What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Is this book the one that gets me running?

Author: Haruki Murakami

Published: 2007

I picked up this book solely because of the title. Lately, I’ve wanted to get into running. Lately, I’ve been wanting to get into a lot of things. A symptom of getting older, I suppose—regrets about all the time wasted. I’ve never enjoyed running just for the sake of running. I don’t mind it if it’s in combination with something else, like soccer, that can make me forget how brutal it is. Murakami doesn’t hide the fact that his lifelong running journey has involved a lot of pain.

Murakami doesn’t hide the fact that his journey running for a lifetime has involved lots of pain. While running his first and only ultramarathon, Murakami had to shut off his consciousness, turning himself into a machine. “I’m not human. I’m a piece of machinery. I don’t need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead” became his mantra. Looking at it from the outside, it sounds dystopian. But whatever it takes, right? I don’t want to become that type of runner. But it wouldn’t hurt to gain some self-control. Tick “run a marathon” off my bucket list.

The book is about more than running though. Murakami calls himself a running novelist. He writes about his beginnings as a bar owner and his transition to becoming a writer. How both writing and running require a vast amount of endurance. How he runs to be able to keep writing. Focus and endurance are the two main skills needed to be a writer, he says—not just focus, as had been my belief

I realize that I don't have a lot to say about the book. It’s beautifully written and entertaining, but it’s also mostly about Murakami‘s running adventures, sprinkled with life lessons and some backstory. Did it inspire me to get outside and run? Definitely! Not necessarily to become a great runner, but to improve my 'sit-my-ass-down-and-write' skills, which are sorely lacking. A lifetime of doomscrolling and brain rot has done a number on my mind. Can running be a step toward a cure?

Edit: I went for a run and it fucking sucked.

Edit 2: I went for another one. Still sucks, my mind is fighting it at every step which makes me believe I should do whatever it takes to keep going.