The Athlete's Bookstore
The Athlete's Bookstore __ _______________________________________ __
| |_| |_| |
__| | | THE ATHLETE'S BOOKSTORE BOOKNOTES | | |__
/ /| | | April 98 | | |\ \
/ / | | | | | | \ \
/ / | | | http://www.stevenscreek.com/books | | | \ \
/_/ |__|_|_______________________________________|_|__| \_\
IN THIS ISSUE:
--------------
o FIRST MARATHONS, by Gail Kislevitz
o RUNNING PAST 50, by Richard Benyo
o OPEN WATER SWIMMING, by Penny Lee Dean
o SAN FRANCISCO RUNNING GUIDE, by Bob Cooper
o SWIMCOACH FOR PALMPILOT, by Stevens Creek Software
HOT OFF THE PRESSES
-------------------
FIRST MARATHONS, by Gail Kislevitz ($19.95, hardcover)
------------------------------------------------------
We carry a half-dozen books on training for a marathon, but for anyone thinking about
running a marathon (or those who have), this might in some ways be the best of all
- the stories of 37 people, describing what it was like to run their first marathon.
The vast majority are just "average runners," and their stories are as
varied as are their backgrounds. You might expect the author to select "success
stories" so the book would better motivate potential marathoners, but there
are plenty of DNF or "slogging through the last six miles" stories in the
book too, just as in real life. Reading these stories will provide inspiration and
motivation to those thinking about doing a marathon, and lots to nod the head about
for those who have already done so.
The highlight of the book for this reviewer was the handful of chapters written by
the more famous runners - Bill Rodgers, Grete Waitz, Sister Marion Irvine, Erich
Segal (the author of "Love Story"), and a few others. Some great tidbits
- Bill Rodgers won his first Boston wearing shoes that were sent to him by Steve
Prefontaine; Sister Marion followed Arthur Lydiard's advice for "elite"
runners because she thought "elite" meant "a refined, well-mannered
person"; Erich Segal ran his first Boston in 3:40 and was 79th; Grete Waitz
ran her first NYC Marathon on a long run of 12 miles (she was a track runner) and
won the race and set a world record in doing so!
For us the most interesting chapter was the one written by Ted Corbitt. Corbitt isn't
well-known to the runners of today, but he was the Paul Robeson of running - a pioneer
black athlete, and a pioneer marathoner and ultramarathoner. Corbitt was running
200 miles a week in the late 30's and 40's. He learned about the importance of hydration
not from books, but from the snowy day he ran thirty miles and found that catching
snowflakes on his tongue let him complete a distance he had never before completed.
He went on to set national records at 25, 40, 50, and 100 miles, as well as the 24-hour
run. The final paragraph in his chapter is advice for the ages:
"I look back at when I was running in the thirties and forties, when most people
weren't interested in it. Now I read that we are going through another fitness craze.
I am flabbergasted by such things. Running is something you just do. You don't need
a goal, you don't need a race, you don't need the hype of a so-called fitness craze.
All you need is a cheap pair of shoes and some time. The rest will follow."
Who can argue with that, except it is getting harder to find a cheap pair of shoes.
;-)
RUNNING PAST 50, by Richard Benyo ($16.95, paperback) -----------------------------------------------------
Rich Benyo is the former editor of Runner's World, the current editor of "Marathon
and Beyond," and the author of "Making the Marathon Your Event." In
his latest effort he addresses the concerns of runners over 50. Benyo sums up his
goals in the introduction: "This book is not written for a 50+-year-old who
is finally taking up running. There are dozens of excellent books available for the
beginning runner. Instead, this book is directed at those 50+ runners who have been
plugging away steadily at this simplest yet most complex of all sports for a decade
or two or three. It is for those runners who find this juncture in life a good point
from which to evaluate and perhaps recharge their running program in the wake of
the hard realization that our fastest races may well be behind us, but that we still
have plenty of quality miles left to us."
RUNNING PAST 50 does cover all the elements that a typical beginning running book
might cover - setting goals, the various aspects of training (endurance, speed, etc.),
nutrition, avoiding and recovering from injuries, the psychological aspects of running,
and so on. But, as Benyo says in the introduction, each topic is addressed from the
viewpoint of the older runner, and as such makes a fresh contribution to the available
literature. If you hang around running forums or mailing lists on the Internet, or
you're part of a running club, you've undoubtedly heard much of the same advice before,
but Benyo puts it all together nicely in a "good read."
One subject you won't find covered in many other books is ultrarunning, which comes
up several times in this book. Older runners who can no longer beat personal records
by running faster often decide to run longer instead, so this emphasis is quite appropriate.
Incidentally, author Benyo was the first person, along with Tom Crawford, to run
the 300 miles from Death Valley to the peak of Mount Whitney and back (in midsummer!),
so he speaks with some authority on the subject of ultrarunning.
OPEN WATER SWIMMING, by Penny Lee Dean ($18.95, paperback)
----------------------------------------------------------
Author Penny Lee Dean has the credentials - her 1978 world record for crossing the
English Channel stood for 17 years, and her record crossing of the Catalina Channel
still stands after 20 years. She also served 10 years as the U.S. National Coach
for Open Water Swimming. Another book we sell, WIND, WAVES, AND SUNBURN, is the definitive
history of long-distance swimming; this book is the definitive training guide for
the sport. Different chapters cover safety, equipment, navigation, training techniques,
race tactics and techniques, and more. If long-distance, open-water swimming is something
that appeals to you, this is an excellent book.
Undoubtedly to increase its appeal, the book is subtitled "A complete guide
for distance swimmers and triathletes." Obviously there are far more triathletes
than marathon swimmers, but in our opinion those triathletes who are just training
for a triathlon (as opposed to those who are intrigued by the possibility of swimming
the English Channel) would be better served by one of the other swimming books we
carry - Terry Laughlin's best-selling TOTAL IMMERSION, Steve Tarpinian's ESSENTIAL
SWIMMER, or Cecil Colwin's SWIMMING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY, or, for that matter, many
of the triathlon books we carry. Navigation, feeding while swimming, the use of a
GPS, whether your support craft should be a paddleboard or a rowboat, and all the
other topics which make this book a unique resource for long-distance swimmers really
have little or no relevance to most triathletes. Make no mistake, this IS a good
book, and it DOES have lots of good information on all aspects of swimming technique,
training, and racing, complete with detailed training schedules for swims of various
distances. But we can only recommend it to those who are really into marathon swimming
as a discipline, or to those triathletes who have already read lots of other books
and are looking for a little more food for thought.
SAN FRANCISCO RUNNING GUIDE, by Bob Cooper ($16.95, paperback)
--------------------------------------------------------------
For the resident or visitor to the San Francisco Bay Area, Bob Cooper's new book
should prove a great resource. Ignore the title - the book covers the entire Bay
Area: San Francisco itself, the North Bay (Marin County), East Bay (places like Oakland,
Berkeley, Fremont), and the South Bay (including Palo Alto, San Jose, and, of course,
Cupertino). Each location covered in the book has a clearly drawn map showing the
route (and, sometimes, alternates), ratings of each run for scenery and hilly character,
descriptions on how to get there and of the route itself, and notes and tips about
the run. The runs covered include a mixture of roads and trails, as appropriate.
Unlike previous (and now out-of-print) books of this genre, Cooper also covers ten
of the most significant Bay Area races - Bay to Breakers, Houlihans, the Dipsea,
etc. The Dipsea, needless to say, is the one exception to the route descriptions
- Cooper doesn't even TRY to describe the route in the space he's got.
A second title in the series (from Human Kinetics) on New York City is promised in
coming months.
SWIMCOACH FOR PALMPILOT, by Stevens Creek Software ($19.95)
-----------------------------------------------------------
The latest addition to the growing line of titles for the PalmPilot (including the
just-released Palm III) from Stevens Creek Software is SwimCoach, which combines
two stopwatchs and a calculator to create a unique, specialized tool you can hold
in your hand.
In swimming, stroke length has become one of the key "metrics" - the further
the body moves in a single stroke, the better the stroke. Of course this must be
combined with stroke rate (turnover) to produce overall speed - obviously gliding
for a long time to produce a super long stroke with a very low turnover rate wouldn't
be a good thing. What SwimCoach does is to provide two simultaneous stopwatches,
one which is used to time a complete lap, while the second times a fixed number of
strokes (e.g., four). By combining these two times, SwimCoach automatically computes
all the remaining parameters - speed, turnover, and stroke length. Of course, since
the PalmPilot is a computer, SwimCoach also saves all the recorded times for an unlimited
number of laps, and lets you review them, upload them to a desktop computer, or even
print them out. A coach can compare these metrics for his or her swimmers during
the course of a single training session or over the course of a season.
Although we called the program SwimCoach, because that's who was asking for it, it
strikes us that the exact same concept would be useful for the Track Coach as well.
Running books always talk about "overstriding" but what is it? Can it be
quantified? With SwimCoach (a.k.a. TrackCoach?), you could measure the time for a
lap (e.g., 400m), measure the time for a fixed number of strides (e.g., 10), and
the software would display speed, stride length, and turnover instantly. A coach
could use these numbers to evaluate changes during a workout or over the course of
a season. We haven't gotten anyone to "bite" on this yet, but perhaps one
of our Booknotes readers will be the first. Bill Bowerman, move over! The next great
track coach may be coming after you.
Complete information about SwimCoach, including a downloadable copy of the software,
can be found at http://www.stevenscreek.com/pilot/swimcoach.shtml.
HEART MONITOR TRAINING FOR THE COMPLETE IDIOT, by John Parker
-------------------------------------------------------------
...is still "coming"! And orders are still being accepted for the book
we're expecting "any day now."
