Past Book Review (November 28, 2020): "Running with Joy"
New book review for Running with Joy: My Daily Journey to the Marathon, by Ryan Hall, Harvest House Publishers, 2011:
This memoir by Ryan Hall (American half-marathon record holder, fastest American-born marathoner, and fastest Boston Marathon runner as of 2011) provides a fascinating, daily running log that as a lifelong runner I consider my favorite (and I've read a lot). Contrary to some of the other reviews here, I do not consider the content of this book to be preachy at all, because he relates everything that he says to himself rather than pushing his worldview on the reader. Every memoir that I've read, whether about running or not, always delves deeply into the personalities and worldviews of the protagonist, and this one is no exception. While I agree that Ryan shares his worldview throughout, I disagree with another reviewer here that "God is on pretty much every page", as this is a gross exaggeration: the vast majority of what he has to share here is a daily running log that might be better described as a running journal because he relates his daily training in context with the rest of his daily life, which includes joy but also includes personal struggle, challenge, and doubt.
For many of us, I think the fact that he shares these things with the reader is invaluable, bringing realism to running. While I've never been a world-class runner, I did compete in school for 10 years and continue to hit the trail every morning to run many years later, and I can personally relate to much of what Ryan writes about in his introduction and his notes from 14 weeks of training for the 2010 Boston marathon. From the very first page in his introduction, you will notice the difference relative to other books of this genre. In thinking back to his training for this marathon, he comments that he "had certainly experienced moments of joy before this and throughout my career, but they were almost always based on accomplishments, such as drastically improving my times, winning races, and setting records. All of these were tremendous experiences, but the problem was this: To experience joy, I had to win or set a record. If I didn't, joy was hard to find. I have been blessed with a very successful career, but I have also been a slave to performance. In fact, most of my athletic career at Stanford was a long, joyless dry spell."