Procure The Rise Of The Ultra Runners: A Journey To The Edge Of Human Endurance Executed By Adharanand Finn Displayed In Manuscript

am tempted to rate this book lower because even as a running enthusiast I found this mostly insufferable somehow boring accounts of races and author isnt very likable, but the last chapters were moving.
And the explanation of the appeal of ultra running resonated with me and my running but not tempted to run ultras, The chapter on him “introducing Kenya to ultra running” was absurd and ignorant and reeked of white savior BS, En dévorant cet inspirant récit, ma motivation d'augmenter les distances de mes courses Ultra Trail n'a cessé de progresser, C'est un peu pour ça qu'on lit ce type de bouquin, s'en inspirer et poursuivre notre quête, Journaliste britannique qui couvre, entre autres, les marathons et leurs vedettes du Kenya Running with the kenyans , Adharanand Finn se disait au début de ce livre que les Ultra Runners n'était pas vraiment des coureurs puisque souvent ils marchent, prennent des repos dans des aires de ravitaillement et n'ont rien à voir avec les purs et durs marathoniens qui dévorentkm en un peu plus dehrs.
Afin de comprendre le phénomène, quoi de mieux que de courir le Superbowl des Ultra Running, l'Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc UTMB.
Telle est la quête de Finn pendant laquelle, deux années durant, il rencontrera et interviewera la crème des Ultra Runners de la planète, femme ou homme, tout en s'initiant à ce sport en accumulant les points nécessaires pour pouvoir s'inscrire au UTMB.
Un livre qui ressemble à tous ces amateurs comme moi qui ont décidé un jour d'aller rendre visite, pour quelque raison que ce soit, un endroit peu fréquenté: soimême.
Fortement recommandé. I was excited to read this book and although most of it was enjoyable, the chapter where Finn attempts to introduce ultra running to Kenyan marathon runners was uncomfortable.
He came off as arrogant and sounded like a white savior,

Overall, the introduction to ultra running was accomplished in this book through his own experiences in ultra marathons, Im sure there are better books on running out there, but as a first time running book it didnt disappoint, Good to run to. Funny hearing the author's grandiose ideas get knocked down when faced with the reality of ultra running, Nice triumphant finish. Solid overview of ultra running, though it doesn't get too deep into any one aspect,.stars, just to get that out of the way,

Breaking into the world of ultra running there's a good mix of road, trail, track, and sand here, Finn relays a pretty incredible account of his experience: A globetrotting effort to make and conquer the UTMB in France.
Like most, he's wont to commit some costly logistical and logical mistakes on the front end, but the hardearned lessons stick, and you get to live vicariously through him as he muscles through the myriad issues that can pop up in an ultra.


Finn's prose is smooth, effortlessly describing the locales and, even though it all might seem easy, the timeline within each of the races.
Many a race report, regardless of the herculean effort the athlete gave, can be sunken into, at the very best, mediocrehighschoolessay territory if you're not willing to dig in on the details, the structure, the emotion and that's just the beginning.
You sigh in exasperation when you read on paper how illprepared he seems to be for some of these challenges you grin, relieved, as he reaches the finish line his condition notwithstanding.
He's a family man, talented at running road marathons he may be, taking on some of this planet's most hardcore runs, But if that's not enough for you, . .

There are numerous brief interviews with the finest ultra athletes alive, explorations and musings into why we'd do this to ourselves, why we'd consider cheating after suffering through such trials, why Kenyans haven't broken into the sport the The Rise of the Ultra Runners's aceinthehole, if you ask me, movement disciplines meant to shy us away from the overprotection of our brain's wiring, and words on particular nutrition programs vegan, Paleo.
The "rise" mentioned on the title could be applied to these elite athletes, who are slowly gaining more notoriety in the secular sports world, and/or to the advent of the sport itself, which is getting exponentially more popular.


For ultra runners, so many of his quandaries will ring familiar, but anyone who's driven themselves to their prescribed "last resort" and found themselves miles ahead of it will snag tightly onto Finn's story well, to that point, anyone seeking inspiration may discover it here, too.
I find athletes of all types to be inspiring, but there's something about trail running and, ultra trail running specifically, that demands a fight from deep within.
Capturing the ups and the downs, the "oops" and the "hoorays", Finn has authored a fine book on how it feels to overcome what at first appears to be insurmountable.


Many thanks to NetGalley and Pegasus Books for the advance read, First, I don't know why I am writing these reviews AT ALL, I read reviews on here that are funny or insightful or, ahem, SHORT, and here I am writing these long, boring reviews about structure, plot, character development and writing style.
LOL. I am boring to myself, basically,

But, since my goal foris to immerse myself more in reading, part of that immersion experience isn't just reading books and moving on to the next.
I am trying to be more thoughtful about my experiences as a reader, Yes, sure, I want compelling reads with great stories, but I also want to understand what the writer was interested in, what themes or issues were raised, why certain choices were made, and how they added to the story.
I want to better understand the mechanics of writing and what makes it at least in my view "good" or "bad", It is probably just the latent English Lit, major in me but I suppose I want to understand what elevates certain works, and I write these blurbs to help me understand what resonated, but also to force myself to do a little bit of writing every day.
My writing sucks years of professional writing has stripped away any style or creativity I ever had if I ever had it!.
Maybe I will learn something along the way,

Not that this book is literature by the way, But that is the other thing, We read for all kinds of reasons and while style is always important, you have different expectations from certain books as opposed to others.
Generally, I prefer more literary books, Even in a book like this, I am interested in word choice and style, This book is well written, The writing is simple, focused and sufficiently descriptive for the story being told, I enjoyed it, but I was frequently frustrated with it,

I think most of my frustration had to do with misplaced expectations, I thought this was meant to be a book about ultra running as a sport, . . not about Adharanand Finn, the person and that time he raced the UTMB, It is really just a memoir about the author's early experiences with ultra training and the culture around it granted a really cool deep dive into the sport in a short period of time.
Finn is a serious but not elite runner when he commences his ultra running journey, but his seriousness about running and being "good at it" colours his perspectives and experiences about what ultra running is and should be.
That said, I did not find him unlikeable, I thought he came across as serious, sincere and occasionally although not often self deprecating,

The pretense of the book to understand the explosive growth of ultra trail running and why people do it, but the first weakness here is that Finn is only interested in elite runners running elite races and why they do it.
To understand the growth of the sport, you have to look beyond the Killian Jornets and the Courtney Dauwalters of the ultra world not that he even mentions the latter, but I will get to that later.
You need to look beyond the UTMB, Ask the person at the back of the pack why they do it, Ask the local race director why they put on a race that has no prestige and no prizes, Ask the middle of the packers the people with fulltime jobs and kids and other responsibilities, Ask them why THEY are motivated to do it, This is where you will find the real answers, because in the end, it is THOSE people who are responsible for the growth of the sport.
As a former ultra runner myself, I found it annoying how much of the book focused on talking to almost exclusively male athletes who regularly WIN ultra races around the world.
This is not a particularly balanced or nuanced perspective on the "why" of ultra running, It isn't just about ego or adulation, or "the need to suffer" or some primal "it's the only thing that makes me feel alive in this modern world" impulse.


Relatedly, although Finn does mention the pay/sponsorship inequities that plague ultra running, he exacerbates these inequities by focusing almost exclusively on male athletes.
There is no mention of the Pam Reeds, Ann Trasons or Courtney Dauwalters of the sport, Ultra running is this incredible beast where more than any other sport, there is no guarantee that a man will win the race outright.
Moreover, there is actual evidence that the greater the distance, the more equal the playing field, and that at certain distances, women may even be faster.
Surely this is an interesting idea to explore as one ruminates on the rise of the sport, But Finn skates over the gender aspects and certainly doesn't dwell on any inequities, Gender disparities pervade in many sports, Female participation in ultra running has grown exponentially over the lastyears but it still sits at less thanof total participation.
An article I read recently cited several reasons for this including ultra running being a male dominated culture that may seem less welcoming to women, greater apprehension about running alone in in the dark or in difficult terrain, as well as the pervasive, debilitating social norms that require women to take on more duties relating to home and children.
Notable: as the father of three children, the author himself likely benefitted from these norms as the travel and training required to write this book would have meant a least some time away from child rearing duties.


This isn't the only aspect of the sport that is left unexplored, What about the fact that ultra running skews older This is interesting, no Or, what about the concerning lack of diversity

Finn raises this, but decides to solve the problem of too many white faces in the winner's circle by getting "some Kenyans" to start ultra running.
Yes, this is as cringey and white privilegey as it sounds, Finally, what about trail stewardship or other environmental concerns that impact the sport Someone Finn interviews actually raises these issues as the most important thing to talk about i.
e. as the sport grows, what role should ultra play in helping protect the wild spaces we gain so much from Finn mentions this question was raised, but abruptly changes the topic and moves on without exploring it at all.
To me this demonstrates how narrow his perspective ultimately is, Trail stewardship, preserving wildness and environmental responsibility are just not interesting to him, He is interested in ultra for running's sake and running's sake alone, There is one passage in particular where he basically says as much, To him, there is not nearly enough "running" in ultra, which in my view, kind of misses the point,

This ends up being both the most compelling and frustrating aspect of this book, Although many runners raise the more transcendental or meditative aspects of ultra with Finn, he seems to have a difficult time understanding them for himself.
He cares a lot about performing well, and a bit less about enjoying himself, and certainly not all about these beautiful, wild spaces he has the vast privilege to experience.
At the very least, his writing doesn't indicate he cares about this, I was left wishing he exercised more humility in his journey and was better able to recognize the immense privilege inherent in having the time and money to be able to train and race and test the limits of personal endurance.
I wished he had dedicated at least one paragraph to one moment where he stared in awe at a mountain vista or to what it felt like to watch the come out at night or to watch the sun rise in the morning after an entire night of running.
Perhaps then I would feel he understood something deeper about the sport, He did talk a lot about how good he got at running downhill though,

In spite of all this, there were many good moments, I liked learning about the histories of different races and different traditions hello, fell running and it was interesting to hear about the mixed scientific evidence on whether ultra is "good for us".
And although I often felt like "he really doesn't get it", this isn't quite accurate either, He just doesnt run for the reasons I run, There is much to learn about what it takes to be elite at any sport, and it is worth noting that no matter how good you are, we all suffer and fail out there on the trail at one time or another.
One of the women he did speak with referenced the identity crisis that befalls when you stop running, I think this is fascinating and have experienced a bit of it myself, What happens when you define yourself by this one thing, but then you, . . get injured or worsefall out of love with running What kind of negative impact does this singular focus have on a life Finn doesn't have much time to explore these ideas.
But he does have other experiences that will resonate with many ultra runners, He tries with difficulty to "be in the moment" and to run without a watch or without thinking about the finish line.
Many runners will also know the feeling of thinking you have nothing left to give and then experiencing an inexplicable late race revival that sees you to the finish line or at least to the next aid station.
Perhaps most poignantly, we also well know the significant and powerful role that fellowship and camaraderie play in a grueling race, I was glad he ended on this point,

In the end, I didn't find this tale about ultra running to be overly insightful or transcendental, but it was a good yarn about one man's journey to the UTMB.
Would I have still read it if I had known that this is what it was about Um, probably not, But it was still a worthy read, PS don't go to Finn's blog before you read this book, It will unfairly colour your perspective, LOL. Wasn't he making fun of ultra runners with their trucker hats!!! PS I have at leasttrucker hats,