Summer Reading on the Run

Today I had a nice conversation with a woman at work and she mentioned her son, who is a high school distance runner. Apparently he’s a big Prefontaine fan so I recommended the PRE book. Of course this got me thinking about the other running books I’ve read in recent years so I thought I’d recommend some of them. The following titles are not books on training but literary, biographic, autobiographic, and the like.

PRE by Tom Jordan was one I read during my freshmen year of college. I couldn’t put it down. I’m also not sure I returned that copy to the coach (Sorry Charles!). Follow the life of Steve Prefontaine with this short but powerful book.

If you have been awake, or are old enough, you have noticed the distance running power house that is Kenya. In Train Hard, Win Easy the Kenyan Way Toby Tanser presents two books in one; a history of running in Kenya and profiles of the greats from that region. Fascinating.

Running with the Buffaloes is one of my all time favorite books. Chris Lear exhumed ten kinds of collage nostalgia as I read this fun and intense book. Reading about the training sessions and commitment from the U. of Colorado men’s cross country team was an intense and fun experience.

The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb is the story about the first sub 4:00 mile by Sir Roger Banister. This book gives insight into the global race to achieve this goal, a goal that was ultimately realized at Oxford University with the help of some friends and a break in the weather. This is a page turner.

Sub 4:00, another title by Chris Lear, is about Alan Webb, the 4^th American to break 4 minutes in high school and the first to do so in 33 years. The great congressman Jim Ryun writes the foreword of the book and plays the roll of the backdrop as he was the H.S. record holder for well over three decades.

I’ll post some other running books later.

The Happiness Hypothesis

The Happiness Hypothesis by Dr. Jonathan Haidt is fantastic. Haidt is an associate professor at the University of Virginia and is turning out some interesting material. I’m considering adding the book to a course I teach called Building Family Strengths as it applies in numerous ways. He grounds his observations in research and creates an educational romp through such topics as the paradox of abundance, confabulations, the pain of loosing over that of winning, the gap between action and perception, how to change your mind, and finding your inner lawyer. Intrigued?

It’s premature that I write this as I’m only halfway through the short book but I’m really stimulated by his writing. I am equally stimulated, impressed, and intimidated by Dr. Haidt’s publication record. Its direction is focused and clear. I can learn something about focus here. Did I mention how prolific he is? Check out his academic homepage.

I first saw Haidt on the Today Show and was intrigued by this articulate demeanor. He also convinced me, in a very short interview, that the HH book was more than pop psychology. It's not a "self-help" book. I put the book on my Amazon.com wish list and left it at that. I may never have ordered it but it arrived on our doorstep nonetheless. Oddly enough my wife had ordered it for herself. We had never discussed the book but seemed to be on the same happy page. I snatched it up but should get serious about finishing this thing as she knocked off another book tonight and is eyeballing the Happiness Hypothesis.

At this point I don’t intend to write a review (although I snuck in a ringing endorsement). You can read what others, who have finished the book, have written. It's worth stopping by the book's web page because it generously offers a couple chapters, PDFs of other writing including research articles, and more. I feel very comfortable in recommending this book.