The Fairy Bower; Or, the History of a Month: a Tale Book

One of the best books on running I have ever read.

First of all let me start by getting something out of the way. If you are looking for a book that tells you to just go out and run at whatever pace you feel like without pushing yourself and that you will be a superstar doing that, this is not it. Actually, any book that would claim that to be the recipe for success would be worthless.

What this book does do is give you insights as to how to listen to your body and use that when determining adjustments needed to your training plan. Of course, the more experienced you are, the more you will understand about your state and the more you will be able to adjust. Before reading this book, I used to do this sometimes. For example, I would start my warm-up and feel so good that instead of doing an easy run that day I would go for a tempo run. Or I would have a speed workout scheduled but felt sore and switched it for an easy run. I used to feel guilty about some of these changes, but this book showed me that I was following the right strategy.

There is a section that deals with the power of the mind and how to overcome situations that are tough, which I found particularly enlightening. As a matter of fact, a few days after reading that section I was racing a print triathlon, I went out hard in the swim and hammered the bike. When I went on the run, the first mile and a half of the 5k was on loose sand. My legs felt like bricks and I was doubting if I was able to finish the run without walking. Then I remembered what I read and I switched my mindset. I accepted it was going to be uncomfortable, but I was just going to keep repeating the motion until the race was over and I kind of turned my mind off. This worked wonders, I kept a nice even pace and then when I reached the second half of the run on asphalt I sped up and finished strong.

Many topics are covered in this book:

-Listening to your body and using that information to find your optimal training formula
-How much repetition to include in your training (cycles vs. intra-week)
-How to build your capacity to suffer
-Accepting injury and learning from it
-Using fear as motivation

There is also a section on strength training, which is the only one I really did not pay much attention to. However, he recommends yoga, which I had already incorporated as part of my training.

Overall, this is a gem of a book that can help runners of all levels with many different aspects of their running. You will not regret reading this.