Training / Recommended Reading

Fast Track : Training and Nutrition Secrets from America's Top Female Runner Suzy Favor-Hamilton is the premier female middle-distance runner in the United States, whose many honors include 6 U.S. National Championships, 9 NCAA Titles and 4 Big Ten Athlete of the Year Awards (now called the Suzy Favor award). In this book, she teams up with Jose Antonio, Ph.D., one of the pre-eminent exercise and sports nutrition scientists in the country, to show young female runners how to improve at their favorite sport. List Price: $14.95 Amazon.com Price: $10.17

Chi Running More than 24 million people run in the United States alone, but 65 percent will have to stop at least once this year because of injury. Still others will choose to run through the pain. But in this groundbreaking book, ultramarathoner Danny Dreyer teaches us the running technique he created to heal and prevent injuries and also to run faster, farther, and with much less effort at any age. ChiRunning employs the deep power reserves in the core muscles of the trunk, an approach that grows out of such disciplines as yoga, Pilates, and t'ai chi. This excellent step-by-step program offers training principles and is easily learned. List Price: $14.00 Amazon.com Price: $10.50

4 Months to A 4 Hour Marathon The marathon is the crown jewel of distance running. Entering is one thing. Finishing is something else. And finishing with a respectable time...? For competitive veterans or recreational beginners, 4 Months to a 4-Hour Marathon tells exactly what to eat, what to wear, what to expect, and how to train. When race day arrives, author Dave Kuehls, senior writer at Runner's World and a marathoner himself, will have any competitor in the best shape physically and mentally. List Price: $12.95

The Competitive Runner's Handbook: The Bestselling Guide to Running 5Ks Through Marathons Clocking in at over 600 pages, The Handbook covers basic training techniques, gives tips on speed training, and outlines regimens for specific races: short, 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon. There are also sections on motivation and the mental aspects of competitive running, proper running form, nutrition, dealing with illness and injury, and more. List Price: $19.00 Amazon.com Price: $13.30

Marathon: You Can Do It! Jeff Galloway's Book on Running has become the standard resource for runners. His new book, Marathon: You Can Do It!, has the programs that will allow almost anyone, at any fitness level, to have fun training for the marathon. Galloway's schedule almost eliminates the chance of injury through walk breaks, conservative pacing, and liberal rest days. The low weekly mileage lets participants carry on family and career activities as they prepare for the meaningful challenge. List Price: $14.95

My Life on the Run: The Wit, Wisdom, and Insights of a Road Racing Icon Dubbed the "Mayor of Running," Bart Yasso is one of the best-known figures in the sport, but few people know why he started running competitively, how it changed his life, or how his brush with a crippling illness nearly ended his career a decade ago. With insight and humor, My Life on the Run chronicles the heatstroke and frostbite, heartache and triumphs he’s experienced while competing in more than 1,000 competitive races during his nearly 30 years with Runner’s World magazine. Yasso gives valuable and practical advice on how to become a runner for life and continually draw joy from the sport. He also offers practical guidance for beginners, intermediate, and advanced runners, such as 5-K, half-marathon, and marathon training schedules including his innovative technique known as the Yasso 800s. Recounting his adventures in exotic locales like Antarctica, Africa, and Chitwan National Park in Nepal (where he was chased by an angry rhino), Yasso recommends the best exotic marathons for runners who want to grab their passports to test themselves on foreign terrain. With the wit and wisdom of a seasoned insider, he tells runners what they need to know to navigate the logistics of running in an unfamiliar country. Yasso’s message is this: Never limit where running can take you because each race has the potential for adventure.

Galloway's Book on Running Olympic athlete Jeff Galloway shows how amateur runners can use the same training principles followed by world-class runners. He tells beginners how to get started, explains his ideas on stress and rest, and reveals secrets for running better. In this completely revised and updated new edition of the classic text on running, Galloway includes training schedules for 5k, 10k, and the increasingly popular half-marathon races, as well as recent insights into motivation, nutrition, and fat burning. Runners at all levels will benefit from this seasoned athlete’s wisdom.   List price: $18.95  Amazon.com price: $12.89

Galloway Training Programs This book is for just about anyone who wants to run/walk or walk a 10-miler, a half marathon or a marathon. Jeff includes training schedules for beginners and veterans, information on nutrition, issues for the mature exerciser, motivation and recovery plus some new concepts: Magic Mile, shorter long runs between the really long weekend sessions. Includes a special chapter on Donna Hicken, breast cancer survivor and originator of the Breast Cancer Half Marathon & Marathon (inaugural event on February 17, 2008) in Jacksonville, Florida.   Amazon.com price: $19.95

Runner's World Run Less, Run Faster: Become a Faster, Stronger Runner with the Revolutionary FIRST Training Program Finally, runners at all levels can improve their race times while training less, with the revolutionary Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training (FIRST) program.  Hailed by the Wall Street Journal and featured twice in six months in cover stories in Runner’s World magazine, FIRST’s unique training philosophy makes running easier and more accessible, limits overtraining and burnout, and substantially cuts the risk of injury, while producing faster race times. List Price: $16.99  Amazon.com Price: $11.55

See Dane Run See Dane Run is the account of Dane Rauschenberg's journey to run 52 consecutive weekly marathons in one calendar year all while working a full-time job in the greater Washington D.C. area. The book tells the tale of how Dane progresses from neophyte runner to sub-3 hour marathoner. This book serves not only as a guide to 52 distinct and unusual marathons across North America (for those looking to find that right race) but more importantly, is an inspirational tome for anyone looking to push themselves further than they thought possible. With Rauschenberg's athletic history as a backdrop, he paints the picture of how running never was the real sport of his choosing. From record holder on the swim team in high school, to rugby player in college, to Golden Gloves boxer in law school, Rauschenberg only began running after having already tested all these other sports. He shows how his first few marathons were abject failures and how it took him years to realize what worked best for him in running. Even then he went from just 6 lifetime marathons to plnaning 52 consecutive weekly marathons in one year. Filled with anecdotal humor and a week by week recap of the people and places Rauschenberg encountered, See Dane Run is not a book about running. It is a book about life, while running.