Sports Memoirs Running

No man has affected more runners in more ways than Bill Bowerman. During his 24-year tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon, he won four national team titles and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. He also ignited the jogging boom, invented the waffle-sole running shoe that helped establish Nike, and coached the US track and field team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

The ultimate endurance athlete, Marshall Ulrich has run more than 100 foot races averaging over 100 miles each, completed 12 expedition-length adventure races, and ascended the seven summits - including Mount Everest. Yet, his run from California to New York - the equivalent of running two marathons and a 10k every day for nearly two months straight - proved to be his most challenging effort yet. In Running on Empty, he shares the gritty backstory of his run and the excruciating punishments he endured on the road.

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens uncovers the story of how women broke into competitive running and how they are getting faster and fiercer every day—and changing our understanding of what is possible as they go.

Running for My Life is not a story about Africa or track and field athletics. It is about outrunning the devil and achieving the impossible: faith, diligence, and the desire to give back. It is the American dream come true and a reminder that saving one can help to save thousands more. Lopez Lomong chronicles his inspiring ascent from a barefoot lost boy of the Sudanese Civil War to a Nike sponsored athlete on the US Olympic Team. Though most of us fall somewhere between the catastrophic lows and dizzying highs of Lomong's incredible life, every reader will find in his story the human spark to pursue dreams that might seem unthinkable.

Anna McNuff had never run a mile without shoes on before. And yet, one British summer, she set off to run a (very) wiggly route from the Shetland Islands to London–on a mission to cover the distance of 100 marathons…in bare feet.

Failure Is an Option is the story of an average runner who sets out to discover just how far he can go. With the support (and misgivings) of his family, and aware that his quickest years are behind him, Matt Whyman leaves the Saturday morning 5K to push towards 100-mile ultramarathons and beyond. By slowing things down to run a very long way, he joins a growing number of men and women from all walks of life striving to do something extraordinary.

Dean Karnazes has run 350 continuous miles through three sleepless nights, ordered pizza during long runs, and inspired fans the world over with his adventures. Now in this heart-pounding book, Dean reveals how he pulled off unfathomable feats with a determination that defied all physical limitations. But Dean goes beyond the story of the Endurance 50 marathons to share his invaluable secrets and advice for athletes of all levels.

In It for the Long Run is ultrarunner Damian Hall’s story of running a first marathon aged 36, dressed as a toilet, and representing Great Britain four years later. His midlife-crisis running problem escalated to 100-mile ultramarathons and record-breaking bimbles, culminating in his 261-mile Pennine Way run in July 2020.

Meb Keflezighi is all about hope and second chances—starting with his very survival. The child of a small African country ravaged by a brutal war, Meb arrived in America with nothing but the clothes on his back, speaking no English and never having raced a mile. So how did he end up an A student, one of the most celebrated and respected athletes of his generation, and winner of the 2009 New York City Marathon?

With his historic win at the 2014 Boston Marathon, Meb Keflezighi cemented his legacy as one of the great champions of long-distance running. Runners everywhere wanted to know how someone two weeks away from his 39th birthday, who had only the 15th best time going into the race, could defeat the best field in Boston Marathon history and become the first American man to win the race in 31 years. Meb for Mortals describes in unprecedented detail how four-time Olympian Keflezighi prepares to take on the best runners in the world.

Many people will remember Eric Liddell as the Olympic gold medalist from the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Famously, Liddell would not run on Sunday because of his strict observance of the Christian Sabbath, and so he did not compete in his signature event, the 100 meters, at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He was the greatest sprinter in the world at the time, and his choice not to run was ridiculed by the British Olympic committee, his fellow athletes, and most of the world press.

This superbly narrated and insightful audiobook follows the paths of thirteen ravaged champions in solitary crafts such as cycling and running, bowling and boxing, hiking and golf. These men work at and master their sports, driven only by a burning need to prove themselves. Movingly detailed here are their painful journeys to grace, and their eventual realization that no victory brings lasting happiness. In short, here is the human experience, told in seconds and miles, scorecards and records.

At the age of 55, record-breaking ultrarunner Mimi Anderson embarked on her most ambitious adventure yet. She wanted to become the fastest woman in history to run across America from Los Angeles to New York. For 40 days, the determined mother of three pushed herself on and on for more than 2,000 miles across the vast continent, despite the onset of severe pain, until she was forced to make a crushing decision: carry on and risk never being able to run again, or give up on her all-time goal.

The former middle-distance Olympic runner and high-end escort speaks out for the first time about her battle with mental illness and how mania controlled and compelled her in competition but also in life. This is a heartbreakingly honest yet hopeful memoir reminiscent of Manic, Electroboy, and An Unquiet Mind.

Nedd Brockmann isn’t afraid to dream big. Fresh after running fifty marathons in fifty days, the twenty-three-year-old had an idea: a 4000-kilometre run across Australia, averaging 100 kilometres per day with the aim of completing it in the fastest known time of 43 days. He wasn’t chasing fame or public recognition. He just wanted to test his limits and raise a million dollars for homelessness in the process.

In the spring of 2021, as the UK's latest pandemic lockdowns were lifted, Nick Butter set out from the Eden Project to become the fastest person to cover every mile of Britain's mainland coastline on foot. Battling the most extreme winds Britain had seen in 100 years, days of torrential rain and the unrelenting hills of Western Scotland and Cornwall, Nick suffered two broken bones and countless injuries, whilst taking on two marathons a day, every day, for 100 days.

When Emily Halnon lost her beloved mother to a rare uterine cancer at just sixty-six years old, she wanted to do something monumental to honor the person her mother had been. Emily's mom had taken up running in her late forties; she ran her first marathon at fifty. She even went skydiving to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. Emily, already an accomplished ultrarunner, decided to try to break the record for the Fastest Known Time by a woman on the Pacific Crest Trail's 460 miles across Oregon.

Dom Harvey is a hugely popular radio DJ. He's known for his funny gags and has been described as a shock-jock. So it might come as a surprise to find out that Dom is also seriously into running - marathon running. In fact, he loves it. This audiobook is a love story about running and about marathons especially. What got Dom into marathons? How did running save his life? And why, despite being an old fart, is he now trying to run even faster than ever before?

Every marathon runner’s journey is different. You might have caught the bug after experiencing that adrenaline rush of completing your first 5k; it might be a desire to finally cross something off your bucket list; or, perhaps it was a bit of an absentminded afterthought while watching TV, crisps in hand, and a niggling voice saying ‘maybe I could do that’–it was for Vassos, at least. However far along you are in your journey, How to Run A Marathon shows us that absolutely anyone can take those first steps to defeating the distance.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.