What I’m talking about when I talk about running

Description

One runner mentioned a mantra his older brother, also a runner, taught him, and which he’d been thinking about ever since he started running. It goes something like, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice.” Let’s say you’re running and you’re thinking to yourself, “This hurts, man, I can’t go any further.” The pain is a reality you can’t avoid, but whether you can bear it or not is up to you. This perfectly encapsulates the important aspect of running a marathon.

It’s been ten years since I first had the idea for a book about running, but the years have passed while I’ve tried one way or another, without ever truly settling on writing it. Running is such a mysterious subject, and I’ve found it difficult to define what I want to say about it.

But at a certain point, I resolved to write honestly about my thoughts and feelings regarding running and to commit to my own style. I found this to be the only way forward, and I began writing little by little in the summer of 2005, finishing in the fall of 2006. Except for the passages where I quoted from my earlier writings, the body of this book is a record of my thoughts and feelings without delay. I observed that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself were almost the same thing. So I suppose it’s perfectly fine to read this as a kind of running-based memoir.