In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami started running to keep are compatible. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, he reflects upon the influence the game has had on his life and on his writing.
Equal parts travelogue, training log, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and settings starting from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston.
By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, this can be a will have to-read for fans of this masterful yet private creator in addition to for the exploding population of athletes who to find equivalent satisfaction in distance running.