Sports Memoirs Running

"The emotional pain of failing just felt like it was going to be a bit worse than the physical pain of carrying on..." Attempting to break long-distance running records used to be an underground endeavour, until the virus-stricken summer of 2020 came along. Only a few, such as the Bob Graham Round in the Lake District, had ever broken into mainstream consciousness. But an absence of running races thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented rise in the popularity of attempts at breaking these records.

One of the greatest marathon runners of all time, Tom Longboat was one of the best-known athletes of the western world in the early 20th century. Longboat was an astonishing long-distance runner who grew up on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. He won the Boston Marathon in record time, 2:24.24, almost five minutes faster than the 10 previous winners. Longboat then raced in the Olympic Marathon in 1908, but he collapsed on the course amid rumours that his manager had drugged him with strychnine.

Running Away from Cancer is a symphony of inspiration, an anthem of triumph over adversity. The narrative invites listeners to embrace their challenges, to confront fear with courage, and to harness their inner strength to rewrite the narrative of their lives. As the author crosses finish lines and defies odds, he reminds us all that the human spirit is unbreakable, that adversity can be transformed into opportunity, and that within every step lies the promise of a new beginning.

At the age of 68, while still recovering from his second knee injury, Dr. Zeev Gilkis decided to give himself an unusual present for his 70th birthday. He dreamed of running a full marathon, and completing the seventh decade of his life seemed to him the ideal timing to do so. Perhaps this ambitious goal wouldn’t have been so unusual, had he been a very physically active person in his younger years. But Zeev is a cancer survivor who began his "career" in sports relatively late, in his mid-60s.