Book Review: 50/50

Book Review: 50/50 - Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days-and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance! By Dean Karnazes.

I don't do book reviews, at least I haven't done a real one since I was in high school. I just tell people what I'm reading about. But usually I'm having to read in an Army technical manual or field manual to prepare for something.

Number 1, I liked the book. When I start stating things that bugged me about it 50/50, then it's because in my opinion there are tweaks that could have made it even better. If I break the book down into marathon mileage, then I raced through the first 10 miles of the book because it was that good. But the book changed almost as if it was emulating how the Endurance 50 evolved. The middle 10 miles seemed to sag. My guess is because the book took a different approach to telling the story.

The biggest example of that stands out to me is that in the beginning their were a lot of stories about the people who were running the Endurance 50 with Mr. Karnazes. As the book went on, the stories of the other people he met seemed to fade.

There are a lot of great points throughout the book. Some common sense stuff, training info, and some terrific insights into running. Grayed-out sections where one could learn a lot filled the book. It would be easier to track them if it were an E-book or a PDF, though. It's almost as if the computer era had invaded writing a good story by having to interject a sidebar to make a point. Possibly the book was written in Microsoft One Book where one can freely post info. In that fashion, it reads like a field manual where the text continues about a mission or task, but more info is on charts and illustrations and just reading straight through becomes an obstacle course. (If I really didn't like the book, I'd have called it a mine field.)

The book scored points for me by providing so many pointers to long distance running, but it never really got too deep into the inside of the man who didn't have a plane ticket home and ran from New York to St. Charles, MO … AFTER RUNNING 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days! Having personally run on parts of the Katy trail that form the Lewis and Clark marathon, I plan to someday make it a point to be at my in-laws during a September weekend and make that race happen some year! I can see why he would Forest Gump himself from NYC to MO, but what makes him tick...tock.

Bottom line: I liked this book, but it was like running a marathon. It started out fast paced, then settles down until the .2 mile sprint at the end.