Jonathan Beverly - Run Strong, Stay Hungry: 9 Keys to Staying in the Race

Sitting down with Run Strong, Stay Hungry is like going for a Sunday long run with multiple generations of runnings wisest and most-experienced. Jonathan Beverly puts you smack in the middle of a wide-ranging discussion on the sport that conveys the passion, mindset, and training methods of lifelong runners. The only disappointment is that the conversation, like a great run, must eventually come to an end.

PETE MAGILL, running coach with 19 USA Track & Field National Masters Championships, multiple American and world age-group record holder, and five-time USA Masters Cross Country Runner of the Year

In Run Strong, Stay Hungry, Jonathan Beverly interviews dozens of runners who have trained and raced hard through the decades. Their advice is clear, proven, and usefulexactly what all runners are looking for.

AMBY BURFOOT, 1968 Boston Marathon winner, Runners World editor at large

Jonathan Beverly has expertise, knowledge, and love of the sport of distance running. His book, Run Strong, Stay Hungry, is for runners who get that running is not about one race or rival. Running is about you, your path, and your lifetime of running.

BILL RODGERS, four-time Boston Marathon champion and Olympian

Running is so challenging it makes you wise. Running is such fun it keeps you young. Jonathan Beverly captures the wisdom and the fun in his masterly distillation of the thoughts of 50 lifelong runnersthats two thousand years experience in one fascinating book.

ROGER ROBINSON, PhD, author and masters runner

Jonathan Beverly mines new material in Run Strong, Stay Hungry. He focuses on the heroes of yesterday to learn their secretswhat contributed to their success and, perhaps equally interesting, how they failed and what they learned. A masterful read.

HAL HIGDON, contributing editor, Runners World

If you need help getting your aging body out the door, buy Run Strong, Stay Hungry.

BENJI DURDEN, coach and Olympic marathoner

Jonathan Beverlys book, Run Strong, Stay Hungry, is fantastic for runners who want to continue runningand for runners who have been running for decades. I found myself nodding and saying Yes! at each chapter.

DAVE DUNHAM, mountain running champion with over 135,000 lifetime miles

Copyright 2017 by Jonathan Beverly

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by VeloPress, a division of Competitor Group, Inc.

3002 Sterling Circle, Suite 100

Boulder, CO 803012338 USA

VeloPress is the leading publisher of books on endurance sports. Focused on cycling, triathlon, running, swimming, and nutrition/diet, VeloPress books help athletes achieve their goals of going faster and farther. Preview books and contact us at velopress.com.

Distributed in the United States and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Beverly, Jonathan, author.

Title: Run strong, stay hungry: 9 keys to staying in the race / Jonathan Beverly.

Description: Boulder, Colorado: VeloPress, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017027174 (print) | LCCN 2017040126 (ebook) | ISBN 9781937716882 (ebook) | ISBN 9781937715694 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: RunningHandbooks, manuals, etc. | RunningTraining. | Runners (Sports)Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Classification: LCC GV1061 (ebook) | LCC GV1061 .B449 2017 (print) | DDC 796.42dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027174

Art direction: Vicki Hopewell

Cover design: Kevin Roberson

Cover photograph: Darron Cummings/AP Images

v. 3.1

To Tracy, who has taught me all I know about lifetime love, and to Landis, may you always stay hungry

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CONTENTS

The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening.

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, THE SUMMING UP

When youre 16, you dont think about whether you will still be running when youre 60. Lets face it, you cant even imagine being 60. If you think about it at all, you assume that were you to live that long, youd have long since retired to the rocking chair.

A few quick trips around the sun and 60 doesnt feel so far away. In fact, you wonder how the years went by so fast. Many will have hung up their running shoes somewhere along the line. Theyll look back at the time when they were once a runner.

But some will still be chasing it. On most days, through summer, winter, spring, and fall, they will pull on their running shoes and head outdoors. Weekdays, theyll run for an hour or so; Saturdays will find them going longer. Tuesdays they might be at the track. All of this continues a pattern theyve followed for four, five, or more decades.

Theyre still working to get fitter and faster, even if their fast is far slower than it was back in the day. And they still compete, taking pleasure in pitting themselves against others and against the clockboth the clock ticking off the seconds of their races and the one counting down their years.

This book is about that singular groupan inspiring collection of lifelong dedicated runners whom I call lifetime competitors.

Part of the impetus behind writing this book is certainly personal. As I move into the decades where running increasingly becomes iffy, I marvel at those who never seem to lose the fire. And while I admire those who have come late and are burning with a fresh flame, setting lifetime bests at advanced ages, I revere those whose passion, like a bed of mature coals, sustains heat after years and years of experience, successes and failures, breakthroughs and setbacks. What is the secret to that long-burning passion? Are they genetically lucky? Or are there core habits, mindsets, or practices they employ to keep the fire burning?

To answer these questions, I talked to lifetime runners I knew, then to ones they knew, and expanded to others in ever-widening circles until Id talked to over 50 who continue to go the distance (and a dozen who had hung it up). Some of these runners were elites who had set world records and won Olympic medals. Others were more mortal and relatable, those who, through persistence and passion, arrived at regional and local racing success. I asked for their stories and listened for patterns and similarities. My goal was to find principles that superseded the particulars of their lives and could provide guidance to help others navigate the years.

What I found surprised me. It turned out that psychological perspectives are as important, or perhaps even more important, than training specifics. As nine key principles emerged, I found that these perspectives were not only important to keep running but were also key to navigating life itself: knowing yourself, making peace with your gifts, balancing priorities, avoiding the pitfalls of perfectionism, adapting to change, staying both optimistic and realistic, and accepting declining abilities without giving in or giving up. What had started as a book about running ended up being a book about life.