The Runner Reads- The Longest Race

One of the best parts about having graduated from college is that for the first time in my life I have real free time. I have a steady job with a set schedule and no homework! So what am I doing with all that free time? Well other than running, I've been reading a lot. According to my Goodreads account, I've read 34 books since graduation in May. I don't mess around with reading.

I read a lot of different kinds of books, but I really wanted to highlight some books about running on this blog. The first in The Runner Reads segment is The Longest Race by Ed Ayers. Why this book? It was the only one that I was interested in that my library had in stock when I went, to be honest.

Before I started I looked through the reviews on Goodreads. They weren't great. Out of 5 stars it has a 3.28 average (out of 225 reviews, guess there aren't a lot of runners using Goodreads). That wasn't a good sign, but I decided I was going to read it anyway.

In the book, Ayers tells of his running of the JFK 50 Miler when he was sixty years old, flashing back to the experiences that have made him the runner he is.

Reading the book was a lot like running a race. It started out great and interesting, but as it went on I found myself tired. Tired of him trying to relate everything in the world back to running. Tired of him talking about how great he was in high school cross country. Tired of him talking about how at 60 he was beating most of the Marines running JFK (okay that actually was kind of interesting).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book. In fact, I may be tossing around the idea of a 50 Miler next Fall (if I can survive my other big goals before then) because the way he wrote about his experience showed that it was possible for anyone to run this race, even if you aren't a speedy runner (like he was).

Would I recommend this book? That depends. I think I would only say read this if you're in to reading stories about ultrarunning. If you do read it, go in with the mindset that it can be boring at times. But, go in knowing that hearing the story of a 60 year old man running 50 miles like it was a walk in the park was still inspiring (even if his writing was annoying).