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The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A profound meditation on what running can teach us about our limits and our lives by a record-setting distance runner who is now the CEO of The Atlantic.
“This is not just an engaging memoir about running. It’s a meditation on what it takes to marshal and maintain motivation.”—ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again
“Endlessly surprising, revelatory, and heart-rending.”—ANNA WINTOUR
For Nicholas Thompson, running has always been about something more than putting one foot in front of another. He ran his first mile at age five, using it as a way to connect with his father as his family fell apart. As a young man, it was a sport that transformed, and then shook, his sense of self-worth. In his 30s, it was a way of coping with a profound medical scare.
By his early 40s, Thompson had many accomplishments. He was the Editor in Chief of a major magazine; a devoted husband and father; and a passionate runner. But he was haunted by the recent death of his brilliant, complicated father and the crack-up that derailed his father’s life. Had the intensity and ambition he’d inherited made a personal crisis inevitable for him as well?
Then a chance offer gave him the opportunity to train for the Chicago Marathon with elite coaches. Giving himself over to the sport more fully than ever before, he discovered that aging didn’t necessarily put you on an unbroken trajectory of decline. For seven years after his father died, Thompson transforms his body to perform at its highest capacity, and the profound discipline and awareness he builds along the way changes every aspect of his life. Throughout the narrative, he weaves in stories of remarkable men and women who have used the sport to transcend some of the hardest moments in life.
The Running Ground is a story about fathers, sons, and the most basic and most beautiful of sports.
“This is not just an engaging memoir about running. It’s a meditation on what it takes to marshal and maintain motivation.”—ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again
“Endlessly surprising, revelatory, and heart-rending.”—ANNA WINTOUR
For Nicholas Thompson, running has always been about something more than putting one foot in front of another. He ran his first mile at age five, using it as a way to connect with his father as his family fell apart. As a young man, it was a sport that transformed, and then shook, his sense of self-worth. In his 30s, it was a way of coping with a profound medical scare.
By his early 40s, Thompson had many accomplishments. He was the Editor in Chief of a major magazine; a devoted husband and father; and a passionate runner. But he was haunted by the recent death of his brilliant, complicated father and the crack-up that derailed his father’s life. Had the intensity and ambition he’d inherited made a personal crisis inevitable for him as well?
Then a chance offer gave him the opportunity to train for the Chicago Marathon with elite coaches. Giving himself over to the sport more fully than ever before, he discovered that aging didn’t necessarily put you on an unbroken trajectory of decline. For seven years after his father died, Thompson transforms his body to perform at its highest capacity, and the profound discipline and awareness he builds along the way changes every aspect of his life. Throughout the narrative, he weaves in stories of remarkable men and women who have used the sport to transcend some of the hardest moments in life.
The Running Ground is a story about fathers, sons, and the most basic and most beautiful of sports.
277 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 28, 2025
296 people are currently reading
2273 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Thompson
17 books32 followersNicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic. He is the author of the book 'The Running Ground' and hosts the podcast 'The Most Interesting Thing in AI.' Previously, he was editor-in-chief of WIRED and editor of NewYorker.com. In 2025, Thompson became the top-ranked runner in the world in his age group for the 50-mile run.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
November 11, 2025
What a gift. Oftentimes in life I’ve felt the acute absence of a book which captures the uncaptureable about running and life. I lamented that no author out there possessed the speed on the road, the talent in prose, and the openness of heart to render in print what many runners have experienced over their years of diligent and not so diligent miles. Literary minded runners can now do away with the pretense that Haruki Murakami’s book on writing and running is worth all that much. Nicholas Thompson has written *the* book about running. Or, at least, he has written the book about running that I needed to read the most.
It is the most definitive book about running because it is a book about life. It is a book about growth and about complex relationships. It does not romanticize the grind and the training, or overly dramatize the highs and lows of races. While forthright and direct, it is not simple. It gives an honest account of what running can give to you if you give yourself to it.
Thompson looks back on his life of running with remarkable clarity and it is uncanny to recognize the parallels in our running careers. From the early high school successes to the failures under Vin Lananna in college to the growing evolution towards running at a high-level while balancing a committed career. To say that many of these reflections hit close to home is an understatement. I’m grateful to have (seemingly) learned some of lessons quicker than Thompson about living a full life alongside running. I’m equally sure (and hope) there are many, many more I have to learn ahead of me.
This is also a book about his father. It should come as no surprise to those who know me why this emotional thread resonates. He wrote this after he finally lost his father after decades of slowly losing parts of him. He grapples with what it means to love deeply flawed people in a more mature and honest way than almost any other writer I’ve read.
Of note, in writing this story he does something which few others pull off but which is the sign of a fundamentally good person. Without breaking the narrative he weaves in the stories and details of every day people and friends who helped him along his way. He names incredible people who would otherwise go unnamed in a book of this caliber. In this way he reminds me of Vannevar Bush’s memoir, Pieces of the Action, in which Bush spends quite a bit of time giving credit to lower level staff and ordinary people who competently did their jobs with determination and intelligence during and after World War II, but were not otherwise recognized in the annals of history.
Thompson’s early brush with death and awareness of his mortality likely gifts him the perspective needed to succeed as he did in running later in life, as well as to ultimately write this book decades on. We should all be so lucky as to somehow gain that appreciation for life and respect for death (ideally without getting cancer).
P.S.
(His description, quoted below, of what kind of coaching he thrives under nails most people to a T, though they may not realize it when younger. Most NCAA coaches cannot fathom treating a runner as a whole person, it’s why they succeed in the ways they do but leave behind trails of broken people. It’s rare the ones that can balance the thing.)
“Finley built a program that would work with my whole life, which is what the best line of coach should do. ‘A big piece of my coaching philosophy is how can we accomplish that holistic experience from having a great family to doing great work? How does running add to all this? And it should never stand in the way. My job is to make sure you can do all of this at a high level. It’s not that you just have that one goal. It’s all the goals.’ This was a profound insight, and it was, in retrospect, the only kind of coaching that would have worked for me. Running has never been the most important thing in my life. I’ve always cared more about family, about work, about many things. A coach who didn’t see or couldn’t accept that could never have gotten the best out of me. That’s part of why I failed under Lananna and succeeded under Finley.”
It is the most definitive book about running because it is a book about life. It is a book about growth and about complex relationships. It does not romanticize the grind and the training, or overly dramatize the highs and lows of races. While forthright and direct, it is not simple. It gives an honest account of what running can give to you if you give yourself to it.
Thompson looks back on his life of running with remarkable clarity and it is uncanny to recognize the parallels in our running careers. From the early high school successes to the failures under Vin Lananna in college to the growing evolution towards running at a high-level while balancing a committed career. To say that many of these reflections hit close to home is an understatement. I’m grateful to have (seemingly) learned some of lessons quicker than Thompson about living a full life alongside running. I’m equally sure (and hope) there are many, many more I have to learn ahead of me.
This is also a book about his father. It should come as no surprise to those who know me why this emotional thread resonates. He wrote this after he finally lost his father after decades of slowly losing parts of him. He grapples with what it means to love deeply flawed people in a more mature and honest way than almost any other writer I’ve read.
Of note, in writing this story he does something which few others pull off but which is the sign of a fundamentally good person. Without breaking the narrative he weaves in the stories and details of every day people and friends who helped him along his way. He names incredible people who would otherwise go unnamed in a book of this caliber. In this way he reminds me of Vannevar Bush’s memoir, Pieces of the Action, in which Bush spends quite a bit of time giving credit to lower level staff and ordinary people who competently did their jobs with determination and intelligence during and after World War II, but were not otherwise recognized in the annals of history.
Thompson’s early brush with death and awareness of his mortality likely gifts him the perspective needed to succeed as he did in running later in life, as well as to ultimately write this book decades on. We should all be so lucky as to somehow gain that appreciation for life and respect for death (ideally without getting cancer).
P.S.
(His description, quoted below, of what kind of coaching he thrives under nails most people to a T, though they may not realize it when younger. Most NCAA coaches cannot fathom treating a runner as a whole person, it’s why they succeed in the ways they do but leave behind trails of broken people. It’s rare the ones that can balance the thing.)
“Finley built a program that would work with my whole life, which is what the best line of coach should do. ‘A big piece of my coaching philosophy is how can we accomplish that holistic experience from having a great family to doing great work? How does running add to all this? And it should never stand in the way. My job is to make sure you can do all of this at a high level. It’s not that you just have that one goal. It’s all the goals.’ This was a profound insight, and it was, in retrospect, the only kind of coaching that would have worked for me. Running has never been the most important thing in my life. I’ve always cared more about family, about work, about many things. A coach who didn’t see or couldn’t accept that could never have gotten the best out of me. That’s part of why I failed under Lananna and succeeded under Finley.”
November 17, 2025
“I think about many things during the week, seldom about my father, but when I sit down to do something so serious as to write about my thoughts, I can only write about him.”
Really well done and inspiring/motivating/spiritual while at times I wondered if it was self-indulgent. But maybe that is my counter transference expecting him to be self-indulgent…
Really well done and inspiring/motivating/spiritual while at times I wondered if it was self-indulgent. But maybe that is my counter transference expecting him to be self-indulgent…
November 16, 2025
Beautifully written, about a hobby I hope to stick with for life. 5/5
December 15, 2025
This was a breezy read. Thompson writes with a light and deft touch, even about heavy subject matter, particularly his emotionally abusive, burdensome, and alcoholic father, who came out as gay at 40 and blew up his life. I got the impression that Thompson is a constitutionally optimistic, driven, and efficient person, blessed with his father's gifts and spared his father's demons. Focused work -- whether it be excelling academically, running a workout solo without headphones, or practicing guitar until his fingers bleed -- is second nature to him; he does not dwell on the costs. He seems able to deal with the damage his father’s demons wrought without indulging in anger, resentment, or revenge. This is partly on account of his father's virtues, including his care for his children and his shared love of running with Thompson.
The book's breeziness is both due to its style and the fact that Thompson doesn't dig too deep on any topic. He scratches the surface and moves on -- whether he's talking about why he runs, how he processes physical pain, presenting a biographical sketch of a runner he admires, or recounting wildly unacceptable behavior by his father. This, coupled with Thomson's nature, gives the book a somewhat detached, Zen-like quality, despite how personal it is. I would have preferred more digging -- more exposition of how he felt, of how hard he must have tried to save his father from himself, of how he is the kind of person who can handle and achieve so much so effectively.
The book's breeziness is both due to its style and the fact that Thompson doesn't dig too deep on any topic. He scratches the surface and moves on -- whether he's talking about why he runs, how he processes physical pain, presenting a biographical sketch of a runner he admires, or recounting wildly unacceptable behavior by his father. This, coupled with Thomson's nature, gives the book a somewhat detached, Zen-like quality, despite how personal it is. I would have preferred more digging -- more exposition of how he felt, of how hard he must have tried to save his father from himself, of how he is the kind of person who can handle and achieve so much so effectively.
December 2, 2025
"Running gives me a way to connect with my father; it also gives me a way to avoid becoming him."I imagine most people who liked "What I think about when I think about running" would really like this. Makes me wish I had access to more memoirs of folks I occasionally run by in the park!
November 27, 2025
My dad also (although more obliquely) gifted me the joy of running, something I have really come to appreciate this year. This book is, at its best moments, a wonderful rumination on the author's relationship with his dad -- and oh my, his dad is a lot to unpack! lol -- and how that relationship has changed his perception of running, work, and parenting. All of this was very thoughtful.
The inclusion of other runners felt kind of random to me -- especially bc each of them only got like 5-10 pages (the cynic in me is thinking he just wanted to expand the page count). And the section talking about how much effort it took to go from 2:43 to 2:29 marathons was just pretty unrelatable and thus got kind of slow for me, but still cool to hear about.
Other than those small aspects, I thought this was overall really moving. Loved the way he talked about his draw to the sport and how crazy he was about getting each and every mile in. Def is inspiring me to continue deepening my running practice and making me think a lot about my own limits and why I run in the first place. Good stuff!
The inclusion of other runners felt kind of random to me -- especially bc each of them only got like 5-10 pages (the cynic in me is thinking he just wanted to expand the page count). And the section talking about how much effort it took to go from 2:43 to 2:29 marathons was just pretty unrelatable and thus got kind of slow for me, but still cool to hear about.
Other than those small aspects, I thought this was overall really moving. Loved the way he talked about his draw to the sport and how crazy he was about getting each and every mile in. Def is inspiring me to continue deepening my running practice and making me think a lot about my own limits and why I run in the first place. Good stuff!
December 26, 2025
This book was spectacular and easily the best book I read this year. Nick tells an incredible story and communicates it beautifully. His journey of becoming a runner early on, beating cancer, navigating a career in journalism, and his return to running in adulthood was fascinating and meaningful. His reflections on life, parenting, and persevering through difficult times, including his complex relationship with his dad, were especially powerful to hear about. I mostly listened to this book while running, which I thought was fitting, but I soon realized it is much more than a running memoir. His passion for journalism, professional growth, and vivid connection to the DC area made the book feel relatable and authentic. What a guy-Everyone should read this!
November 5, 2025
I’ve already bought two copies of this as thank yous for my son’s cross country coaches and loaned my copy to a runner friend with another runner friend next in line.
December 17, 2025
I enjoyed this memoir by the CEO of the Atlantic, in part because it combines two themes I am a sucker for: extreme sports and gay fathers. His relationship with his father gives the book a certain depth and complexity, while the running portions are a bit closer to the standard running memoir. If the book has a weakness, it’s that these two themes do not always sit comfortably side-by-side, and in many places the book feels disjointed. This disjointedness is made a little worse by frequent digressions relating the histories of various characters from the running world.
November 14, 2025
The Running Ground gripped me from the start. Nick Thompson is instantly relatable to the middle-aged runner or athlete, even with his history of sub-elite performances.
Early in the book Thompson described with stunning accuracy the way I feel about my own running past age 40:
“I was also old enough to start declining but inexperienced enough to keep improving. For the next decade, these two forces—experience propelling me forward and age pushing me backward—stayed in balance. I was a man walking slowly forward on a moving sidewalk going slowly backward. I ran marathon after marathon in remarkably similar times.”
As a serious recreational runner who trains with a competitive mindset, I loved reading about Thompson’s investments in training: fueling, intentional speed work and volume in miles, doing every small thing he could to eke out his best performance. I also thoroughly enjoyed Thompson’s attention to mindset and training his brain alongside his body after realizing that “we slow in races less because we reach our physical limits than because our minds get scared.” He sums up how running without data, at times, allowed him to reach new peaks well in an early race: “If I had understood how fast I was running, I wouldn’t have been able to run that fast. Because I didn’t know the track, because I didn’t know how long the laps were, I didn’t get scared and shut my body down. I just kept going. To do it, I had to first forget that I couldn’t do it.”
The Running Ground is a memoir, but it also is the stiry of Thompson’s mentally ill father, who is equal parts frustrating and inspiring. There are also a handful of intermissions with short biographies of runners Thompson has interacted with over his lifetime. I loved it all.
While this book’s main appeal will be distance runners and endurance athletes, I do believe the underlying messages will resonate with many, especially those in their 40s. Highly recommended. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
A few other favorite quotes:
“Not everyone can run a marathon, but it’s remarkable how many can.”
“But the deeper truth about training for a marathon is that you have to learn to run when you hurt, and you have to learn to hurt when you run. You have to learn to enjoy the pain.”
“The Central Governor Model suggests a mind-body dilemma. We all can go faster. We just need to persuade our brains not to start the subconscious shutdown process right away. But the only thing we can use to trick our brains is our brains. Training becomes a game of hide-and-seek with oneself.”
“‘My job is to make sure you can do all of this at a high level. It’s not that you just have that one goal. It’s all the goals.’”
Early in the book Thompson described with stunning accuracy the way I feel about my own running past age 40:
“I was also old enough to start declining but inexperienced enough to keep improving. For the next decade, these two forces—experience propelling me forward and age pushing me backward—stayed in balance. I was a man walking slowly forward on a moving sidewalk going slowly backward. I ran marathon after marathon in remarkably similar times.”
As a serious recreational runner who trains with a competitive mindset, I loved reading about Thompson’s investments in training: fueling, intentional speed work and volume in miles, doing every small thing he could to eke out his best performance. I also thoroughly enjoyed Thompson’s attention to mindset and training his brain alongside his body after realizing that “we slow in races less because we reach our physical limits than because our minds get scared.” He sums up how running without data, at times, allowed him to reach new peaks well in an early race: “If I had understood how fast I was running, I wouldn’t have been able to run that fast. Because I didn’t know the track, because I didn’t know how long the laps were, I didn’t get scared and shut my body down. I just kept going. To do it, I had to first forget that I couldn’t do it.”
The Running Ground is a memoir, but it also is the stiry of Thompson’s mentally ill father, who is equal parts frustrating and inspiring. There are also a handful of intermissions with short biographies of runners Thompson has interacted with over his lifetime. I loved it all.
While this book’s main appeal will be distance runners and endurance athletes, I do believe the underlying messages will resonate with many, especially those in their 40s. Highly recommended. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
A few other favorite quotes:
“Not everyone can run a marathon, but it’s remarkable how many can.”
“But the deeper truth about training for a marathon is that you have to learn to run when you hurt, and you have to learn to hurt when you run. You have to learn to enjoy the pain.”
“The Central Governor Model suggests a mind-body dilemma. We all can go faster. We just need to persuade our brains not to start the subconscious shutdown process right away. But the only thing we can use to trick our brains is our brains. Training becomes a game of hide-and-seek with oneself.”
“‘My job is to make sure you can do all of this at a high level. It’s not that you just have that one goal. It’s all the goals.’”
November 26, 2025
Be advised: A death by suicide is described on the page.
Help is out there. If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
I really liked this when it was about running. The other matter, not as much.
THE RUNNING GROUND combines the author's running story with his father's story (mostly not running focused), as well as his father's influence on him. There also are five chapters on five other runners (Bobbi Gibb, Tony Ruiz, Julia Lucas, Michael Westphal, Suprabha Beckjord).
Call it my own bias, but I was surprised to reach the end of this book and have no idea what sorts of shoes Thompson prefers to train in (different shoes for speedwork or the same shoes all week?) or what he likes to eat while running ultras. There's comparatively little on his ultra running, which struck me especially when I went back to the photo section and saw photos from ultras I don't remember even being mentioned in the book.
And yet, I know his father claimed he couldn't sleep without having had five orgasms that day, and that the author doesn't doubt it.
Help is out there. If you or someone you know is struggling or having thoughts of suicide, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
I really liked this when it was about running. The other matter, not as much.
THE RUNNING GROUND combines the author's running story with his father's story (mostly not running focused), as well as his father's influence on him. There also are five chapters on five other runners (Bobbi Gibb, Tony Ruiz, Julia Lucas, Michael Westphal, Suprabha Beckjord).
Call it my own bias, but I was surprised to reach the end of this book and have no idea what sorts of shoes Thompson prefers to train in (different shoes for speedwork or the same shoes all week?) or what he likes to eat while running ultras. There's comparatively little on his ultra running, which struck me especially when I went back to the photo section and saw photos from ultras I don't remember even being mentioned in the book.
And yet, I know his father claimed he couldn't sleep without having had five orgasms that day, and that the author doesn't doubt it.
December 9, 2025
Thompson's reflections on the value he gets from running, and the stories he includes about other exceptional runners, say a lot about resilience, perseverance, and lifestyle. This memoir shows what a passion in one area can do for the rest of one's life.
The understanding and compassion Thompson has for his father is admirable and speaks to the ways one can make peace with their past and strive to give themselves better outcomes than those they've been exposed to.
It's not intended as a self-help book, but it contains a lot of indirect lessons about survival and making one's way in the world.
Even as a non-runner/non-athletic person, it's an engaging read. Thompson structures the narrative well.
The understanding and compassion Thompson has for his father is admirable and speaks to the ways one can make peace with their past and strive to give themselves better outcomes than those they've been exposed to.
It's not intended as a self-help book, but it contains a lot of indirect lessons about survival and making one's way in the world.
Even as a non-runner/non-athletic person, it's an engaging read. Thompson structures the narrative well.
Read
November 5, 2025A book mainly about running, with a personal connection that ties it all together. I admire that Thompson has almost no shame about his relentless PR chasing, even with kids and an executive position. It's cool to see a successful professional admit that yes, he still spends 8 hours a week running, and no, he doesn't care what others think about that.
I think he could've dug deeper on some of the sections about his father, but this isn't really the book for that. He isn't a full time author, and bearing some of the emotions I'm sure he still struggles with just wouldn't make sense for such a public figure.
A good book that I connected to at this time in my life.
I think he could've dug deeper on some of the sections about his father, but this isn't really the book for that. He isn't a full time author, and bearing some of the emotions I'm sure he still struggles with just wouldn't make sense for such a public figure.
A good book that I connected to at this time in my life.
November 14, 2025
4.5 rounding up. A beautiful love letter to the sport and those that inspire us. I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to relate to a memoir quite like I did with this one. That said, I’m not this insane with my running (i hope)
December 20, 2025
complicated feelings about this one. some of the ideas themselves are like running — constantly circling the same point, coming back to it and then departing just as quickly. yet, very enjoyable, and nice to read someone’s perspective on running that’s similar enough to mine.
November 16, 2025
If you're a runner, you will likely enjoy this book. As a marathon runner who desires to run faster marathons in the future, this book gave me hope that, as we age, we still have the potential to run fast and improve.
November 29, 2025
Awesome writing. Great way to reflect on what running means to me and what my father means to me. And how to create healthy balances in life.
November 30, 2025
Couldn’t help but think about the fact that the author follows the great Josh Evans on Strava. What a star.
December 1, 2025
I saw a lot of myself in these pages. Truly inspiring stories of how the lessons of running interact with life and how the lessons of life interact with running. What a great piece of writing.
December 7, 2025
A beautiful story of running as something grounding you in life. It is a really, I hope, mind- and habits-changing book for me. It helps to get the fundamentals right. The power of daily compound, the danger of feeling too comfortable, the urgency to do things, and to run, now, rather than later. And the rest of life, its more important parts, constantly float around it - being a son, a father, a husband. Or being a CEO.
December 17, 2025
A memoir exploring what running means in the author’s life. Some parts are a bit disjointed, but overall a beautiful work.
December 22, 2025
There is no doubt Thompson is a good writer, but this book seemed to have an identity crisis. A personal memoir about his relationship with his dad, mini biographies of other runners, a recap of his own running career- these feel forced together way too often.
December 25, 2025
Great book, great writing. Highly recommend to anyone who runs and has a dad.
November 18, 2025
Brb buying beet juice
November 27, 2025
Thank you @Livi for the rec! Love any excuse to reflect on the gift of running, “a gift that opens the world to anyone who accepts it.”
October 2, 2025
« For a long time I thought or athletic ability like a mountain. You’re born at the base and you’ll die there. »
This was an incredible read before the Chicago Marathon. I enjoyed reading about the challenges, the grit and the determination that the author faced and conquered.
Also, thank you for the tip about the Vaseline between my toes.
There is a lot of self reflection and history and the journey to goals were well-described and blunt.
It didn’t come across as easy and I really enjoyed the writing style. The details and planning from the coaching and the author was intriguing to learn. It’s such a science and having a running coach truly upgraded my own running experience.
Reading about his dad made me very emotional. What a beautiful way to tribute.
The Beet Juice hits hard - been there. Used to have it before every swim race. Absolutely nightmare to chug down!
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!
This was an incredible read before the Chicago Marathon. I enjoyed reading about the challenges, the grit and the determination that the author faced and conquered.
Also, thank you for the tip about the Vaseline between my toes.
There is a lot of self reflection and history and the journey to goals were well-described and blunt.
It didn’t come across as easy and I really enjoyed the writing style. The details and planning from the coaching and the author was intriguing to learn. It’s such a science and having a running coach truly upgraded my own running experience.
Reading about his dad made me very emotional. What a beautiful way to tribute.
The Beet Juice hits hard - been there. Used to have it before every swim race. Absolutely nightmare to chug down!
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 15, 2025
Loved this book. Lots of interesting running content, but also quite a bit of introspection about parent-child dynamics and how we are shaped and sometimes mishandled by our parents and perhaps running as well.
Read
December 16, 2025Lovely. The perfect gift for all of your obnoxious runner friends this holiday season
September 28, 2025
This is a really lovely and poignant reflection on the author’s relationship with running and his father. As a former runner it resonated with me, and running is a strong emphasis, but the life lessons about resilience and more - as well as the wonderful writing here - will give this memoir a wider audience than “just” runners.
November 18, 2025
I was predisposed to like Nicholas Thompson’s memoir. I’m a fan of nonfiction about running (e.g. “The Endurance Artist” by Jared Beasley) and about journalism (e.g. Nicholas Kristof’s memoir “Chasing Hope”). I’m a runner-nerd and former coach with a great deal of experience running marathons and ultras over three decades. After all the hype his book received on running-oriented podcasts, I couldn’t wait to read it.
Strangely, and disappointingly, I found it borderline boring. I’ve been wondering, how could a story about a dysfunctional parent, a cancer comeback, and a life spent striving and achieving both in running and in journalism hardly hold my attention?
I’m giving it three stars because Thompson succeeds in portraying what marathon training at the elite level for a highly determined athlete looks like—which fellow runner-nerds should find thoughtful and nuanced, though anyone else’s eyes may glaze over while reading about his mile splits for track workouts.
His story about his relationship with his father, and his father’s legacy, fell flat for me, however. It’s objectively and inherently interesting—a son witnessing a brilliant but self-sabotaging father at high levels of power, who’s closeted until he comes out and who then suffers myriad personal problems and leans on his son for help—but in Thompson’s dry telling, the story didn’t make me care. Thompson develops into an over-achiever who sets goals and achieves them, which is impressive, but one dimensional. We never see him truly struggle or lose control, and even his most depleting races come across as if he’s destined to succeed. Nor do we witness any really bad days, until—finally!—in the penultimate chapter, his first 50-miler goes off the rails, he sits at an aid station hating life, and his Achilles feels wrecked. Ah, I thought, this is getting good. He has to take months off from running, but he glosses over what must’ve been a tough period as a sidelined runner. He simply heals, moves on, mellows out just a bit in his 100K debut as he lets go (temporarily) of monitoring his metrics, and methodically goes on to set a record at the 50 mile.
Repeatedly, he brings up aspects of training that are challenging but then breezes right through as if it’s natural for him to control and accomplish them. One small example: when he’s in the throes of peak training, he mentions in passing that he reduces his alcohol intake to one drink a night and then reaches for kombucha if he wants another, as if that’s simple. But he comes from a line of alcoholics. Is it really that easy to be so good? I couldn’t relate.
He works a demanding and fascinating career (which we barely hear about, unfortunately), like his father at the upper echelons of influence and success, and he also manages to train like a pro athlete, but I didn’t sense that he stresses much about the tradeoffs between work, parenting, and training.
I also didn’t feel much grief when his father declines and dies. After his father’s passing, Thompson has an epiphany that launches a new phase in his training with a new coach, eventually leading him to break 2:30 in the marathon. “I decided that I wanted to try to be fast again,” he writes. “I didn’t have the words for it then, but running that route helped me realize that running faster would help me process my father’s death.” The revelation seems hollow, because the chapters that follow don’t reveal much grief or processing about his father; it’s more about his dedication to training and achieving new speeds.
Finally, I found the chapters with mini-profiles of other runners distracting and not deep enough to be moving or memorable, and the transitions to write into those profiles—the thin threads of coincidence or connection that tie Thompson’s story to these other runners—seemed contrived. My favorite of these chapters focused on Tony Ruiz, and I wonder if he could have been more of a character in Thompson’s story as a mentor/coach.
In any case, Nicholas Thompson is an incredibly impressive runner. I’m curious if he’ll cross over to 100-milers on trail and if so, how he’ll handle the variables that are so much more difficult to plan and control.
Strangely, and disappointingly, I found it borderline boring. I’ve been wondering, how could a story about a dysfunctional parent, a cancer comeback, and a life spent striving and achieving both in running and in journalism hardly hold my attention?
I’m giving it three stars because Thompson succeeds in portraying what marathon training at the elite level for a highly determined athlete looks like—which fellow runner-nerds should find thoughtful and nuanced, though anyone else’s eyes may glaze over while reading about his mile splits for track workouts.
His story about his relationship with his father, and his father’s legacy, fell flat for me, however. It’s objectively and inherently interesting—a son witnessing a brilliant but self-sabotaging father at high levels of power, who’s closeted until he comes out and who then suffers myriad personal problems and leans on his son for help—but in Thompson’s dry telling, the story didn’t make me care. Thompson develops into an over-achiever who sets goals and achieves them, which is impressive, but one dimensional. We never see him truly struggle or lose control, and even his most depleting races come across as if he’s destined to succeed. Nor do we witness any really bad days, until—finally!—in the penultimate chapter, his first 50-miler goes off the rails, he sits at an aid station hating life, and his Achilles feels wrecked. Ah, I thought, this is getting good. He has to take months off from running, but he glosses over what must’ve been a tough period as a sidelined runner. He simply heals, moves on, mellows out just a bit in his 100K debut as he lets go (temporarily) of monitoring his metrics, and methodically goes on to set a record at the 50 mile.
Repeatedly, he brings up aspects of training that are challenging but then breezes right through as if it’s natural for him to control and accomplish them. One small example: when he’s in the throes of peak training, he mentions in passing that he reduces his alcohol intake to one drink a night and then reaches for kombucha if he wants another, as if that’s simple. But he comes from a line of alcoholics. Is it really that easy to be so good? I couldn’t relate.
He works a demanding and fascinating career (which we barely hear about, unfortunately), like his father at the upper echelons of influence and success, and he also manages to train like a pro athlete, but I didn’t sense that he stresses much about the tradeoffs between work, parenting, and training.
I also didn’t feel much grief when his father declines and dies. After his father’s passing, Thompson has an epiphany that launches a new phase in his training with a new coach, eventually leading him to break 2:30 in the marathon. “I decided that I wanted to try to be fast again,” he writes. “I didn’t have the words for it then, but running that route helped me realize that running faster would help me process my father’s death.” The revelation seems hollow, because the chapters that follow don’t reveal much grief or processing about his father; it’s more about his dedication to training and achieving new speeds.
Finally, I found the chapters with mini-profiles of other runners distracting and not deep enough to be moving or memorable, and the transitions to write into those profiles—the thin threads of coincidence or connection that tie Thompson’s story to these other runners—seemed contrived. My favorite of these chapters focused on Tony Ruiz, and I wonder if he could have been more of a character in Thompson’s story as a mentor/coach.
In any case, Nicholas Thompson is an incredibly impressive runner. I’m curious if he’ll cross over to 100-milers on trail and if so, how he’ll handle the variables that are so much more difficult to plan and control.
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