Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Ultramarathon Man

My husband and I went to R.O.X. Tuesday night to register for the UNICEF Walk on the Child's Side 2008. For the first time, we also registered other family members like my 8-year old daughter, my mother-in-law, my aunt and her son for the 2-km Walk. When I went to the Backpacker's area, I once again saw the book The Ultramarathon Man and urged my husband that we pass by Fully Booked to look for this particular book. We were to leave for Cagayan de Oro for a business meeting the next day and I wanted to have a reading material which will occupy me during the plane ride.

Fortunately, I found one copy of this book at Fully Booked. It was a such a lucky find. This is a one-of-a-kind book on running and will really inspire you to do more than what you are doing now. It opens your mind to your vast possibilities and potentials. It is just amazing. The one and a half plane ride passed by so quickly as I was caught up by the adventures of ultramarathonman Dean Karnazes. When we landed in CDO, I spent the short rest time in the hotel covering some more of the pages of this funny, heart-stopping and very inspiring book. After lunch, the business meeting 'interfered' with my reading and I was only able to pick up the book again to cover the final few pages after midnight when our hosts drove us back to the hotel. I still had a couple of minutes left while waiting for my turn to use the bathroom. What I missed in running, being unable to run for these past 3 days, I completely made up for with reading. I was able to finish the 292-paged book in just a few hours which I think, makes me an ultramarathon reader.

One of my favorite part in the book was when Dean participated in the California State Long-Distance Championship in junior high and won the race. When his coach-mentor asked him 'How'd it feel?' and he answered, 'going out hard was the right thing to do. It felt pretty good.' The reply of the coach-mentor was a simple, 'If it felt good, you didn't push hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell.' When I read out this part to my husband, he commented, "Sounds more like a tormentor than a mentor to me." ha, ha, ha. I just love the book! Now, my next book stop is the Complete Running Manual by Marielle Renssen. Expect to get some running nuggets from this reference in the next coming days.


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