Category: Dean-Karnazes

Great book that has contributions from Dean and some of his closest friends.

In his follow-up to the best-selling Ultra-Marathon Man, world-renowned ultra marathoner Dean Karnazes chronicles his unbelievable exploits and explorations in gripping detail; Karnazes runs for days on end without rest, across some of the most exotic and inhospitable places on earth, including the Australian Outback, Antarctica, and the back alleys of New Jersey.

From the downright hilarious to the truly profound, the stories in Run! provide readers with the ultimate escape and offer a rare glimpse into the mindset and motivation of an extreme athlete, one who has, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Not only pushed the envelope but blasted it to bits.”

Karnazes addresses pain and perseverance, and he also charts the emotional as he pushes to the edges of human achievement. The tales of the friendships he’s cultivated on his many adventures around the world warm the heart, and are sure to captivate and inspire readers whether they run great distances, modest distances, or not at all.

This book follows Dean Karnazes through his journey to complete 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.

A personal favorite that inspired me to run my first 100 miler.

Description from Reed Business Information:
Many would see running a marathon as the pinnacle of their athletic career; thrill-seeker Karnazes didn’t just run a marathon, he ran the first marathon held at the South Pole. The conditions were extreme—”breathing the superchilled air directly [without a mask] could freeze your trachea”—yet he craved more. Also on his résumé: completing the Western States 100-mile endurance run and the Badwater 135-mile ultramarathon through Death Valley (which he won), as well as a 199-mile relay race… with only himself on his team. This running memoir (written without a coauthor) paints the picture of an insanely dedicated—some may say just plain insane—athlete. In high school, Karnazes ran cross-country track, but when his favorite coach retired, he quit the sport. Fifteen years later, on his 30th birthday (in 1992), on the verge of an early midlife crisis, he threw on his old shoes and ran 30 miles on a whim. The invigorating feeling compelled him to pursue the world of ultramarathons (any run longer than 26.2 miles). “Never,” Karnazes writes, “are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in.” Yet his masochism is a reader’s pleasure, and Karnazes’s book is intriguing. Casual runners will find inspiration in Karnazes’s determination; nonathletes will have the evidence once and for all that runners are indeed a strange breed.
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