Learning more about running and the various aspects that impact performance is a sure way to athletes becoming faster and less injury prone, especially if you’re not in the position to have someone coach you. Here’s a list of books I recommend for runners with a brief overview of what you can expect.
Be careful what you read
There are lots of books around for runners. Some are very narrow in their view to provide a framework or feed into a brand such as Born to run (Christopher McDougall) and 80/20 (Matt Fitzgerald), without necessarily being accurate. Whilst these books tend to be very actionable in their advice, the advice isn’t always going to help you as an individual as they draw on a small part of what we know or use outdated theories.
I recommend looking for books that don’t base everything on a particular focal point, choosing instead to offer ideas and points for thought that allow you some scope to experiment, or at least discuss both sides of the topic.
The Brave Athlete, calm the f**k down and rise to the occasion (Simon Marshall and Leslie Paterson)
If you’re looking for a book to help identify the root cause of endurance psychology issues, and provide actionable ideas and tools, then look no further. There’s a fair bit of “strong” language, but don’t let that put you off, the content is excellent. The idea of our athlete identity is one that both myself and clients I’ve recommended this book to have found useful and there are lots of PDF downloads to help you develop tactics to perform better.
Fast Fuel, food for running success (Renee McGregor)
McGregor offers a lot of depth around nutrition in this book. Although some of the recipes are a bit too fancy and complicated for my liking, the nutrition of them is generally pretty spot on, and would almost certainly represent an improvement for most runners. You’ll get a good understanding of what to do and why, helping you make more informed decisions going forward.
Run Better (Jean Francois-Harvey)
This book covers a wide range of topics relevant to running. It’s very informative, but has an element of fun about it, especially with the exaggerated running styles that we can no doubt identify in ourselves and others.
There are some good workouts and exercise suggestions, and the training plans are among the best I’ve seen and in my view far better than many of the generic plans you’d have to buy separately.
Endure (Alex Hutchinson)
Whilst I’m not the author’s biggest fan, this is nonetheless a very good book that I enjoyed immensely. It’s fairly study-heavy, but it’s warranted for the most part as it allows you to get a better understanding of the theories and tactics being presented. If you want to skip over the more in-depth analysis, conclusions are drawn and actions explained generally so you can do something with what you learn.
The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
If you were to read the blurb for this book, you’d likely think I’d made a mistake including it on this list but trust me, if you’re looking to improve your running in some way, you’ll benefit from reading this book. Whether it be drills, rolling, not skipping easy runs, strength work or stretching, if you action the ideas offered then you can more easily make habits to help with your application of such training. Make it a habit for consistent action and predictably good results. It’s not just about breaking “bad” habits, look for ways to instill “good” or helpful habits.
Grit (Angela Duckworth)
Want to become more determined and able to “dig in”during training runs and races? This is another book to help you here. Although only a small portion of the book references sport, the ideas and practical application can absolutely be applied to endurance running, and you have a chance to fill in “the grit scale” to see just how gritty you are.
Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk