My sports medicine doctor once told me that runners are his least favourite patients.
“It’s nothing personal,” he was quick to add. “It’s just that rehabbing you people after an injury is impossible. You never listen to instructions, you just go out and run long before you’re ready to, and then you’re back here ten days later wondering why your injury has flared up.”
I have to admit that my doctor has a point. We have a very special kind of dedication to our sport, runners do. If our training program calls for a 20km run, then we will do a 20km run, even if the Weather Network is warning motorists not to go out because of a blizzard. We take pride in the incredulous looks we get from people when we go out in mad conditions, we wear our black toenails like badges of honour, and we are slaves to our Garmin watches.
If you can relate to this, you will love Bob Schwartz’s hilarious book, I Run, Therefore I Am STILL Nuts! The author writes about his experiences as a runner, from injuries to races, from trying to force encourage his kids to run with him to giving in and getting a dog instead. All through this book, I was nodding along knowingly and gaining little insights into the slight insanity that the partners of runners have to live with. I’m sure my husband appreciates the new-found awe with which I regard him.
You don’t even have to be a runner to appreciate this book. If you live with a runner, know a runner, or simply get frustrated with races messing up the traffic where you live, you are sure to get a kick out of reading this. The easy reading and laugh-out-loud humour are supplemented with delightfully funny artwork by B.K. Taylor.
Runners and supporters alike will get more than a good laugh out of reading this. Interspersed among the humour are little snippets of wisdom. Thanks to the book, I now know how I might be able to achieve the all-important Runner’s High if an injury prevents me from running. I have a new appreciation for the sheer simplicity of running, and for the first time I realize that runners are more than a little obsessed with the concept of time.
I also take pride in the fact that I am part of a tribe that can claim to be truly nuts.
(Review copy and image of cover kindly provided by Human Kinetics).
