The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner: An Unfit Londoner's Attempt to Run the New York City Marathon from Scratch

The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner: An Unfit Londoner's Attempt to Run the New York City Marathon from Scratch

by Russell F. Taylor (Author)

Synopsis

Take one unfit 39-year-old Londoner and present him with the challenge of training for, and running, the New York City Marathon. This is Russell Taylor's humorous account of his journey from its unwise inception after too many beers, through the first teetering steps on the treadmill to the big show-down in NYC. Inspired by the charity running of his friends, Russell Taylor decided to spare himself the post-event trauma of trying to extract money from reluctant sponsors by writing this book and donating the proceeds to charity instead. This account follows our intrepid runner north London gym to the mean streets of Manhattan as we discover what lurks within the breast of the endurance athlete: an unreasonable hatred of his fellow runners (except nubile females of the species), a contempt for the idiocy of stadium announcers and a strange fear of spectators inanely shouting, "Keep going," by way of encouragement. Written with panache and self-deprecating humour, this is ideal entertainment for anyone who has ever run any distance on their own two legs.

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Quantity

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Edition: New
Publisher: Andre Deutsch Ltd
Published: 02 Jan 2007

ISBN 10: 0233002065
ISBN 13: 9780233002064

Media Reviews
Taylor is a humor writer...and he puts his talent to prodigious use in documenting his odyssey-by-foot...Beginning with his first visit to the gym - not to run, but to use the shower when the hot water goes out in his building - I laughed out loud at sketches made funnier by the resonance of recognition....
Author Bio
Russell Taylor is the copy-writing arm of the partnership that produces the Alex cartoon strip in The Daily Telegraph, and is published annually by Prion. He likes his sport but until this challenge not quite enough to get him out of the pub and into a gym. He lives in Muswell Hill, north London. He was awarded an MBE in 2003 for services to journalism.