I went to Barnes & Noble on my lunch break to scope out some books on running. I wanted to be able to read about hurting myself, mainly when I'm supposed to ignore it and when I should be allowed to whine about it. (We all know I will anyway, but at least I'll know if I should whine on the way to the doctor.) Normally I would read all of the reviews on Amazon and then buy the books online. But I actually wanted to try these out before purchasing them... something I haven't done with any purchase in a really long time!
I found a great book on "ouchies": The Runner's Repair Manual. At first I was a little turned off by the book's appearance—it's black only and the pages are a really mushy offset (not glossy)—compared to the oversized books with bright photos of happy people running and big charts of what hurts and what you should do. Once I started looking up my symptoms, however, the charts went out the window. This book is amazing. It tells you exactly why you have the symptoms you do, what kind of first aid you can do at home to ease your suffering, and what causes this so that you can try to fix it and prevent it in the future.
The other book I bought does have bright graphics and slick pages (easing my graphically-prejudiced mind), and it has information on what seems like every imaginable aspect of running: food/nutrition, gear, preventing and treating injuries, how to get started, workouts for every level (and a very clear description of what each level entails—something that is really hard to come by), pace, and a lot more. Beginner's Guide to Long Distance Running is a book that has so much information, I'm going to have to literally sit down and read through the whole thing to process it all.
I don't think I've been this excited about running or reading nonfiction since elementary school.
