What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Rate it:
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between July 22 - July 23, 2022
2%
Flag icon
As everybody knows, I’m no gentleman, so maybe I shouldn’t be worrying about this to begin
2%
Flag icon
No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act. As
2%
Flag icon
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up
2%
Flag icon
to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running. It’s
4%
Flag icon
which I’d recorded on an MD disc.
4%
Flag icon
To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to
4%
Flag icon
spin at a set speed—and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage.
6%
Flag icon
Running without a break for more than two decades has also made me stronger, both physically and emotionally.
6%
Flag icon
The thing is, I’m not much for team sports.
6%
Flag icon
I never feel comfortable. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any brothers, but I could never get into the kind of games you play with others.
6%
Flag icon
the competitive aspect makes me uncomfortable.
7%
Flag icon
Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal, more than anything: namely, a time they want to beat.
10%
Flag icon
Just like it’s not good to mix friends and work, and sex.
10%
Flag icon
I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself.
10%
Flag icon
I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.
10%
Flag icon
through personal experience I discovered how to be sociable.
10%
Flag icon
The desire in me to be alone hasn’t changed.
11%
Flag icon
What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.
12%
Flag icon
Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.
14%
Flag icon
Of course I have a certain amount of intelligence—at least I think I do. If I totally lacked that there’d be no way I could write novels.
15%
Flag icon
It was a long time ago that I first started running on an everyday basis. Specifically, it was the fall of 1982. I was thirty-three then.
Rachel
Just startes atf 33 as well. Happy with ons own comapy and running i feelkke this boom cojld be abojt me.
15%
Flag icon
I never would have been able to make it on my own.
20%
Flag icon
Running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don’t need anybody else to do it, and no need for special equipment.
20%
Flag icon
You don’t have to go to any special place to do it. As long as you have running shoes and a good road you can run to your heart’s content.
20%
Flag icon
When I was at school I never much cared for gym class, and always hated Sports Day.
20%
Flag icon
I never could stand being forced to do something
21%
Flag icon
Just as with school, you enter it, learn something, and then it’s time to leave.
22%
Flag icon
People are at their best at different times of day, but I’m definitely a morning person.
Rachel
I could hae writteb this book!!!
23%
Flag icon
could only run for about twenty minutes, or thirty.
23%
Flag icon
But as I continued to run, my body started to accept the fact that it was running, and I could gradually increase the distance.
24%
Flag icon
found out the hard way that the toughest part of a marathon comes after twenty-two miles.
24%
Flag icon
Along with this, my diet started to gradually change as well.
26%
Flag icon
Forcing people who have no desire to run, or who aren’t physically fit enough, is a kind of pointless torture.
Rachel
High scool gym teachers should read this book
26%
Flag icon
The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.
28%
Flag icon
really nap a lot.
Rachel
I love this man naps are the best
28%
Flag icon
Anyway, I’m the type of person who, once he gets sleepy, can fall sound asleep anywhere.
31%
Flag icon
the New York City Marathon
32%
Flag icon
There apparently aren’t too many novelists who run marathons
34%
Flag icon
Sometimes the world baffles me.
35%
Flag icon
Can’t imagine many of them have ever seen an Oriental man running down the pre-dawn streets of Athens before.
36%
Flag icon
When I lick my lips they taste like anchovy paste.
37%
Flag icon
What’s with this heat, anyway?
38%
Flag icon
Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.
46%
Flag icon
Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life—and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.
50%
Flag icon
If I go for a time without seeing water, I feel like something’s slowly draining out of me.
Rachel
Serously i feel like this book is in my mind!
53%
Flag icon
a lot of people in Japan seem to hold the view that writing novels is an unhealthy activity,
59%
Flag icon
In my own small way I felt the same fear that sailors of old must have felt.
63%
Flag icon
By then running had entered the realm of the metaphysical.
84%
Flag icon
Maybe a school of vicious, poisonous jellyfish.
89%
Flag icon
I’m not the type who gets along easily with others, but for some reason with other triathletes I have no problem.
« Prev 1