Nicholas Thompson and the Art of the Run

In Nicholas Thompson's book: “Running area”, which came out this week, he writes that “Over the years, sports have changed my imagination and my sense of self.” For Thompson– former New Yorker editor who is now CEO Atlantic“Running was not just a tool for establishing discipline, but also a way to connect with my father, reduce the demands of everyday life and achieve calm and clarity. He recently joined us to recommend several books about dedication to challenging physical activities. His remarks have been edited and condensed.

Tolerate

Alex Hutchinson

Endurance is a book about endurance sports, but it really helped me understand how pain works. Much of my book is dedicated to distinguishing between the different types of pain you feel while running: when is it truly debilitating and when is it just part of a psychological process?

One of the things I believe about running is that most pain isn't physiological: it's your brain worrying that you're pushing yourself too hard and won't be able to maintain homeostasis. At this point, your nervous system begins to send pain signals throughout your body that are not actually caused by muscle fatigue or lactic acid buildup—the problems we think of. As I write in the book, to overcome this pain, you have to do something like play hide and seek with your own mind.

The Running Pad is an investigation into how I was able to run very fast in my forties—much faster than I ran in my twenties and thirties, when I was in my prime. When I was in my thirties, I trained very hard and deliberately, so why couldn't I run faster? One of the big realizations I had was that I just couldn't imagine going any faster. Speed, pain and effort, as Hutchinson shows, are psychological.

Mileage reviewed

Sabrina B. Little

Little is an ultramarathon runner and philosopher. In this book, she delves into Aristotle and Plato, exploring their ideas on how to live an ethical life and how running can teach you ethics. She talks about how daily jogging builds a habit. It's like a small act of courage. This will teach you a little about perseverance. And you learn patience, because if you don't control your emotions and think about patience while you're running, you won't run well.

What I liked about Running Explored is that it looks at running in more depth. Most books on running go something like this: “I went for a run and it was amazing, and then I got angry at the world, so I trained really hard and broke the record.” Reading this book makes you realize how crazy and obsessive people are in sports, and how that can be positive or problematic. Running is a means of developing all these good virtues and habits. But it can also make you selfish, self-centered, and avoid other, more important things.

Barbarian days

William Finnegan

Bill's book is in some ways the closest model of what I tried to do in The Running Pad. My goal is to really take people deep into the mind of a runner and explain how it has impacted my life. Of course, my book is different – it's structured differently, and it talks a lot more about my father and my relationship with him. But I try to explain my life and the way I see the world through running, like Bill did. with surfing.

I think Barbarian Days may have been the only book I read twice in the process of writing my own. Of course it's scary: Bill is such a phenomenal writer that every time I read him I think: God, this is so good. I can't live up to this. I put it aside because it scared me. But the thing is, when you read Bill's book, it makes you want to surf. You're excited to understand the subtleties, like the difference between longboards and shortboards, but at the same time, you see him growing up.

Once upon a time a runner

John L. Parker Jr.

Once Upon a Runner is probably a book that the average New Yorker the reader is less likely to read. It's a little cliché, it's a little overkill. But it's also a stunning novel that describes what it's like to be a young man completely obsessed with the sport, as I was at seventeen.