John L. Parker is not William Shakespeare

Theres a raging debate on Track Talk (okay, not a raging debate, but its there) about Once A Runner and its literary merit. Not only that, but I've heard "Once A Runner sucks" from quite a few people. It might be coincidence but the majority are fat kids who haven't ran a mile in their lives. Anyways, the question was brought up "would a non- runner even want to read OAR?" I don't really care, but I don't think so. From a non runner's perspective, I think I would find OAR quite boring. A whole chapter on 400 repeats? pages and pages describing unremarkable training runs in detail? really? I love OAR, but its no To Kill A Mockingbird or Catcher in The Rye. That said, I'd rather read OAR than both those books because OAR is about runners, and runners are a rare breed . Not all of us obsess over shoes or 400 repeats, or Sammy Wanjiru's high school cross country times. Maybe not all runners do, but all runners run, and so a book about running naturally appeals to them all. So I guess in that sense is a cult classic. In the world of running books though, its got to be at or near the top.

As far as running goes, I did it, I went back to back. I shouldn't have, but it happened. I'll probably end up going three days in a row too since I have a three hour break between class and work tomorrow. I only went 45 minutes. Only 45. Why do I say only 45? Well, I'm going slow for one, I'm just trying to build up a long slow milage base so I can get a few good months of training under me and then figure out what I'm going to do with my life. I'm on chapter 11 of OAR as well. Book gets better each time you read it