Top 5 Books About Running And Endurance
In my spare time, when I’m not actually running, I’m usually thinking about running or possibly reading about running. There’s a lot of great books out there and I thought it would be a good challenge to put together my top 5 running and endurance books of all time. Although runners will like the list, it’s not made to exclude everyone else as the books on the list are entertaining and interesting.
Without any specific order, below are my top five, and surprisingly are a lot different from a lot of the other similar lists out there, so I hope it introduces something different to you.
Running to Extremes
By Lisa Tamati
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Running-Extremes-Lisa-Tamati/dp/1743317646
I stumbled across this book at a time that I wouldn’t really consider myself that into running, even though I had been running for about 10 years. This book changed everything for me. Me being from Australia originally, I really hadn’t heard about Lisa Tamati and her extensive running career before I picked up this book. Her career is amazing and this book introduced me to the world of ultrarunning and endurance sports and is really the catalyst of where running has taken me since.
In the book “Running to Extremes”, it is an attempt from Lisa to try to explain what she puts herself through some of the toughest ultramarathons around the world and includes stories from her taking place in such races like the Badwater Ultra, the Gobi March in the Sahara desert and of course La Ultra.
A Runner’s High
By Dean Karnazes
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Runners-High-Older-Slower-Stronger-ebook/dp/B08S79C8TZ
I actually could have put any of Dean’s books in this list as all of them are well written and entertaining. “A Runner’s High” is his latest book and spans the most recent years of Dean’s ultrarunning career, with the culmination of him wanting to run the Western States Ultramarathon one last time. It discusses his fears with becoming irrelevant as he ages, as well as how he needs to train and race differently compared to what he used to when he was younger.
Endure
By Alex Hutchinson
Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062499866/
If you’re interesting in some of the science behind sport and endurance training, “Endure” may be an interesting read for you. The book provides a history of sports science and it’s humble origins businesses trying to get the most out of their workforce and armed forces trying to ensure their soldiers are soldiering on as long as possible, to the cutting edge research being performed by todays big names in research. The broad concept of the book is discussing what endurance actually is, and by using some of the latest research in sports science to try and use these concepts as part of your daily training and racing. The book gets “sciency” but does a good job in explaining the concepts and can bring something to any athlete.
The Worlds Fittest Book
By Ross Edgly
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Fittest-Book-Bestseller-Strongman-ebook/dp/B076PFH7XM
The author, Ross Edgly has travelled the world attempting numerous world records in fitness and endurance. This book tells the tail of a number of his travels and record book attempts with details on the science and training used to train without cutting corners, but to be as efficient as possible building his strength and endurance for these specific attempts. Edgly puts his body on the line using decades of research to improve his endurance, speed, body composition, strength and more. The author wants this book to be the go to resource for learning all you need to know about unlocking your physical potential, and I think it is, but it also presents the topics in an entertaining way.
The Science Of The Marathon And The Art Of Variable Pace Running
By Veronique Billat and Johnathan Edwards
Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HHTCC1J
This book is pretty sciency and can get a bit full on at times but presents a different method to long distance training which limits the amount of training needed to get through a marathon and can be performed by anyone wanting to improve their long distance times, including elite runers. The authors training method is backed by 30 years of research and centres around allowing the body to properly cycle lactate better throughout your racing using their training and racing plans. The authors provide good details on how you can implement part of their training methods yourself, but fall a little short as I think the ultimate goal of the book is to try to get you training with the authors as your coach. I do still think there is a lot of good information and a really interesting read.
Finding Ultra
By Rich Roll
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Ultra-Revised-Updated-Discovering/dp/0307952207
Rich Roll is probably most well know for his successful podcast that covers a lot of different topic including sport, endurance, health and generally getting the most out of life. His book “Finding Ultra” is his story on how got to this point in life from collegeate swimming, to alcoholic lawer, to ultra athlete. The culmination of the book is his five day epic endurance race of five ironman races in Hawaii, in five days. It’s another great read and I highly recommend it next time you are struggling to get the motivation to get out and train for your next race.
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Vince Sesto is a DevOps Engineer, Endurance Athlete, Coach and Author. One of his passion’s in life is endurance sports as both an athlete, coach and author. He is a certified running and triathlon coach with a goal to inspire people through his coaching and competition and to encourage people to live active and healthy lives.
His motto in life is, “I am trying to change the world, one run at a time”.
