I have long admired Haruki Murakami's writing. I didn't know until recently that he is also a distance runner. His latest book is a memoir of sorts and is centered on the importance of running in his life: What I Talk About when I Talk About Running.
Here are some excerpts:
"As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I am not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says." "The body is an extremely practical system. You have to let it experience intermittent pain over time, and then the body will get the point. As a result, it will willingly accept (or maybe not) the increased amount of exercise it's made to do. After this, you very gradually increase the amount of exercise you do. Doing it gradually is important so you don't burn out." "Sixteen is an intensely troublesome age. You worry about little things, can't pinpoint where you are in any objective way, become really proficient at strange pointless skills, and are held in thrall by inexplicable complexes. As you get older, though, through trial and error you learn to get what you need, and throw out what should be discarded. And you start to recognize (or be resigned to the fact) that since your faults and deficiencies are well nigh infinite, you'd best figure out your good points and learn to get by with what you have."
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From his Der Spiegel interview:
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SPIEGEL: How do you manage to motivate yourself again every day? Murakami: Sometimes I find it too hot to run, and sometimes too cold. Or too cloudy. But I still go running. I know that if I didn’t go running, I wouldn’t go the next day either. It’s not in human nature to take unnecessary burdens upon oneself, so one’s body soon becomes disaccustomed. It mustn’t do that. It’s the same with writing. I write every day so that my mind doesn’t become disaccustomed. So that I can gradually set the literary yardstick higher and higher, just as running regularly makes your muscles stronger and stronger.
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Here are some reviews of Murakami's book on running:
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