Training Book Review: Advanced Marathoning

With the Twin Cities Marathon on deck, it was time to re-read Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger. I've been following his half marathon plans for the last couple of years, and was excited to give his marathon training a go for TCM. I read this back in 2011 when I was in the peak of my PRs, and wanted to refresh my brain on the principles.

It was totally worth a re-read, and it helped reaffirm the training we've been doing leading up to this cycle. It gave me confidence in our plan, preparation, and goal for the fall. I'm really excited to put in the work and toe the line on October 7th to see what my legs and brain can do!

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Shave minutes off your time using the latest in science-based training for serious runners. Advanced Marathoning has all the information you need to train smarter, remain injury free, and arrive on the start line ready to run the marathon of your life.

Including marathon-pace runs and tempo runs, Advanced Marathoning provides only the most effective methods of training. You'll learn how to complement your running workouts with strength, core, flexibility, and form training; implement cutting-edge nutrition and hydration strategies and recovery techniques; and taper properly to reach peak performance.

With easy-to-understand day-by-day training schedules for 18- and 12-week preparation for weekly distances of 55, 55 to 70, 70 to 85, and 85-plus miles, Advanced Marathoning is simply the most comprehensive and efficient approach to marathoning. If you're ready to achieve your personal best, this book is for you.

Training Book Review: Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance is by Alex Hutchinson and has been on my to-be read pile for months. Alex made the rounds on all of the running/training podcasts I follow, promoting his book, and being a total training nerd, I was really excited to learn some things! It's a really intriguing book, split into chapters of focus. The studies and examples used were sometimes hit or miss for me, as I have a hard time relating to some of the extreme examples of mountain climbing and similar scenarios, but it was really intriguing and I learned a few gems.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

The capacity to endure is the key trait that underlies great performance in virtually every field--from a 100-meter sprint to a 100-mile ultramarathon, from summiting Everest to acing final exams or completing any difficult project. But what if we all can go farther, push harder, and achieve more than we think we're capable of?

Blending cutting-edge science and gripping storytelling in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell--who contributes the book's foreword--award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson reveals that a wave of paradigm-altering research over the past decade suggests the seemingly physical barriers you encounter as set as much by your brain as by your body. This means the mind is the new frontier of endurance--and that the horizons of performance are much more elastic than we once thought.

But, of course, it's not "all in your head." For each of the physical limits that Hutchinson explores--pain, muscle, oxygen, heat, thirst, fuel--he carefully disentangles the delicate interplay of mind and body by telling the riveting stories of men and women who've pushed their own limits in extraordinary ways.

The longtime "Sweat Science" columnist for Outside and Runner's World, Hutchinson, a former national-team long-distance runner and Cambridge-trained physicist, was one of only two reporters granted access to Nike's top-secret training project to break the two-hour marathon barrier, an extreme quest he traces throughout the book. But the lessons he draws from shadowing elite athletes and from traveling to high-tech labs around the world are surprisingly universal. Endurance, Hutchinson writes, is "the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop"--and we're always capable of pushing a little farther.

Training Book Review: Peak Performance

I had heard Steve Magness promoting this new book on several podcasts, and had also seen Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success show up on a few elite athletes instagram stories, so I was super excited to get my hands on it. One of the things I'm focusing on in 2018 is the mental side of running, so I'm working on reading a lot of books to help with that.

This book had a lot of good information, some new and some reminders. Definitely a book to pick up and get through during your off season!

My rating: 4 stars

Summary from goodreads:

A few common principles drive performance, regardless of the field or the task at hand. Whether someone is trying to qualify for the Olympics, break ground in mathematical theory or craft an artistic masterpiece, many of the practices that lead to great success are the same. In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg, a former McKinsey and Company consultant and writer who covers health and the science of human performance, and Steve Magness, a performance scientist and coach of Olympic athletes, team up to demystify these practices and demonstrate how everyone can achieve their best.

The first book of its kind, Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities - from athletic, to intellectual, to artistic - with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and neurochemical factors that drive performance in all domains. In doing so, Peak Performance uncovers new linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our traditionally-siloed ways of thinking. The result is a life-changing book in which readers learn how to enhance their performance via myriad ways including: optimally alternating between periods of intense work and rest; priming the body and mind for enhanced productivity; and developing and harnessing the power of a self-transcending purpose.

In revealing the science of great performance and the stories of great performers across a wide range of capabilities, Peak Performance uncovers the secrets of success, and coaches readers on how to use them. If you want to take your game to the next level, whatever "your game" may be, Peak Performance will teach you how. 

Training Books

The off season is upon us, or as some like to call it "winter". Hashtag winter is coming. I'm not even a GoT person, but I throw around that reference all the time, like I know what's up. With less miles on the schedule, I have more time and energy to throw into learning about the sport. So obviously I have a giant list of books that I want to get my hands on and dive into.

I'll surely do a report of these as I get through them, but right now my list includes:


The Science of Running: How to find your limit and train to maximize your performance



Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success



Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance




Running Science




What else do I need to add to my list?

Training Book: Running Science

I absolutely love reading books about running and training. Anytime I'm excited about something, I have to read, read, read as much as I can to learn everything I can about the topic. I've been reading running and training books for years and years, but I'm always excited to add something new to the bookshelf.


Running Science is the newest one I've picked up as it was referenced in the last book I read. I'm excited to tear my way through it, but it is a pretty decent sized book, so we'll see.

What are your favorite running related books?

Summary from Goodreads:

More than 50 years ago, New Zealand's Arthur Lydiard started using terms like base training, periodization, and peaking. His U.S. counterpart, Bill Bowerman, brought Lydiard's term for what until then had been called roadwork, or jogging, to the States. Soon after, the 1970s running boom started, spurred by exercise-advocating research from the growing fields of exercise science and sports medicine and from enthusiasts such as Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running. One of Bowerman's former runners at the University of Oregon, Phil Knight, saw to it that those millions of new runners had swoosh-adorning footwear designed specifically for their sport.

The pace of knowledge enhancement and innovation has, in fact, been so brisk through the years that even highly informed runners could be excused for not keeping up, but no longer.Running Science is a one-of-a-kind resource:

- An easily comprehended repository of running research

- A wealth of insights distilled from great sport and exercise scientists, coaches, and runners

- A do-it-right reference for a host of techniques and tactics

- An array of the most credible and widely used training principles and programs

- Perhaps most of all, a celebration of the latest science-based know-how of running, now truly the world's most popular sport

Elite running coach Owen Anderson presents this comprehensive work in a compelling way for runners. A PhD and coach himself, Anderson has both a great enthusiasm for sharing what scientific studies offer the running community and a keen sense of what's really important for today's informed runners to know.