The Incomplete Book of Running

Description

Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and a popular columnist for Runner's World, shares "commentary and reflection about running with a deeply felt personal story, this book is winning, smart, honest, and affecting. Whether you are a runner or not, it will move you" (Susan Orlean). On the verge of turning forty, Peter Sagal-brainiac Harvard grad, short bald Jew with a disposition towards heft, and a sedentary star of public radio-started running seriously. And much to his own surprise, he kept going, faster and further, running fourteen marathons and logging tens of thousands of miles on roads, sidewalks, paths, and trails all over the United States and the world, including the 2013 Boston Marathon, where he crossed the finish line moments before the bombings. In The Incomplete Book of Running, Sagal reflects on the trails, tracks, and routes he's traveled, from the humorous absurdity of running charity races in his underwear-in St. Louis, in February-or attempting to "quiet his colon" on runs around his neighborhood-to the experience of running as a guide to visually impaired runners, and the triumphant post-bombing running of the Boston Marathon in 2014. With humor and humanity, Sagal also writes about the emotional experience of running, body image, the similarities between endurance sports and sadomasochism, the legacy of running as passed down from parent to child, and the odd but extraordinary bonds created between strangers and friends. The result is "a brilliant book about running...What Peter runs toward is strength, understanding, endurance, acceptance, faith, hope, and charity" (P.J. O'Rourke).

Peter Sagal is the host of the Peabody Award-winning NPR news quiz Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, one of the most popular shows on public radio, heard over four million listeners each week. He is also a playwright, a screenwriter, the host of Constitution USA with Peter Sagal on PBS, a one-time extra in a Michael Jackson music video, a contributor to publications from Opera News to The Magazine of the AARP and a featured columnist in Runner's World. He's run fourteen marathons across the United States. Sagal lives near Chicago with his wife Mara.

Praise for The Incomplete Book of Running "Sagal is a very good runner . . . and a very good writer. He is clever, warm, funny and engaging." -The Washington Post "The Incomplete Book of Running has been a loyal companion. It's funny, well written . . . filled with humility and perpetually on the scan for moments of stray grace. . . . I would go for a run with Sagal anytime." -Dwight Garner, The New York Times "Sagal is brilliant and accomplished, but he's also self-deprecating and funny. . . . Full of irreverence . . . Sagal is not here to make you faster, but he'll make you smile, reflect and perhaps take the holiest of actions: those first scary steps out the door." -Minneapolis Star Tribune "Entertaining and poignant." -Chicago Sun-Times "With exceptional wit and self-deprecating humor . . . Sagal is a compelling writer, and his story may well rouse some to get off the couch, lace up their sneakers, and get running." -Booklist "By turns beautiful and moving, and laced with plenty of Sagal's signature wry humor." -MyFitnessPal Blog "Full of rich observations." -Chicago Magazine "Anyone who's ever run for fitness, for fun (are there people who do that?), for recreation, or to be a better person will appreciate Peter Sagal's The Incomplete Book of Running. . . . In addition to taking the reader along on some races and training runs, and giving insight into the importance of a supportive running group and good nutrition, Sagal entertains with sprinklings of fascinating research. . . . The book is full of wonderful cultural references, and Sagal is creative in drawing from diverse sources to stitch together his running philosophy." -Washington Independent Review of Books "Hilarious and poignant." -BuzzFeed "Sagal has created a new genre-the five-minute-mile memoir. Combining commentary and reflection about running with a deeply felt personal story, this book is winning, smart, honest, and affecting. Whether you are a runner or not, it will move you." -Susan Orlean "This is a brilliant book about running, and it's brilliant even if you never have-and never want to-move faster than a shuffle. Ostensibly, Peter's subject is the physical activity itself. (Feh, as far as I'm concerned.) In fact the book is a manifesto on the redemption of escape. And, even more so, a meditation on the direction of flight. Whatever you're running from, you're running to something else. What Peter runs toward is strength, understanding, endurance, acceptance, faith, hope, and charity." -P. J. O'Rourke "Peter Sagal is the funniest person on radio (quick reminder, I am on television). I enjoy listening to Peter on Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me! on the weekend while chopping vegetables for soup. It will be nearly impossible to do that while reading this book, so if someone could bring me some carrots and onions in half-inch dice, that'd be great." -Stephen Colbert "Peter Sagal's insightful and open-hearted book about running will make you wish he was your long run buddy. This book not only demonstrates the ways in which running shapes a life, but also how life, in all its beauty and pain, shapes the run. I loved it." -Lauren Fleshman "Look, everything Peter Sagal says he knows is written on an index card supplied to him by a member of his staff. If he, himself, wrote any kind of guide to running, it'd be incomplete." -Tom Hanks