maybe he can tell everyone something about who we really are and who we are to others and who we might be to ourselves when we're alone. And maybe that can make it all a little bit easier.

From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her year-long exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia—9 countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running—investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world. Fresh off a successful collegiate running career—with multiple NCAA All-American honors and two Olympic Trials qualifying marks to her name—Becky Wade was no stranger to international competition. But after years spent safely sticking to the training methods she knew, Becky was curious about how her counterparts in other countries approached the sport to which she’d dedicated over half of her life. So in 2012, as a recipient of the Watson Fellowship, she packed four pairs of running shoes, cleared her schedule for the year, and took off on a journey to infiltrate diverse running communities around the world. What she encountered far exceeded her expectations and changed her outlook into the sport she loved. Over the next twelve months—visiting 9 countries with unique and storied running histories, logging over 3,500 miles running over trails, tracks, sidewalks, and dirt roads—Becky explored the varied approaches of runners across the globe. Whether riding shotgun around the streets of London with Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt, climbing for an hour at daybreak to the top of Ethiopia’s Mount Entoto just to start her daily run, or getting lost jogging through the bustling streets of Tokyo, Becky’s unexpected adventures, keen insights, and landscape descriptions take the reader into the heartbeat of distance running around the world. Upon her return to the United States, she incorporated elements of the training styles she’d sampled into her own program, and her competitive career skyrocketed. When she made her marathon debut in 2013, winning the race in a blazing 2:30, she became the third-fastest woman marathoner under the age of 25 in U.S. history, qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Trials and landing a professional sponsorship from Asics. From the feel-based approach to running that she learned from the Kenyans, to the grueling uphill workouts she adopted from the Swiss, to the injury-recovery methods she learned from the Japanese, Becky shares the secrets to success from runners and coaches around the world. The story of one athlete’s fascinating journey, Run the World is also a call to change the way we approach the world’s most natural and inclusive sport.

A national bestseller, Let the Elephants Run is the essential guidebook for anyone looking to reignite their creativity. Creativity is in everyone’s DNA, not a select few. Award-winning musician and founder of CloudID Creativity Lab David Usher believes we just need the right tools to help us reconnect with our imaginations in our day-to-day lives, whether in the head office, the home office, or the artist’s studio. Using a mix of personal anecdotes and professional examples from the worlds of industry, technology, science, music, and art, he shows us that creativity is not magic; it is a learnable skill that any person or business can master. The dynamic full-colour design includes photographs, artwork, and illustrations, as well as action pages to help readers start cultivating the habit of documenting their ideas for future execution. Based on his wildly popular speaking engagements, Let the Elephants Run is the essential guidebook to reigniting and nurturing our creativity in accessible and productive ways.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW WITH A NEW WORKBOOK Deena Kastor was a star youth runner with tremendous promise, yet her career almost ended after college, when her competitive method—run as hard as possible, for fear of losing—fostered a frustration and negativity and brought her to the brink of burnout. 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 the idea that would transform her running career: the notion that changing her thinking—shaping her mind to be more encouraging, kind, and resilient—could make her faster than she’d ever imagined possible. Building a mind so strong would take years of effort and discipline, but it would propel Kastor to the pinnacle of running—to American records in every distance from the 5K to the marathon—and to the accomplishment of earning America’s first Olympic medal in the marathon in twenty years. Let Your Mind Run is a fascinating intimate look inside the mind of an elite athlete, a remarkable story of achievement, and an insightful primer on how the small steps of cultivating positivity can give anyone a competitive edge.

The undisputed classic of running novels and one of the most beloved sports books ever published, Once a Runner tells the story of an athlete’s dreams amid the turmoil of the 60s and the Vietnam war. Inspired by the author’s experience as a collegiate champion, the novel follows Quenton Cassidy, a competitive runner at fictional Southeastern University whose lifelong dream is to run a four-minute mile. He is less than a second away when the turmoil of the Vietnam War era intrudes into the staid recesses of his school’s athletic department. After he becomes involved in an athletes’ protest, Cassidy is suspended from his track team. Under the tutelage of his friend and mentor, Bruce Denton, a graduate student and former Olympic gold medalist, Cassidy gives up his scholarship, his girlfriend, and possibly his future to withdraw to a monastic retreat in the countryside and begin training for the race of his life against the greatest miler in history. A rare insider’s account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, Once a Runner is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one individual’s quest to become a champion.

Sports history

Cutting-edge advice on how to achieve your personal best, for everyone from casual runners to ultramarathoners. In 80/20 Running, respected running and fitness expert Matt Fitzgerald introduced his revolutionary training program and explained why doing 80 percent of runs at a lower intensity and just 20 percent at a higher intensity is the best way for runners at all levels--as well as cyclists, triathletes, and even weight-loss seekers--to improve their performance. Now, in this eye-opening follow-up, Fitzgerald teams with Olympic coach Ben Rosario to expand and update the 80/20 program to include ultramarathon training and such popular developments as the use of power meters. New research has bolstered the case that the 80/20 method is in fact that most effective way to train for distance running and other endurance sports. Run Like a Pro (Even If You’re Slow) shows readers how to take the best practices in elite running and adopt them within the limits of their own ability, lifestyle, and budget.

Run for fun—no matter your size, shape, or speed! Do you think running sucks? Do you think you’re too fat to run? With humor, compassion, and lots of love, Jill Angie explains how you can overcome the challenges of running with an overweight body, experience the exhilaration of hitting new milestones, and give your self-esteem an enormous boost in the process. This isn’t a guide to running for weight loss, or a simple running plan. It shows how a woman carrying a few (or many) extra pounds can successfully become a runner in the body she has right now. Jill Angie is a certified running coach and personal trainer who wants to live in a world where everyone is free to feel fit and fabulous at any size. She started the Not Your Average Runner movement in 2013 to show that runners come in all shapes, sizes, and speeds, and, since then, has assembled a global community of revolutionaries who are taking the running world by storm. If you would like to be part of the revolution, this is the book for you!