sdrunningwriter

Like many recreational athletes I love and compulsively read, but am perpetually let down by sports memoirs. I have been through quite a few books on runners and running, specifically, and I want to like them, but these writing runners always seem so ostentatious, which is disappointing, as I would not identify either type as such. While I would happily be stuck in an elevator with a runner (or writer) any day of the week, I have found the merger to be a consistent washout. For this reason alone I am very much looking forward to the Haruki Murakami’s personal account (out this August), as I am hoping a running writer will do a better job. Few writers are also runners, to my knowledge. The profession more commonly lends itself to endless hours tapping away on a keyboard and/or scribbling in composition notebooks while consuming lots of coffee or controlled substances and essentially keeping overall physical activity to a minimum. The only other well-known writer I am aware of who is also a runner is Joyce Carol Oates, and yet, in her proliferation of writing, she has somehow skipped over the topic of running, even though she credits it as a strength that propels her writing forward. Perhaps her 990th novel will cover this topic. Until then, I will continue to allow my Armstrong and Karnazes memoirs to collect dust, while their authors sweat it out, and will anxiously await the Murakami memoir to see if it can rekindle my hope that running and writing can ebb and flow in unison.

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