Adam Goucher - Running the Edge: Discovering the Secrets to Better Running and a Better Life

Running the Edge is unlike any running book ever written. Those who go so far as to do all that the book asks of them may well find its the best thing theyve ever done for their running, and among the better things theyve done for their whole selves.

Goucher and Catalano share gripping personal stories that are at times hilarious, frightening, depressing and inspiring.

The fire has to burn from within. In that sense, Running the Edge is a lot more important than any other running or motivational books out there.

Running the Edge is already teaching me to be more aware of where I'm at in life and running, and is challenging me to constantly work to improve myself and those around me.

Running the Edge is a must-read for any runner. It doesnt matter if youve been running for 5 days or 50 years. This book will motivate you and help you become a better version of yourself.

Is this book dangerous? Yes. In a good way. Because if it inspires people to get out and do what they are truly capable of doing, then heads are going to roll. The world could be changed. By runners. Imagine that.

Coming off injury and anxious to get back to it, Running the Edge was exactly what the doctor ordered.

If you want to discover how a blood-soaked couch, alcoholics, hypothermia, computer games, and a bit of silliness can be combined into a thought provoking book, read Running the Edge.

Forget the inspirational quotes, this book is full of inspirational paragraphs that could be quoted!

I love this book. It is pushing the running philosophy to a new level and giving runners a language, up until now unavailable.

Running the Edge ranks among the most eye-opening and change-inspiring books that I've readrunning-related and notin a long time. Adam and Tim bring change home in an accessible and practical manner. You'll be all the better for it.

This book is just what I've been needing. It is unexpectedly quite the masterpiece. Thank you guys for your sincere words and honest hearts!

The smartest and most spiritual running book I have ever read. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is my tenth year running and I dont think I have ever been inspired more in those ten years than when reading this book.

Copyright 2011 by Tim Catalano and Adam Goucher

Published in 2012 by Maven Publishing.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact Maven Publishing .

Editorial production by Marrathon Production Services. www.marrathon.net

Designed by Brent Wilcox.

Cover photo by Gretchen Powers.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011934093

ISBN: 978-0-9852332-0-4

Revised Edition, 2012

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This book is dedicated to all runners who refuse to settle for average or good enough; to runners who dive headfirst into their passion as they run the edge discovering their maximum potentials in both running and life. This book is for you!

Few books can teach you in a brief, inspiring read the wisdom many search a lifetime to learn.

Running the Edge is one of those rare gifts. It will take you on a journey to the center of your soul.

By committing to the lessons offered in this book, you will personally choreograph your own journey with an exciting, unrelenting quest for peak performance and discover your maximum potential both in running and in living. To quote Albert Einstein:

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

The wisdom offered in Running the Edge will place you among those few.

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind
remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which
needs to be ignited with sparks.

Johann Gottfried Von Herder

L ife can change course in a moment. Each of us has had experiences where the path we were on suddenly diverged and led us to a place we never would have imagined. Sometimes, these transformational experiences happen by chance. Other times, we consciously choose to take a different road. Some experiences alter our path only slightly, while others rock our worlds to the extent that life will never be the same.

The blood-soaked couch in the backyard and the bullet hole in our living room wall were the only physical signs remaining of the tragedy from the night before. My mom had spent hours mopping up the dried pools of blood, which had needed to remain as the police concluded their investigation. I was angry. It was easy for me to be angry in those days as an eighth-grade boy from a broken home. My normal teenage angst was compounded by my fathers apparent lack of interest in my life, a house on the verge of foreclosure, and a mother who spent more time at her boyfriends house than she did at ours.

How are we going to afford a new couch? This thought looped endlessly through my mind even though I knew the state of our couch and finances was not as important as the life that had been lost. I knew they were not as important as my sister Debbie, who could not stop crying, or my exhausted mother. I was fourteen, far too young to be the man of the house, powerless to help the situation. So I let my confusion turn to rage. Somebody needs to pay for our couch! I didnt say it out loud. Instead, I allowed the storm building inside me to soak my adolescent identity with a fury that demanded vengeance for the cruel and unfair life I was living. I hated feeling like a victim. Helpless. Powerless. Weak.

Debbie never saw the body. She had been upstairs making out with her new boyfriend when the shot rattled the house. Her friends yelled for her to stay upstairs and eventually joined her there to wait until the police arrived. She came down just as the coroner was wheeling Bobby out the front door under a sheet. She called our mom at her boyfriends house at 2:00 A.M. to deliver the news. I was staying at a friends house that night and overheard an early-morning phone call asking my friends mother to keep me busy and not allow me to come home until the investigation was complete.