Book Report: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

After he quit high school track because of a bad coach, Dean Karnazes didn't run again until the night of his thirtieth birthday. In the grip of an early midlife crisis, he ran all night — and covered thirty miles. This whim left him pretty incapacitated for a few months. It also created a hunger for more ultramarathons (defined as any distance longer than 26.2 miles).

After recovering, Karnazes performed some incredible feats, like running a marathon at the South Pole, running Badwater (100 miles in heat that actually toasts bread) and running TWO HUNDRED miles in a race designed as a 12-person relay (he ran the entire race solo).

Seems like he'd be kind of arrogant. Nope. Throughout the book, he remains humble, maintaining that there's nothing superior about him, and that the key to doing what he does is just putting one foot in front of the other. He (or an editor) made an excellent choice to include just a few race stories instead of an exhaustive list, keeping the book engaging and easy to read (I meant to just thumb through it and ending up finishing it the same day).

It includes some helpful tips, like Which Pizza Chain Delivers to Some Running Guy without an Address AND How to Pee without Stopping at All (although I'm not sure how well his method would work for a girl).

I don't run ultramarathons (I barely run 5Ks), but I can relate to taking challenges other people think are crazy. Triathablog has a lot of fans, but most of my friends think it's pointless. Same with my previous blog adventure, Cheap Women. And hardly anyone understands my desire to write an entire novel every November (nanowrimo) with no hope of publishing it. In the view of many of my logical friends and family, I'm not winning prizes and I'm not making money, so why do I devote so much time to these hobbies?

I could relate to Karnazes' drive to test his own limits. He says repeatedly that he doesn't know WHY he takes on these challenges, although he does speculate. The bottom line is, he loves them. They help give him purpose and discipline that translates to other important parts of his life, like his family and his career.

I don't know why I create crazy blog contests or write month-long novels any more than Karnazes knows why he runs 200 mile races. What I do know is, they're important to me. They make me feel alive.

Lots of my friends don't support me, and lots don't understand. That's okay. What I loved about this book was hearing from someone who does. And it doesn't hurt that I get Triathablog points for reading it.

You can get Ultramarathon Man from the Homewood Library ... just as soon as I return it.