The Lure of Long Distances: Why We Run

by Robin Harvie

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Book cover for The Lure of Long Distances

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Robin Harvie was a fairly ordinary runner. He ran his first marathon after a bet. Then he found that although he couldn't run fast, he could run long distances-very long. A casual hobby turned into a 120-miles-a-week obsession, and a training route along the River Thames morphed into a promise to himself that he would tackle the oldest and toughest footrace on earth: the Spartathlon from Athens to Sparta. This race, a recreation of Pheidippides's legendary journey, is 150 miles long, crosses two mountain ranges, and is the toughest race on the ultradistance runner's calendar. It isn't at all ordinary.

Harvie's experience-from the mundanity of daily training routes to the extreme tests of the desert's scorching heat and the darkest hours of the night-reveals the profoundly intoxicating experience of running, and the ways in which every mile taken is both a step further into the unknown and a pace deeper into the self.

  • ISBN10 1610390229
  • ISBN13 9781610390224
  • Publish Date 26 April 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Publisher INGRAM PUBLISHER SERVICES US
  • Imprint PublicAffairs,U.S.
  • Format eBook
  • Pages 288
  • Language English