Three chapters into And so I run I was ready to email the publishers and say I couldn’t review this book because I only put out reviews of books I love (feels mean to proactively publish a negative review) and I just didn’t like it enough. It came across as over-written and overly experimental with just too much ornate language. I felt I was wading through those first few chapters trying to make sense of just what this book is. It is not your usual running book. It doesn’t take us through a race, or a specific approach to a running career or even on a linear journey of discovery. We have chapters jumping from 2018, back to 1992 and then back to 2018. I was confused.
And so I looked up the author and saw he is a creative novelist and it suddenly made sense. Knowing this it means when you read the book through this filter, and stop expecting to read like a regular running autobiography, it works so much better.
And so I carried on reading and it gets so much better. The creative writing works here. It does bring to life situations that we are runners have all found ourselves in and can relate so well to. The description in chapter 4 of the way we have stolen younger generations’ club vibes and installed them in gyms they can’t afford made me chuckle with recognition. The discussion of the compelling nature of finding your tribe and finally feeling like you belong was well considered and so relatable. Chapter 5 has some lovely phraseology, describing the medal and t-shirt at the end of the marathon as the ‘trinkets of affirmation’ and the way after every marathon ‘the unhappiness with my performance is insidiously replaced by hope for better things to come.’
And so the the psychology elements. There is a point I regularly discuss with my sport psychology athletes; that our brain’s main job is to keep us safe. To do this our threat system will work very hard to keep us inside our comfort zone. It will use bullying self-talk to facilitate this, helping us make excuses, to self-sabotage, all in the hope that we won’t try; because if we don’t try we can’t fail. But if we don’t try we also can’t succeed so to achieve our ambitions we have to get brave, to slowly but surely stretch our comfort zone and take the leap accepting that we might still fail. We need to embrace the fact we could fail, but do the thing anyway, usually in the service of our values and being the person we really want to be. In chapter 9 when writing about Mo Farah’s marathon attempts Doward acknowledges this and highlights that the outcome is actually irrelevant; it is the process of trying and being braver that matters: “He had the courage to try and he emerged stronger for his experiences.”
And so to my favourite bit. Chapter 15, highlighting the value of an emotional mantra in a marathon. Doward uses the final words of his mother as his mantra: “Boys are coming soon.” Meaningless to anyone else, beyond meaningful to him, a reminder of his ‘why’ and a powerful reflection of his perspective. A motivational mantra that really does the business.
And so I run is published by Vertebrae Publishing: And So I Run | Adventure Books by Vertebrate Publishing
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