In a recent issue of Runner's World magazine, there was an article about the newly published sequel to the book Once A Runner. I'd never even heard of the book, but it apparently is a "cult classic" book for runners. It is the fictional story of Quentin Cassidy, a college "mile" runner who gets kicked out of school, moves into a mountain cabin to begin a grueling training regimen and compete in the Southeast Relays against the best miler in the world.Originally published in 1978, the book is out of print now. It is such a cult classic that original prints of the book go for upwards of $300 on Ebay and Amazon.com. This fact alone got me intrigued, but I sure wasn't going to pay that kind of money for a book, and I don't have the time or patience to sift through the bargain bins at used bookstore. Luckily, I found it online...literally. Someone has scanned the entire book into a PDF file. Probably not completely legal, but supposedly the author knows about it and doesn't care. I printed it out page by page and finished reading it on my trip to St. Simons.
It was pretty well written and very interesting. Competitive running is not really my thing, but the book does a great job and getting into the mind of a true competitive runner. The training regimen described in the book makes my little 35-mile-a-week program look truly amateurish. If they do reprint it next year, as rumored, I may have to pick up a real copy. I may even have to go ahead and put the sequel, Again to Carthage, on my Christmas list.
1 comment:
I'm glad you gave some commentary on this. I just saw the cover at first and was like 'uh oh'.
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