Don's Diary

Are You a Jerk?

A book by John Brant

245 pages, published by Ballantine Books

Julius Achon, 12, in strife-torn Uganda, is kidnapped with 14 others by a rebel band He escapes. He self-coaches to a full scholarship in the best prep school. At 17, he is the best Ugandan distance runner, winning world junior titles. On a scholarship at George Mason University, he sets an NCAA record. He competes for Uganda at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. With his Ugandan family in dire circumstances, he is signed as an assistant coach (pacer for prep prince Galen Rupp) with Salazar and the Nike Oregon Project at a non princely $1500 per month and hence obliged to work an extra four hours daily at the Nike employee store… What a story!!! Brant is one of our best on track, oddly all his books with Salazar being a key character.

Breaking news from the British Journal of Sports Medicine: Any Amount Of Running Linked To Significantly Lower Risk Of Death

Roger Robinson: Peter Snell

He was awesome. I saw him race in 1962.

Grit; The Power of Passion and Perseverance

A book by Angela Duckworth, 282 pages, published by Scribner, 2016

Grit is a contemporary classic, a must read for parents, teachers, athletes and others with a passion for improvement in themselves and others. It makes a strong case that genes and talent is not enough, that passion and perseverance, or grit, is essential to reach your goals and even dazzle. We see the struggles of first year plebes at West Point, National Spelling Bee finalists, runners, renown Manhattan smarties, and coach Pete Carroll. …Compelling and inspirational stuff.

More from Jonathon Swift: His Life and His World:

…he would work for two hours and then take a break by running to the top of a nearby hill and down again. “this exercise he performed in about six minutes; backwards and forwards it was about a half a mile. …in his sixties, a rainstorm drove them inside. …(he) then ran up the great stairs, down one pair of back stairs, up another, in so violent a manner I could not help expressing my uneasiness… she said it was a customary exercise for him when the weather did not permit him to walk abroad. For the rest of his life Swift’s doctors kept trying to persuade him to stop.

The Race to Build the World’s Fastest Running Shoe. As mentioned several months ago I was allowed to shop at the Nike employee store in Beaverton. The Nike ZoomX Vaporfly NEXT%, retailing at $250, was not available. As indicated in the article, the sales guy confirmed the pack down, actual 4% advantage disappears at or before 150 miles of wear.

Results and photos

The winning girls team is extremely young. Read

Summit, our favorite girls team, finished second. Story

Also reading Jonathon Swift: His Life and His World. …Deane Swift the younger, one of the few relatives he liked, heard that “he was prodigiously fond of rambling,” and that his stamina, which remained impressive right into old age, had been extraordinary then. “He ran like a buck from one place to another. Gates, stiles, and quicksets (hedges) he no more valued than if they had been so many straws.”

Alex Hutchinson: 2019 Holiday Book List

Steve Magness/Brad Stulberg: Top Books of 2019 for Performance and Wellbeing

For the first time in my life, I’m reading James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. 1243 pages. It’s terrific. And a marvelous, safe soporific.

Arbitrator rules that Vin Lananna be reinstated as USATF president immediately

Peloton exercise bike ad mocked as being ‘sexist’ and ‘dystopian’