Foreword: A book that opens up The purpose of this book is first to introduce you to an extraordinary world of running and second to change your life. If you're not running yet, this book will show you how to get fit and happy to a degree you never imagined you could be.No matter how weak, fat, old, ugly your body is, or how many times you have tried other sports to no avail, this book can make you as happy as it says.With a little preparation and a few basic precautions, almost anyone who can walk can take up running. If you have become a runner, or even a very good runner, as I hope, this book will help you further strengthen your body, increase your running speed, increase your knowledge, and better enjoy the benefits of running. Your special pleasure.

Regardless of your running skills, this book will introduce you to the many benefits of running and teach you how to get them.In this book, what you can learn includes: · Even in old age, the human body adapts well to physical activity. · Running is a natural tranquilizer. ·Running can increase the fun of sex life. · There is a knack in nutrition that allows runners to eat foods that are absolutely forbidden to most dieters and still lose weight. ·Runners can run 200 miles at a time without feeling exhausted. ·Heart disease patients, with the doctor's consent, not only can participate in the 26-mile race, but also feel better after participating in the race than before the onset of the disease.

All in all, you'll find that the benefits of running are many, some of which are only just beginning to be understood. The author won't be surprised if you think that claim is exaggerated.You have every right to ask the question, who made these claims?What is the basis for making these claims?These questions will be answered one by one in this book.It may be necessary, however, to make some general remarks at the outset. One day about ten years ago, I was playing tennis with a friend named Walter Guzzardi.Guzadi and I were evenly matched and we always played really hard.I was about thirty-five or six years old, and I was working for a big magazine in Manhattan.One of my more pleasant errands is serving dinner to writers who write for magazines.

I was gaining weight, ounce by ounce, of flabby muscles, from too many martinis and too little physical activity.I weighed only 170 pounds when I was ten years old, and I grew up to be a fat man weighing 213.5 pounds. However, with the reflexes and technique I developed early on, I was able to play decent tennis.Plus I'm a little smug about my game -- I admit it.That's why, the day I played against Guzzardi, when I felt a tear in my right calf, I got irritated for no apparent reason. As I was running to the left side of the court, Guzzardi, trying to throw me off balance, hit the ball to the right, which was the opposite direction I was going.His strategy worked.Trying to change direction, I turned so hard that I strained a muscle.

The injury was not serious, although for a week or two I felt sore and limped when I walked, and I didn't even go to the doctor for fear of trouble. What was surprising was how I felt about my injury.My body is useless and it makes me angry.I still see myself as an athlete, at least secretly.A man who has played tennis all his life, touched a football sometimes, and played Sunday afternoon softball cannot just go down like this. I'm not going to just leave it to fate.Once the pain subsided, I decided to go for a run to strengthen my legs.I've only run in Army basic training and I have an aversion to running.I still seem to hear a big morose-looking Texan sergeant shuffling along with us, yelling "What, two, three, four."It was as if I was running with my fellow enlisted mates again, sweating and chasing the ranks, scorched by the scorching Virginia summer sun.But, since I've only experienced army running, I put on a pair of heavy boots, headed out the door, and slowly started running along the sidewalk.

I couldn't see at the time that I had begun to change my life after doing this.Yet that is exactly what happened.Despite the pain in my thighs and the burning pain in my lungs (I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and it didn't matter), I kept running.I would very much like to avoid another muscle strain.Run three or four times a week, about half a mile each, and rarely more than that.When work gets too busy, I simply stop altogether.But sooner or later I always get back to working out. I ended up moving from New York to the suburbs of Connecticut, where running was more of a hobby.

There are country lanes, brooks and rivers, and grassy parks and woods here and there.I quit smoking (the Surgeon General's report freaked me out) and increased my running distances a bit.Sometimes I ran with a young neighbor named Ned Taseer.He had just been discharged from the Marine Corps and was in very strong health.He was fast, and I really didn't want to run that fast, but his unrestrained enthusiasm encouraged me to go forward, and as long as he didn't rush too hard, I could usually keep up. One day I read in our local paper that in two or three weeks, on Memorial Day, there was going to be a five-mile race in the very town where I lived.Anyone can sign up, even a geriatric research subject like myself who is thirty-five years old and overweight.The next day I tried to run five miles.My speed, especially when I was approaching the finish line, was like a snail crawling, but I managed to run the whole distance, I sent out the registration form for the competition, and worked hard on "Running Life" - Preface

Get up and run every morning before going to work. The night before the match, I slept as badly as I did years ago whenever I was about to play an important tennis match.On the starting line in front of City Hall, I looked around. There were two hundred athletes, most of them young, lean.They are so thin that every rib can be seen clearly, and their cheeks are deeply sunken.But there are also a large number of people in their forties, fifties, and even sixties, as well as a small number of women and children.With luck, I might not run so badly.Someone introduced the mayor, and the mayor wished us a good run, and then fired the running gun.

This sport, but I like it.I forced myself to lose weight so I could run better, and I started running every day.Friends started telling me that I looked in great shape, which hadn't been said to me in a long time.Finally, two years after my first run, I even won a minor title among my age group—the Connecticut 10,000-meter champion. I was more interested in the changes that started to happen in my mind, I became calmer and less anxious.I can hold my focus easier and for longer than before.I feel more in control of my life.Unexpected setbacks no longer upset me as easily as they used to.I felt a quiet power, and as soon as I felt it fading away, I could call it back just by running outside for a while.

Every runner is familiar with these changes.Although this change is compared with that which occurs during meditation, the former is richer in content, perhaps because of the extraordinarily strong body which amplifies the change. When it comes to unusual states of mind, I am always skeptical.But even at my most paranoid, I admit that running has had some wonderful psychological incidental effects on me*.When I first began to suspect that this was the case, I wondered if my own perceptions were just my own unique ones that didn't apply to anyone else.So I started asking other runners what their experience was like.It turns out that there are many other runners who have the same experience as me.In fact, the situation is almost the same.Typically, a person starts running to get fit (lose weight, get in shape, feel better), although a few people run to burn off their excess energy.Over a period of months or years, they gradually began to spend much more time running than was required to keep fit.They finally learned that there is something about running that has a uniquely beneficial effect on the human mind.

Note: *One could even say that the effect is spiritual.Someone asked the wife of a running friend of mine how he could reconcile the fact that her husband was a Methodist and almost all the races were on Sundays.The friend's wife replied, "Tom used to be a Methodist, and now he's a runner." Historian John Huizinga has perhaps thought more about entertainment than anyone else.Pointing out that Plato equated games with religious ceremonies, he writes: "Although Plato equated games with sacred things "Life on a Run"—Preface He did not defile the latter by calling it a game, on the contrary, he raised the concept of the game to the highest spiritual realm. " This aspect of running makes this book an incongruous combination.Has anyone ever heard of a book that talks about detachment and body protection?Yet it is impossible to adequately and accurately treat the sport of running without giving equal attention to both the physical and mental aspects. The physical benefits (and harms) of running have long been scientifically studied in exhaustive detail, but the psychological effects of running are only in their infancy.However, it would be misleading to underestimate the physical benefits of running, because there are still many benefits of running in this area, and they are closely related to the psychological benefits. So the general arrangement of the book is as follows: In part one, we'll discuss how running changes you physically, mind, socially, and spiritually. In Part Two, we'll discuss various theories and techniques of running to discover ways to seek—and find—the beneficial changes and benefits that all runners experience. Finally, in part three, we'll take a look at the running world to see what awaits you.In it, the mysteries of this world, some important characters and some of its more peculiar aspects are discussed. There is one final step, which is necessarily beyond the scope of this book.That's running itself, and it's something you're going to do yourself.It's also up to you to decide how long and how far you run each time--just remember first, long-distance running requires passing out exercise.Researchers who have studied the effects of running on the body believe that running for fifteen to twenty minutes a day, at least three days a week, can produce significant results. (It may seem like a lot of work at first, but you can run that much without a lot of exercise.) On the other hand, many people who are new to running, like me, find that as they get fitter, they run more and more. Come faster, they want to run more - just because it's fun.Many people run eight to ten miles a day, and they find this one- to one-and-a-half-hour run a refreshing break.But because each person's situation is different, so the reaction after running is also different.You probably feel as refreshed after a mile as I do after a ten, so pay careful attention to your body's unique good and bad feelings after a run.How much you run and how little you run depends on your own will.Over time, you may wish to run more—or less.Regardless of your decision, you will find this book extremely helpful, and the principles described in the book apply not only to marathon running, but also to sprinting on the street. james fix On Patriot's Day (third Monday in April) in 1977