What I talk about when I talk about running

I don't run, unless I'm being chased or some part of me is on fire. But I sometimes read books about running, especially when they're written by writers whose work I greatly admire.

I just finished Haruki Murakami's What I talk about when I talk about running. He became a marathon runner and sometimes triathalete in 1982, about the same time that he sold his jazz bar and started writing novels full time.

For him, the act of running long distances and the act of writing a long work of fiction are not entirely unrelated. In fact, he feels the painstaking detail and attention to form that goes into each of these disciplines actually supports and nurtures the other.

The book provides insight into this intensely private and enigmatic literary figure, while also informing, to some degree, what drives people to run and run and run, even when there is no destination in mind.

I offer you this tiny excerpt from the book. Naturally, it's as much about life, as it is about running.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you're running and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can't take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself.