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Be Your Best at Marathon Running: A Teach Yourself Guide
Your 26.2 miles starts here Be Your Best at Marathon Running doesn't just give you a complete set of training plans, fitness advice and nutritional guidance--it also shows you where and how to apply, which marathon to enter, and how to raise money for charity. It is written by the founder of the United Kingdom's leading running website, realrunners.co.uk, and also features a foreword from the founder of the London Marathon, Dave Bedford.
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 4, 2014
So my attempts to become more active, lose some unwanted weight and look better naked have come on in leaps and bounds in the past year, I'd say that I have achieved all three of those key goals, and now my thoughts have drifted to the next step in my running journey. Running a marathon seems to be the only logical next step for me after succesfully completing half of one just to see if I could. Beyond the exhaustion and the injuries and the lack of determination to leave the house in the middle of winter it's all been quite easy really but well, a marathon is quite a long way, surely it must be more difficult to prepare for than just extending my stamina and endrance levels twice as far again? This is where books come to the fore and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. As long as you don't take useful advice to be 100% gospel that is.
Be Your Best at Marathon Running seemed like a comfortable entry level book on the subject, coming as it does from the "Teach Yourself" range of books published to compete with those black and yellow branded ones for morons or whatever. Tim Rogers does a pretty good job of explaining just how hard it is to train for; he's not here to sell marathon entry tickets or anything, and still manages to convey enough encouragement and enthusiasm within the text to make the reader feel that actually all that sacrifice he was just talking about might just be worth it afterall.
It's a very London-centric publication, not just in the Little Britain nature of some of the tips, tricks, hints and questions, but also the constant referencing of how great the London Marathon is, drawing every real world example from the streets of the English capital city. If I was one of the many thousands of people who dream of dressing up in a stupid costume and wandering around the streets of London for 26.2 miles for half of a cold April day this might just have been perfect for me. But as it is he talks London up to the detriment of other marathons and even at one point suggests not running anywhere else for your first time. Cheers Tim! We can't all travel to England you know.
A lot of his content is repetitive and just plain obvious whilst some chapters achieve nothing beyond padding and maximising the word count, there's a chapter on how to run for charity that simply tells you to put sponsorship forms in shops and pubs and reminds you to keep sending those cheques to the charity regularly and often for example. And yet having read it I feel mentally prepared to take the next step towards his "great life achievement" so it's definitely achieved something with its clear and concise chatter.
Wish me luck! And if you want to get in early with the sponsorhip let me know.
Be Your Best at Marathon Running seemed like a comfortable entry level book on the subject, coming as it does from the "Teach Yourself" range of books published to compete with those black and yellow branded ones for morons or whatever. Tim Rogers does a pretty good job of explaining just how hard it is to train for; he's not here to sell marathon entry tickets or anything, and still manages to convey enough encouragement and enthusiasm within the text to make the reader feel that actually all that sacrifice he was just talking about might just be worth it afterall.
It's a very London-centric publication, not just in the Little Britain nature of some of the tips, tricks, hints and questions, but also the constant referencing of how great the London Marathon is, drawing every real world example from the streets of the English capital city. If I was one of the many thousands of people who dream of dressing up in a stupid costume and wandering around the streets of London for 26.2 miles for half of a cold April day this might just have been perfect for me. But as it is he talks London up to the detriment of other marathons and even at one point suggests not running anywhere else for your first time. Cheers Tim! We can't all travel to England you know.
A lot of his content is repetitive and just plain obvious whilst some chapters achieve nothing beyond padding and maximising the word count, there's a chapter on how to run for charity that simply tells you to put sponsorship forms in shops and pubs and reminds you to keep sending those cheques to the charity regularly and often for example. And yet having read it I feel mentally prepared to take the next step towards his "great life achievement" so it's definitely achieved something with its clear and concise chatter.
Wish me luck! And if you want to get in early with the sponsorhip let me know.
December 28, 2015
This book has some very practical information for marathon running. I haven't begun my training yet, but I will be soon. I can't wait to put into practice some of these tips.
Some of the information is dated (almost all races have a website these days). But it was nice to have a real training story at the end to see what someone else went through during their training.
Some of the information is dated (almost all races have a website these days). But it was nice to have a real training story at the end to see what someone else went through during their training.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews