Skip to main content

Run the World: My 3,500-Mile Journey Through Running Cultures Around the Globe by Becky Wade

From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her year-long exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia—nine countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running—investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world.

Fresh off a successful collegiate running career—with multiple NCAA All-American honors and two Olympic Trials qualifying marks to her name—Becky Wade was no stranger to international competition. But after years spent safely sticking to the training methods she knew, Becky was curious about how her counterparts in other countries approached the sport to which she’d dedicated over half of her life. So in 2012, as a recipient of the Watson Fellowship, she packed four pairs of running shoes, cleared her schedule for the year, and took off on a journey to infiltrate diverse running communities around the world. What she encountered far exceeded her expectations and changed her outlook into the sport she loved.

Over the next 12 months—visiting 9 countries with unique and storied running histories, logging over 3,500 miles running over trails, tracks, sidewalks, and dirt roads—Becky explored the varied approaches of runners across the globe. Whether riding shotgun around the streets of London with Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt, climbing for an hour at daybreak to the top of Ethiopia’s Mount Entoto just to start her daily run, or getting lost jogging through the bustling streets of Tokyo, Becky’s unexpected adventures, keen insights, and landscape descriptions take the reader into the heartbeat of distance running around the world.

Upon her return to the United States, she incorporated elements of the training styles she’d sampled into her own program, and her competitive career skyrocketed. When she made her marathon debut in 2013, winning the race in a blazing 2:30, she became the third-fastest woman marathoner under the age of 25 in U.S. history, qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Trials and landing a professional sponsorship from Asics.

From the feel-based approach to running that she learned from the Kenyans, to the grueling uphill workouts she adopted from the Swiss, to the injury-recovery methods she learned from the Japanese, Becky shares the secrets to success from runners and coaches around the world. The story of one athlete’s fascinating journey, Run the World is also a call to change the way we approach the world’s most natural and inclusive sport.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Power Vested in Me - Unique ‘Four-Book’ Trilogy

Step into the shoes of the Stardust--and take off into a complex, dangerous, and magical world--where danger lurks around every corner and adventure reigns supreme. In this unique ‘four-book’ trilogy, The Power Vested in Me follows the journey, struggles, and challenges faced by five gifted teenagers who are tasked with finding and collecting unusual objects with unknown powers. Under the guidance of their charming yet mysterious benefactor, Starkey, the teens will travel to incredible and fascinating new worlds, encounter malevolent forces, and experience the wonders of a strange and mystical land. From everyday problems of teens like exams, homework, and family drama, to the otherworldly realm of the Land of Nod, life for these unique teens will never be the same. But who are the Stardust, really? Why have they been created? And do they have what it takes to overcome the many evils of the universe?
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ishtar Cup | Murray Lee Eiland Jr.

Bart Northcote vigorously defies stereotypes. He is a Los Angeles private detective who also writes books that are loosely disguised as fiction.  He has a keen sense of making money from every job, and has a voracious appetite for art.  Here he is involved in tracking down the whereabouts of a fabulous antiquity, called the Ishtar Cup, which has been smuggled out of Iraq after the Gulf War.  The problem is that his client, who refuses to giver her real name, wants Bart to follow one of her co-conspirators to make sure they know that they are being watched. Bart suspects he is being played, but he has no idea why. www.amazon.com/Ishtar-Cup-Bart-Northcote/dp/1517362288
Post a Comment
Read more

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Post a Comment
Read more