I would love to dive into the book and see what his thoughts are on a lumbering old man freaking out all of the skinny kids with his crazy shoes! 

Can you help me out w/ a copy of the book?

Brad

Joshua Hood
2020visiononline.org

I'd like to share it with my dad. I'm just now starting to get back into running, and my dad feels like he's reaching the end of his recreational running career. He's run several marathons, but due to recurring pain in his feet and legs, he said he might be done. I'd love to read this book and see if it provides any insight into prolonging my dad's running career.

I grew up running cross-country and could run for days and in '93 I moved to Nashville, TN to work for your company… and stopped running. Additionally, my wonderful, certified personal-trainer wife of eleven years just cannot comprehend me as a "runner."

I will run that marathon.

I do believe we were "born to run." If not, why would it feel so good afterward :) Why would our bodies/legs look so good from doing so… In fact, I think human beings were meant to do whatever they can bring themselves to truly believe they can do. Seems like a no-brainer that if something makes one feel so good, look so good, be so much healthier in doing it… that they were meant to do it.

And this reasoning that we are not meant to run just because we don't start running right out of the womb… we also don't walk right out of the womb, were we not meant to walk either? :) *picturing people crawling into work* lol

Since sitting is what most of us do, most of the time, maybe that's an indicator of what we are meant to do? On the other hand, since so many of us are dying at about half the age we should be, maybe not so much.

I say, run baby run ;)

I have the habit of sharing a particulary good book with those whom I feel would benefit from it. There is the double pleasue of not only knowing that the other party will enjoy it as much as I but also then having the pleasure of a "shared experience" later on in discussing it with them, much like you do with your blog. If I was given a copy that is what I intend to do– pass it around. THanks for your kind offer.

Anyway, there are some obvious examples as to where this particular phrase holds greater weight (pun intended). The most obvious example is probably gleaned (pun also intended, and the end of the puns in this post) from the fast food industry, where wheat and other products are processed beyond recognition, and fatty acids and carbohydrates can hardly be found in greater abundance outside of [insert cliche reference to McDonalds.] Even the salads are heart-attack inducing.

But diet is hard if you aren't rich enough for a cook, and who would argue (except maybe a Hindu) that a nice grilled hamburger is delicious?

For me, however, there was running. It is really easy (in that I don't need to use anything off an infomercial which would ultimately sit unused in my basement for 20 years), and by golly it's free (freer than the Ab Roller.) My problem was that I constantly experience foot/leg injuries, so relieving my guilt for eating a hamburger and fries by running five miles grew more and more difficult the longer I ran…in that the injuries consistently grew worse.

I am going to cut this story short (because if you haven't already guessed the ending…you don't deserve to be filled in), and just say that I took up barefoot running and love it. I have had knee surgery and I haven't once had a problem with my knee, which I am sad to say always plagued me when I ran in Nike Shox. Long story short…if you got any copies left, I'd like to know why there is such freedom in running barefoot (preferably for free.)

but this might help.
(PS: love your tweets)

MIchael,

Running teaches me more about the spiritual life than most anything I do. Simple as that. Here is what Eugene Peterson says:

"The participatory quality of spiritual reading struck me forcibly when I was thirty-five years old. I had taken up running again. I had run in college and seminary and enjoyed it immensely, but when I left school, I left running. It never occurred to me that running was something an adult might do just for the fun of it. Besides, I was a pastor now and I wasn't sure how my parishoners would take to seeing their pastor running thinly clad along the back roads of our community. But I was noticing other people, doctors and lawyers and executives whom I knew, running in unexpected places without apparent loss of dignity, men and women my age and older, and realized that I could probably get by with it too. I went out and bought running shoes-Adidas, they were-and discovered the revolution in footwear that had taken place since my student days. I began having fun, enjoying again the smooth rhythms of long-distance running, the quietness, the solitude, the heightened senses, the muscular freedom, the texture of the ground under my feet, the robust embracing immediacy of the weather-wind, sun, rain, snow…whatever. Soon I was competing in 10K races every month or so, and then a marathon once a year. Running developed from a physical act to a ritual that gathered meditation, reflection, and prayer into the running. By this time I was subscribing to three running magazines and regularly getting books from the library on runners and running. I never tired of reading about running-diet, stretching, training methods, care of injuries, resting heart rate, endorphins, carbohydrate loading, electrolyte replacements-if it was about running I read it. How much is there to write about running? There aren't an infinite number of ways you can go about it-mostly it is just putting one foot before the other. None of the writing, with few exceptions, was written very well. But it didn't matter that I had read nearly the same thing twenty times before; it didn't matter if the prose was patched together with cliches; I was a runner and I read it all.

And then I pulled a muscle and couldn't run for a couple of months as i waited for my thigh to heal. It took me about two weeks to notice that since my injury I hadn't picked up a running book or opened a running magazine. I didn't decide not to read them; they were still all over the house, but I wasn't reading them. I wasn't reading because I wasn't running. The moment I began running again I started reading again.

That is when I caught the significance of the modifier "spiritual" in "spiritual reading." It means participatory reading. It meant that I read every word on the page as an extension or deepening or correction or affirmation of something that I was a part of. I was reading about running not primarily to find out something, not to learn something, but for companionship and validation and confirmation of the experience of running. Yes, I did learn a few things along the way, but mostly it was to extend and deepen and populate the world of running that I loved so much. But if I wasn't running, there was nothing to deepen.

The parallel with reading Scripture seems to me almost exact; if I am not participating in the reality-the God reality, the creation/salvation/holiness reality-revealed in the Bible, not involved in the obedience Calvin wrote of, I am probably not going to be much interested in reading about it-at least not for long.

Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living god. The most important question we ask of this text is not, "What does this mean?" but What can I obey?" A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances.

Not that the study is not important. A Jewish rabbi I once studied with would often say, "For us Jews studying the Bible is more important that obeying it, because if you don't understand it rightly you will obey it wrongly and your obedience will be disobedience.

This is also true."

Exercise affects us spiritually! When I am tired and feeling blak – it's hard to be patient and kind to my husband and children.

I have done aerobics for many years – but I just started running 6 months ago! I have ran in two races one was just 2 miles and the other a 5K. I have been gathering moms from church and creating running groups and we are having a great time running to the glory of God.

I've never read a book about running – so I'd love to read it and be happy to blog about it so my followers could read it too!

Thanks for the opportunity!
Courtney

I WOULD LOVE SOME INSPIRATION AND WISDOM TO GET BACK ON THE TRAIL.

I haven't found another regular exercise routine I love as much to keep my spare tire at bay. I would love a copy of the book! @mschutterop.

I'd want to read the book because it would serve as a good source of information as I start running regularly.