Send us a text W hat If? Is the story of author Ash Varley’s running journey between 2016 and 2023. At 43, with years of running experience behind him, he wondered if dedication, patience, and a willingness to break free from the comfort zone could lead to the realisation of long-held running dreams. In this book he explores how he ended up running multiple sub-3 hours marathons and 100-mile trail races. Along the way he talks about surprising himself with his ability when he’s able to get out o...
Jun 15, 2025•1 hr 42 min
Send us a text Run Less Run Faster is a book explaining the 3plus2 training program developed by the Furman Institute of Running & Scientific Training, FIRST... and don't worry, RUN LESS doesn't mean TRAIN LESS! The book is divided into 5 sections which cover everything from the training program, why it works and the science behind it, all the different components like strength, stretching, and cross training) and ends with a section about qualifying for the Boston marathon. The programs in ...
Jun 01, 2025•1 hr 38 min
Send us a text We haven't done one of these in a while and Alan just got back from his time in the UK for the London Marathon! ...he may have also seen some family and stuff, but you probably don't want to hear about that. If you've been following us for a while, you know that Alan has been applying every year to try and get into the London Marathon via the lottery. He has been disappointed every single time. So how did he get in? We talk about that in this episode, along with how it went, how i...
May 23, 2025•31 min
Send us a text Here we are again with another recap episode. Alan and Liz chat about their last ten reads: Running From Tragedy by Michael Salsbury Running Through the Dark, by Jen Scotney Built To Run, by Matthew Silver The Ultimate Guide to Parkrun, by Lucy Waterlow There Is No Finish, by Stephen Parker To The Limit, by Michael Crawley The Frontrunner, by Brad Fawley The Ultimate Ultra Running Handbook, by Claire Maxted Running Past 50, by Caolan MacMahon A Few More Laps, by David Chalfen If y...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Send us a text In this episode of Running Book Reviews, we had the pleasure of speaking with author Bill Donahue about his recent book, Unbound. Unbound is a collection of some of the best stories Bill has written about endurance sport for Runner’s World, Outside, Backpacker, Washington Post Magazine and others. The stories are divided into 5 subcategories which make up sections of the book: Running Cycling Exploration On The Snow From The Margins of Endurance Sport Bill Donahue is a journalist....
May 01, 2025•1 hr 33 min
Send us a text A Few More Laps is a compilation of stories and thoughts about high level distance running and training. A Few More Laps is a compilation of stories and thoughts about high level distance running and training . The book starts with a little about David and how he started running and his experience in the club environment in the UK, and later takes a deep dive into several areas David was exposed to through running and coaching, including the path to international level running (an...
Apr 15, 2025•1 hr 45 min
Send us a text In today’s episode we have the pleasure of interviewing athlete and coach Caolan MacMahon about her new book, Running Past 50. As you move past the age of 50, the physiological demands of running require adjustments in training intensity, recovery, goal setting, and mental outlook. Running Past 50 is your guide to addressing those demands so you can continue to enjoy, compete, and excel in the sport you love. Additionally, you will find 10-week training programs for beginner, inte...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 56 min
Send us a text When we had Matt on the podcast at the end of 2024 there were several topics we never got a chance to talk about. Two of them, running form and breathing, are things that Matt is passionate about because he believes they can make a big difference for runners. We obviously had to have Matt on again to talk about these topics, and he also talks about the importance of the foot and arch. A little reminder about Matt's book. Built to Run is a book to help runners improve form, mobilit...
Mar 15, 2025•1 hr 39 min
Send us a text In this episode we have a repeat guest, Claire Maxted, and she talks to us about her new book, The Ultimate Ultra Running Handbook. The Ultimate Ultra Running Handbook is not called “ultimate” for no reason. It goes through many topics in a beginner friendly way with lots of lists and pictures. If you have Claires previous book, The Ultimate Trail Running Handbook, then the format will be familiar to you. Almost every trail running question is touched on during the 7 chapters and ...
Mar 01, 2025•1 hr 3 min
Send us a text The Frontrunner is a fictional coming of age story about a boy named Russ who grows up without a mother, and loses his father to cancer when he's barely an adult. He grows up running everywhere, and later finds out that running can bring much more to his life. On the other side of the world in Russia, twin brothers are taken from their parents to participate in the countries sport program designed to make them into the best distance runners in the world. Eventually these three ath...
Feb 15, 2025•1 hr 31 min
Send us a text To the Limit sets out to explore why we voluntarily do exhausting things, like running ultra distances in the mountains and climbing mount Everest, and rediscover the joy of moving together as a group – whether it's running the length of the Lake District in a day, or navigating the descents of the Sindhupalchok International Trail Race in Nepal. It shows us how endurance activities can help bring people together, and even change the way we think about the natural world and our pl...
Feb 01, 2025•1 hr 33 min
Send us a text In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with author Stephen Parker about his new book There Is No Finish; The Backyard Ultra Story. This book is all about the backyard ultra; how it started, who started it, and how it’s grown over the years (especially since the pandemic). There are 8 chapters. The book starts by introducing key characters like race organizer, Lazarus Lake, and his late dog, Big, and ends with the authors personal experience running and crewing backyards...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 36 min
Send us a text Here we are again! ...and AGAIN it's been more than 10 books since the last recap episode! Here are the books we chat about in this episode: Run Through, by SB Stone The Race To Be Myself, by Caster Semenya The Examined Run, by Sabrina Little Smart Running, by Jen and Sim Benson Running Rewired 2nd Ed., by Jay Dicharry LOST: The Work That Goes Unseen, published by Ciele How To Run The Perfect Race, by Matt Fitzgerald Trails and Tribulations, by Susie Chan Running Challenges, by Ke...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 22 min
Send us a text This book is everything you’d want to know about parkrun. How it started, what countries it spread to, how it benefits mental and physical health, and why participants keep coming back to both run and volunteer. The book has 9 chapters: How it started… and how it’s going Meet the parkrunners The high-viz heros A day in the life of a parkrun Why you should parkrun for your health and well-being Parkrun around the world Training, destination and challenge inspiration The future How ...
Dec 15, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Send us a text For those who wanted to hear about it, we decided to tell you about our most recent sub-3-hour marathon attempt in this bonus episode. For our listeners we explain what plan we were using and the history we have with following the same plan in the past, but most of this episode is about the result of our marathons. The race we did was the Wineglass marathon in Corning, NY. In case you're interested in knowing more about the race, here is their website: https://www.wineglassmaratho...
Dec 07, 2024•42 min
Send us a text Built to Run is a book to help runners improve form, mobility and strength so that they can run injury free more often… because we all know we’ll eventually get some kind of niggle, but the idea is that we’re not sidelined for months at a time. The book has 8 chapters, starting with an explanation of your body as a system, moving on to training mobility and strength, and ending with breathing (yes, we can actually train that!) and common running injuries. Dr. Matthew Silver is a c...
Dec 01, 2024•58 min
Send us a text Ultrarunner Jen Scotney has achieved podium finishes in some of the UK’s toughest races and now has her sights firmly set on the Pennine Way. In Running Through the Dark, Jen talks about her ambitions, not just to run the 268-mile Pennine Way but to take the record as the fastest woman to do so. But that didn’t happen. Nothing went according to plan. The Jen the world knew was a successful lawyer and running coach – all photoshoots and finish-line smiles – but the truth was much d...
Nov 15, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Send us a text Running From Tragedy is Michael Salsbury’s family story and how running, in the end, helped lessen the burden of three life changing events. Michael met the love of his life when he decided to take a break from his career in the financial industry to work at Club Med for a few months. Little did they know that they were both carriers of an ultra-rare genetic mutation that ended up taking the lives of three children before they were old enough to eat solid food. Michael was born an...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 46 min
Send us a text Good For A Girl by Lauren Fleshman is the story of Lauren's life and experience in professional running. Running seemed straight forward when she was growing up, you work hard and you get the reward, but women don't have the same performance trajectory as men when going through puberty. Women often plateau as they get used to their "new body" after puberty, but this comes at an inconvenient time in college when coaches are picking top performers for scholarships and want their tea...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Send us a text Running Challenges, by Keri Wallace, is like a tour guide for Trail running in the UK. It features 100 of the best trail, fell and mountain runs in England, Scotland and Wales, and those three countries make up the three sections of the book. There is something for everyone with the shortest challenges being 5k parkruns and the longest ones going over 100k. Keri Wallace is a mountain runner, running guide for Girls on Hills (which she also founded), rock climber and freelance writ...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Send us a text Trails and Tribulations is Susie Chan's memoire. She tells us a little about her life before running, including some pretty big life events, how she started running, and some of her very very long runs. A few of the races that Susie did and talks about include: Marathon de Sables (which she ran more than once!): A self-supported, multi-day, stage race through the dessert. The Jungle Ultra: Another self-supported, multi-day, stage race… this time through the jungle. A 24-hour track...
Sep 15, 2024•1 hr 30 min
Send us a text How To Run The Perfect Race is a book all about pacing. The book is divided into two sections: Section 1: All about how to master pacing Section 2: RPE based training plans for your next 5k, 10k, half-marathon and marathon. Pacing isn’t about having an even pace on your Garmin. It’s about having an even effort which takes into account things like terrain and weather conditions on race day. Pacing may sound easy but most of us aren’t very good at it (and definitely not as good as t...
Sep 01, 2024•1 hr 28 min
Send us a text In this episode of Running Book Reviews, we had the pleasure of chatting with Tim Rossi, founder of The Lost Boys running club in New York, about a book he helped bring to life in collaboration with Ciele and Maurten. We talk about the book, the Lost Boys Club, and how long it took to finish the book. Despite there not being a lot of writing in the book, the time it took to put together was just as long (if not longer) than most traditional books and Tim explains why. LOST: The Wo...
Aug 15, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Send us a text If you're thinking that you've heard us talk about Running Rewired, it's because we read the original version which came out in 2017 and it was featured in one of the first episodes we did in 2020. Well the second edition is out now and we had the pleasure of speaking with authir Jay Dicharry in this episode! Running Rewired is about strength training specifically for runners. The first 4 chapters are dedicated to the rationale. They talk about “broken wiring”, “mobility and stabi...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 30 min
Send us a text So we know it's a bonus episode and not our usual book dedicated episode, but we need more time to line up our guests and didn't want to leave our listeners without anything to listen to. We hope that we can earn your forgiveness with some of the episodes that are coming in the future. In this bonus episode we talk about our plan for marathon training which we'll be starting on the day this episode drops, July 15th, 2024… but before we get to that, there is some chat that got a li...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Send us a text Join us for this wonderful conversation with Jen and Sim about all things running! Their fantastic book, Smart Running , is packed with useful information about a diverse range of topics and we only covered a few of them in our chat. The 19 chapters of this book are divided into 6 parts: Our bodies and Systems Becoming a resilient running Mental skills for runners Races, challenges and adventures Practicalities Training plans and workouts Here is a little bit about Jen and Sim: Je...
Jul 01, 2024•1 hr 47 min
Send us a text Here we are again! We can't believe we've read another 10 books already... and actually it's been more than 10 books... This might be a long episode (unless Alan did some aggressive editing) because when we start talking about books, we just can't stop. You don't know it, but you're lucky that this episode wasn't 3 hours long! Good thing Liz needed to get to work. Neither of us were really watching the time apparently... Here are the books we chat about in this episode: Ultimate T...
Jun 15, 2024•1 hr 47 min
Send us a text We have a fantastic conversation with author Sabrina Little, about her new book, The Examined Run. In this chat we talk about ethics and role of virtues and vices in running. The Examined Run discusses the ethics of sport, specifically the sport of running, through the lens of virtue ethics. As with any discussion of ethics, this one has many angles and nuances, and could have easily been a trilogy of books. The book is divided into 9 chapters. It starts with an introduction to th...
Jun 01, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Send us a text The Race to Be Myself is a 4 part memoire where Caster talks about: The beginning: how she grew up, how she liked to hang out with boys and play sports, and what happened in puberty. The rise: How she got into running and eventually decided to be more serious about training. She also talks about getting more serious about school because she wanted to sun with for a university where she could have access to coaches and other resources that would help her be a better runner. The awa...
May 15, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Send us a text Running Through; my journey through moments of flight, is Steven’s journey into Running via a series of tiny moments of flight. This book is divided into short stories describing some of the moments in his personal running journey and how they ended up influencing his life. Some stories are funny anecdotes and others are not funny at all and deeply personal. The common thread is that Steven is running through them all. Who is SB Stone? He is a son, husband, dad, marathoner, and wr...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 17 min
