Books that help me train harder

A few months ago, The Guardian had an article about which sports make for the best literature. There are lots of great suggestions by readers but many more if you extend the question out from not just literature but books in general – fiction and non-fiction. There’s that old adage that life is stranger than fiction; in sport, real life is often also way more exciting.

So, in football, I’d nominate Fever Pitch (a memoir and not a novel) and The Damned United (the story of Clough’s short and unhappy tenure at Leeds Utd). Both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. That said, until fairly recently, I was never really much of a biography or true story fan, but my discovery of endurance sports seem to have changed that.

The last two sporting books I read I honestly couldn’t put down. The first was It’s Not About The Bike: My Journey Back to Life, by Lance Armstrong. I realise that Armstrong is a divisive and controversial figure but this is an awe-inspiring take of having it all, losing everything and then returning like a phoenix from the flame. Interestingly, Lance claims that cancer not only made him a better cyclist but better person, but it’s also a fascinating insight into the training that pro cyclists put themselves through. If you find it hard to think about Armstrong without the words ‘drug cheat’ appearing in your subconscious then fair enough – but, to be fair, as the Italians like to say ‘Tutti colpevoli, nessuni colpevole’ (If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty!). Ultimately, I’m of the opinion that if the tens of millions of dollars he’s since raised for cancer awareness, treatment and recovery represent the ends, then they definitely justify the means.

The second book is called Born To Run. When I first started running a few years ago, I was unable to do more than 5k due to crippling pain in my feet and shins. I grinned and bared it and the distance increased slightly, but the pain remained. Some investigations on my part introduced me to the world of barefoot (or minimalist) running and, in that world, the book Born To Run is just about the holy bible, the Quran, the Talmud and the Veda all wrapped into one. But brilliant.

In effect, it’s the tale of one slightly overweight and shin splinted journalist’s mission to overcome the pain of long distance running. But it takes in ancient running tribes, physiology, the invent of jogging by Nike, the greatest race never seen on TV, a crazy recluse called Caballo Blanco and the birth of cognitive thinking in humans…it’s amazing.

More importantly (and nothing to do with that book but rather my search to find a copy), subscribing to the theories of minimalist running have seen me go from 5k to (hopefully) Ironman.

Appetite piqued and having just finished my latest read (a completely non sport related history of the Sicilian mafia), I’ve just been on Amazon to order my latest delves into the world of endurance sports. At the recommendation of several friends, I’ve ordered Murakami’s Things I Talk About When I Talk About Running (during which he apparently and brilliantly describes the transition from swim to cycle in a triathlon as making you feel like a salamander that has tuned into an ostrich overnight) and also ordered I’m Here To Win – a simple and to the point title from one of the world’s best ever (and definitely most cocksure) Ironman champs ever, Chris McCormack. Is describing an Aussie as cocksure maybe a bit like calling a Frenchman a bit stroppy?

And then I’ve decided to follow up on the cycling front with The Hour – Michael Hutchinson’s apparently very funny retelling of his doomed attempt to break the one hour World Record (the great Eddy Merckx once claimed that every attempt he made on the one hour record stripped a year from his life, such is its difficulty).

Finally, I’ve gone for the extremely well-reviewed Racing Through The Dark by current Garmin-Cervelo rider David Millar which details just how easy it was during the ‘dark days of cycling’ to become involved in doping.

Those books I mentioned up front made me fall even more in love with cycling and running as sports (have there been any great swimming books?) and, flawed as the individuals in them are, it’s gratifying to see others who love their sports just as much. They gave me determination and motivation to train harder, so I hope these new books do the same.

Am I missing any out? Are there some glaring marathon-based omissions? What are the sporting books you'd like to see? George Best's 101 lines for picking up women? How to make friends and destroy Ironman fields by Chrissie Wellington? Born to be mild by Tim Henman?