Media about running?

[royalfireworks]

[Mods, if this isn't really in the community's line, I apologize; delete if needed.]

Hi! I'm fairly new to this community, but I'm working on a big list of running-related media--literature, film, drama, music, poetry, nonfiction (more on the personal side than the mechanical how-to stuff)... etc?--and thought you guys would probably know a few. ;)

What are your favorite works about or related to running?

My very preliminary list is here.

Comments

[nanila]

I think Run Lola Run (Original title: Lola rennt) has got to go on your film list!

[royalfireworks]

Ah, see, this is just what I need--I haven't see Run Lola Run, so didn't know it literally had to do with running! Thank you.

[blnchflr]

Lola literally runs in it, but it has nothing to do with running as a sport - I don't think it's relevant myself, unless you want to add all movies where e.g. people on the run spend a fair amount of time literally running?

(But it's an awesome movie, so I highly recommend watching it if you ever get the chance!)

[nanila]

It's true that it doesn't address running as a sport, but her run is central to the film's plot, and the request was for media that are about or related to running.

[axelrod]

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

[royalfireworks]

Awesome! Thank you.

[isis]

I'm on Goodreads and have reviews of quite a few running-related books. I disliked Murakami's book, but really enjoyed Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of a Long-Distance Runner by Dean Karnazes; Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (the book that has been credited with popularizing barefoot running); and The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb, which is a history of the competition to run the first sub-4 minute mile, and my favorite of them all.

[royalfireworks]

Re: the Murakami book-- oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I haven't read it yet, but the idea seemed so lovely to me--you know, talking about the overlappings and resonances between running and writing. We'll see how I feel about it.

Anyway, these three recommendations are great, so thank you!

[isis]

Here's my review, if you like:

There are two types of memoir I enjoy. Either the author has done something extraordinary, or the author is an extraordinary person. In this case, neither holds true, at least from my perspective.

I suppose that to a couch potato the idea of running marathons is extraordinary, but I've run four and expect to do #5 and #6 next year. I've also run more triathlons than I can remember. I haven't run an ultra, but have my eye on one, and several of my friends have run races of up to 100 miles. So Murakami's experiences aren't unusual to me. Worse, his "insights" are pedestrian, and the writing plods along, full of cliched metaphors and tired analogies. (I wonder to what extent my dislike of the writing is a dislike of the translation, though. Maybe it's brilliant in Japanese.)

The narrative veers between sophomoric navel-gazing of the "woe is me, I don't fit in with society, you'd hate me if you knew me, so therefore I run" type and details of his personal history that would only be interesting if I cared about him. Which I don't. He runs a bar. He quits running a bar. He has a leg cramp. He decides to become a novelist. He gives a talk at MIT. Even his stories about running don't resonate with me, maybe because I enjoy running and don't find marathons painful. (Challenging, yes. Uncomfortable, you bet. Painful? Not yet.)

I did enjoy the parts of this book that were condensed from articles he published elsewhere. Which made me think that maybe his real writing, his polished and published articles and novels, might be good. But this reads like the stuff I scribble in my logbook about how many miles I ran and how I felt that day. I wouldn't dream of showing it to anybody. He shouldn't have, either.

[lyras]

Just to offer another perspective, I really enjoyed the Murakami book. :) Although his story of how he became a writer filled me with jealousy (in a nutshell: "One day, I thought I would write a book. So I did, and then it won a competition, and suddenly I became a noted writer."). It's fairly digressive, but I rather enjoyed all his musings (on himself, his writing and his running).