Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Dean Karnazes runs marathons to warm up. The distances that this "quintessential ultramarathoner" (Outside) covers defy the limits of human endurance: he has run 226 miles nonstop - straight through two nights without rest. Dean's intimate confessions from these mind-bending runs make this journey with him so vivid that your perception of what the human mind and body can accomplish will be forever changed." "Over the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, across Death Valley in midsummer, to the South Pole in -40-degree temperatures (and culminating in his naked run "around the world"), his adventures are surreal - and often funny. In Ultramarathon Man, you'll learn how Dean, with 4.8% body fat, divoured a pizza and cheesecake while running a marathon. And you'll also share in his bummers - like the time when, after an especially ravaging run, he ruined the company Lexus by getting violently ill all over the dashboard. And the night he fell asleep while running and woke up in the middle of the highway, eye to eye with a car's headlights." "Yet what endures is the inspiration that can be gleaned from a man who dramatically changed his life on his thirtieth birthday. Bored by his office job, drunk in a nightclub, and on the verge of cheating on his wife, Dean put down his margarita, walked outside, stripped to his jockey shorts, and began running into the night. He hasn't stopped since." The source of Dean Karnazes' raw determination isn't a search for applause or accolades. Rather, it's his defiance of limitations, and the simple realization that no matter which direction life turns, running will always take him where he wants to go.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Many would see running a marathon as the pinnacle of their athletic career; thrill-seeker Karnazes didn't just run a marathon, he ran the first marathon held at the South Pole. The conditions were extreme-"breathing the superchilled air directly [without a mask] could freeze your trachea"-yet he craved more. Also on his r sum : completing the Western States 100-mile endurance run and the Badwater 135-mile ultramarathon through Death Valley (which he won), as well as a 199-mile relay race... with only himself on his team. This running memoir (written without a coauthor) paints the picture of an insanely dedicated-some may say just plain insane-athlete. In high school, Karnazes ran cross-country track, but when his favorite coach retired, he quit the sport. Fifteen years later, on his 30th birthday (in 1992), on the verge of an early midlife crisis, he threw on his old shoes and ran 30 miles on a whim. The invigorating feeling compelled him to pursue the world of ultramarathons (any run longer than 26.2 miles). "Never," Karnazes writes, "are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in." Yet his masochism is a reader's pleasure, and Karnazes's book is intriguing. Casual runners will find inspiration in Karnazes's determination; nonathletes will have the evidence once and for all that runners are indeed a strange breed. Agent, Carole Bidnick. (Mar.) Forecast: A 60 Minutes segment on Karnazes airing in March will generate interest, as will a nine-city author tour, which he will complete by running. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Extreme-endurance athlete Karnazes chronicles his running career. It didn't begin auspiciously. After a single high-school season on the cross-country team, he quit and didn't run again until his 30th birthday. That night, after a drink at the bar, he ran 30 miles from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay-a mere sprint compared to the distances he's covered since then. Karnazes has engaged in athletic contests that test the limits of human endurance: 100-mile runs, back-to-back marathons, treks across Death Valley, and one memorable marathon across the snows of Antarctica. (His competitors used snowshoes; he wore sneakers.) With plain talk and plenty of inspirational quotes, Karnazes tells readers just what it's like to run 20 miles up a mountain side and know that 80 miles remain, how leg muscles feel when cramp strikes, and where the mind wanders when the body is punished so severely. Reading his account of his first 100-Mile Endurance Run, the reader winces as his blisters are lanced, then plugged with Super Glue, and cringes when he takes a wrong turn that adds distance to an already impossibly long trail. Karnazes does a lot of thinking about the reasons he took up such a demanding hobby. He can't say exactly why, though he surmises that it may be linked to the death of his beloved 18-year-old sister Pary in a car accident. He also points to the comfort of having clearly defined goals (races are conceptually simple affairs) and wonders whether he might have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Whatever his reasons, Karnazes has made a life for himself in which he runs thousands of miles a year, sleeps only four hours a night, holds down a day job in business, and almost never misses his son'sballgames. Charming and surprisingly quirky, providing the perfect escapist fantasy for couch potatoes and weekend warriors alike. Author tour
Home
