Strides

Author:

By Benjamin Cheever

Format:

Hardback

Availability:

In print, usually dispatched within 5-7 days.

Price:

£16.99

Tagged with:

Athletics, Running, Marathon

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Further Details

• Published: 18th Sep 2007
• ISBN: 1594862281
• Pages: 224

From the Publisher:

Acclaimed novelist Benjamin Cheever - author of "The Plagiarist", "Famous After Death", and "The Good Nanny" - brings his buoyant literary style to this impassioned memoir about the sport that changed his life.

From Pheidippides, who rant the first marathon in 490 BC--bringing news to Athens of the Greek victory on the plains of Marathon--to our own soldiers in Iraq today, running is an integral part of human culture and legend. In "Strides", heralded author Benjamin Cheever explores the role of running in human history while interspersing this account with revelations of his own decades-long devotion to the sport.

Cheever has traveled the world writing features for "Runner's World" magazine, and he draws from this rich experience on every page. His adventures have taken him to Kenya in search of the secrets of the world's fastest long-distance runners and to a 10-K race with American soldeirs in Baghdad. Cheever celebrates the quotidian personal satisfaction of a morning run and the more exotic pleasures of the Medoc Marathon in Bordeaux, where fine wines are served at water stations and the first prize is the winner's weight in grand crus. He shares vivid moments from the New York Marathon and waxes rhapsodic about the granddaddy of American distance events--the Boston Marathon. But what truly distignuishes "Strides" as a memorable read is the unique lens through which this sparkling writer explores our deep bond to running, an experience he likens to that of being able to fly.