The Best Running Books, According to Runners and Coaches

Barefoot TJ

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The Best Running Books, According to Runners and Coaches
New York Magazine
If you've ever heard of barefoot running or considered buying an energy bar with chia seeds, you can thank Christopher McDougall's book Born to ...
 
Barefoot TJ how do you send someone a personal message on here?

I don't believe in running books, I find the training programs in them tell people to over train. One training program that suits one person doesn't necessary suit another person. These running books talk from one size fits all.
 
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Barefoot TJ how do you send someone a personal message on here?

I don't believe in running books, I find the training programs in them tell people to over train. One training program that suits one person doesn't necessary suit another person. These running books talk from one size fits all.

Born to Run isn't a training book, it's an adventure story. Chris McDougall has repeatedly told folks that he is not a coach, or expert on how to run, or train, barefoot or otherwise. The book is an enjoyable read for anyone, runner, walker, or not.

In my book (warning: SHAMEFUL PLUG AHEAD) Barefoot Running Step by Step, we emphasis the importance of NOT training, but instead, learning how to run, practicing good technique, before pounding out countless miles/kilometers with potentially injurious technique, and how to listen to your own body. Yes there is a chapter on drills, FUN DRILLS, but only because the publishers insisted that we need a chapter on drills.

One of the reasons for running barefoot is more feedback from the soles to listen to how our own body feels about the way we are running, and/or about how far, or fast, or hard we are running.
 
I could be wrong, but I think the only book mentioned in this list that talks about an actual training plan is Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas.
 
Born to Run is a great book that tells a great story, but it always cracks me up when people say things like "[Born to Run] created the barefoot running movement." :rolleyes:
It certainly was influential, but I was running barefoot and corresponding with Barefoot Ken Bob almost ten years before Born to Run was published! :)
By the way - I do highly recommend Ken Bob's book "Barefoot Running Step by Step" for all runners - very informative and quite entertaining!
 
I read running books almost solely for inspiration and sometimes adopt some tiniest bit of advice from them. Read the theory/story part and skip the program part. I once tried training program that had listed accurately what every run was, it was technically doable and seemed to work, but I lost running motivation in two weeks. For me feeling of freedom is essential in running, use of training programs take it away - soul of running removed... I find goals and programs pretty risky way for a beginner to start running. There's this great experience of free spontaneous running just in grasp of anyone, but then some asshole in running magazine tells this big lie that running needs goals, heart rate monitors and programs, because otherwise running gets boring if you don't get faster and better. That's like saying that you will get bored to enjoying occasionally few beers, you need to get faster, drink more and probably proceed to meth and heroin.

Yeah, there might be people that feel a bit differently.. :rolleyes: But then it's pretty much statistically impossible that I would be only one thinking like this, so there most probably are lots of people like me and if they try running with that recommended running program-heart rate monitor-bullshit approach, they will find running pretty blah thing to do.. :meh:


Some great books listed, personally I never finished "once a runner", read something like 50-100 pages..
 
Before BTR, I too found Ken Bob's and Ted's groups online when I started questioning if there were any other barefoot runners out there besides me or was I the only one? I was already a member of the Runner's World forums, but they didn't have a BFR forum, so I got one created there...before BTR was released.

I do think BTR, Barefoot Ted, and the mention of Ken Bob in the book had a lot to do with turning our niche interest into an actual "movement" though, along with creating new minshoe lines.
 
That's like saying that you will get bored to enjoying occasionally few beers, you need to get faster, drink more and probably proceed to meth and heroin.

Yeah, there might be people that feel a bit differently.. :rolleyes: But then it's pretty much statistically impossible that I would be only one thinking like this, so there most probably are lots of people like me and if they try running with that recommended running program-heart rate monitor-bullshit approach, they will find running pretty blah thing to do..

I'm going to have to come out of the closet here... I'm a geek... there, I've said it! :eek: I love numbers, graphs, statistics, computers, programming... Please don't hate me.

I try to use my heart-rate monitor, not as an incentive to start on meth and heroin, but rather as a warning when I'm getting carried away (220 - age...) and need to slow down and just enjoy the beer. Having said that, I'm getting better at hearing my body, and mostly just use the monitor to verify what I'm feeling now.

I enjoy seeing the numbers change too as I learn. For instance, I found it really interesting to compare my vertical oscillation when running minimalist in Xero z-treks to running properly barefoot.

The final nail in my geek coffin is that I'm currently following a Garmin coach program using Jeff Calloway's run / walk technique. As a complete beginner (I've never really been a runner, not even in shoes), I'm open to trying pretty much anything and everything, but felt I needed some external input and structure to my learning. Children don't learn if you isolate them - they need interaction. The coach program helps to do that for me, and has proved motivating for several months now. Interestingly enough, a lot of the drills also tie in with advice on here, such as increasing cadence. There again, lacking experience in what feels right, I gotta love my watch, which makes it really easy to see what cadence I'm doing.

Am I getting faster? Slightly. Am I getting better? That depends on your definition. I know that I'm getting more consistent, going further, and that the tools that I'm using (Garmin coach, this website, Ken Bob's book, YouTube, my friends, etc.) seem to be helping to make my running feel easier and more fluid.

Everyone's different, thankfully :)
 
For many runners, though, the appeal is the book’s (Born to Run) portrayal of the love of running for its own sake. As Roll says “it helped inspire my imagination about what running could be outside of just signing up for a marathon.”

McDougall has said himself the inspiration for the book was his desire to portray running as something you can do out of pure enjoyment. He was sad to see how too many view is as painful drudgery to endure only focused on some end-goal of vanity. Frequently throughout the book you see references to great runners smiling with big grins while running. That's certainly the goal I work on the most: keep it enjoyable. If I'm not able to smile about my running I'm not doing it right.
 
Frequently throughout the book you see references to great runners smiling with big grins while running. That's certainly the goal I work on the most: keep it enjoyable. If I'm not able to smile about my running I'm not doing it right.

Reading this made me laugh, I think my number 1 criteria now is making sure I’m smiling- form, speed, heart rate, etc., is all of secondary importance.
 
I’ve recently read Older Yet Faster...
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...and found it’s made a bit of an impact on my running. While the previously mentioned smile is my main concern I do give thought to other aspects of my running and information I’ve found in OYF has been beneficial.
 
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One of the reasons for running barefoot is more feedback from the soles to listen to how our own body feels about the way we are running, and/or about how far, or fast, or hard we are running.

Barefoot Running Step By Step remains my favourite goto source for barefoot running education. My current focus is on downhill stretches; I’ve got “coming through, no brakes!” as my motivational mantra- the practice of it still leaves something to be desired at times but the application of it it becoming more natural.
 
It's not a running book, but "Strength Training and Coordination" by Frans Bosch helped me improve my running form more than any running book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them. It's possible that it worked because I'd already tried the conventional barefoot wisdom and the usual cues with less than satisfactory results, ie maybe I was ready for it. Or it could be that it made sense because of how my brain works. Dunno. If anyone else reads it I'd love to know whether it helped you.
 
It's not a running book, but "Strength Training and Coordination" by Frans Bosch helped me improve my running form more than any running book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them. It's possible that it worked because I'd already tried the conventional barefoot wisdom and the usual cues with less than satisfactory results, ie maybe I was ready for it. Or it could be that it made sense because of how my brain works. Dunno. If anyone else reads it I'd love to know whether it helped you.

I’ll put it on the list...