Our Library

Primal Endurance

Using a fundamental approach to aerobic foundational training, ketogenic principles, and a primal diet, Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns show you a new way to train for competition or to just have a better life. Shunned are the myopic patterns of “carb loading”. Instead, Sisson takes you through a system that is designed to help you work with your body to become the athlete you can be. This doesn’t mean you have to prep for your first half-marathon. It may just be your pathway to overnight hiking trips, multi-day adventures, or just being able to walk to the store and back. A really interesting read that is well referenced. Highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to trim down and do more with their active lives. Avoid bonking and injury while you gain as an athlete!

  Born to Run

Born to Run, by Christopher McDougal, is an absolute must-read for anyone who dares to unlock their inner athlete. This is a non-fiction work about human physiology, the Tarahumara native Americans of north-central Mexico, and a group of ultra-marathon characters, brought together in one of the most fascinating and enjoyable books I have ever read. This book consistently ranks at the top of Amazon and Audible’s all-time lists. It is written with a story line that would rival any great fictional or literary work, but the factual nature of the book is intriguing and illuminating in and of itself.

I rate this at the very top of my book list for a reason. I believe that unlocking your inner runner is possible for all of us and I truly believe that this inspirational book will be life-changing for nearly everyone who reads it. The audible version is spectacular. I bought two books, one so I could loan it out, and the audiobook. Absolutely love this book!!

 

 Run Walk Run

If Born to Run inspires you to believe you can be a runner, Jeff Galloway shows you the recipe in his eponymous book The Run-Walk-Run Method. This is the nuts and bolts of how to get it done. Jeff shows you how to start out as an overweight runner, to improve as a beginner or intermediate runner, and to crush your own half-marathon or marathon time by using strategically and rigorously observed walking intervals into every single run. For we out-of-shape types, he shows how to sprinkle running in with our walking to quickly train and bridge the fitness gap. For the more advanced runners, he shows how to carefully rest your muscles to maximize your overall race speed and bring your times down. All of this he does in a manner consistent with our physiology and a gentler way of treating your runner’s body. This is one you will lend to your friends and make a difference in their lives! A perfect gift!

What Doesn’t Kill Us

I just recently picked up an audiobook, What Doesn’t Kill Us, by Scott Carney. This was a very fun read, although I wish the author would have fleshed out the methods employed by Wim Hof a little more clearly. The basic idea is that our bodies benefit from increased stress from things like exposure to severe cold. There seems to be so much potential in retraining our bodies by stressing them. The author provides plenty of cool case examples. He also provides some insight into extreme obstacle course races. What was most fascinating to me was Wim Hof’s ability to control how his body handled extreme cold. He has developed techniques to handle cold well beyond an average person’s ability to survive cold at all. This is just the tip of an iceberg for us I think. The idea of stressing your body and increasing the density of cell mitochondria is potentially groundbreaking. The author was part of a team that did Kilimanjaro in a record-breaking 28 hours, most of it bare-chested. He also did the ToughGuy obstacle race in January cold wearing only shorts and shoes. I really enjoyed this book and can see that there are real steps you can take to improve your physical well-being. Four stars overall, but five stars as far as opening my eyes to the possibilities!