Most people who know The Incomplete Book of Running author Peter Sagal know him as the host of the decades-long running NPR show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! But I must confess I’m one of the few running fanatic oddballs who knew him first as a columnist in Runner’s World magazine. I always liked his articles, as he identified as an “amateur” runner. New to running, I could identify with that and quickly came to laugh at and enjoy all the silliness and embarrassing components of running he wrote about, like the inevitable, but unexpected, undesirable “egress” that will inevitably happen when you’re running near the woods and nowhere near a suitable toilet. I could also identify with his description of the power and high of finishing a quality run or setting a new PR in a race. After continuing to read his columns for some time, I was not at all surprised when he wrote in one issue that this would be his final column, that he felt he was no longer properly representing the true “amateur” runner anymore. I agreed. This was a guy who started as an amateur, but had very quickly gone on to run many marathons with objectively speedy finish times. And yet, I knew I would miss his columns.
Boy, was I surprised when years later, I discovered the Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! podcast and put all the pieces together that the host of the weekly news quiz podcast was same Peter Sagal whose columns I’d lovingly read years ago. So when I finally stumbled upon his book, The Incomplete Book of Running, I knew I would love it. And I was right.
His memoir revolves around running and how he came to it as a boy, how he fell off the habit during the family-building years of adulthood and how somehow it reeled him back. He writes about his quest to PR in the marathon. He writes about the marathons that were completely unfocused on finishing time, but instead focused on running with people with physical handicaps. He writes about his experience running the Boston Marathon in 2013 when the bombing happened. He writes about jumping into races he wasn’t signed up for and the consequences he face when he was so transparent about his frowned-upon misdeed.
Some parts of his book seemed familiar to me, particularly the section about “egress” when you run, and I wondered if parts of this book were made up of some of the columns he’d written in Runner’s World. It wouldn’t surprise me, and it seems like a highly effective way to take on writing a memoir. Hey, if you’ve already done the writing, why not re-use it?
All of these little running anecdotes I expected and loved. It tempts me to say if you’re not a runner, you may not like this book. But then I think about the other stuff that’s also in his book: the depression, the anxiety, the end of a marriage, the body image issues and disordered thinking about food and fitness, a second shot at love, coming to terms with his childhood, coming to terms with his parenting, forming friendships, building community. The Incomplete Book of Running is a reference to the famous running book, The Complete Book of Running by James E. Fixx. But it’s also incomplete because it’s not completely about running; it’s about how running affects all the other stuff in your life, and the other stuff in your life affects running.
And then I realize this book probably is for everyone. After all, it made me cry, which most books do not do. There has to be more to a book than running to make me cry. To make me cry, a book has to have heart. And inspire. And this one does both, in spades.
Lara's Book Club 