For a book with running in the title, it’s barely about running. Instead, it’s a weirdly arranged memoir that flip flops between an ultra marathon, the authors time in a psychiatric hospital and strange, borderline delusional life stories.

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GOODREADS | AMAZON

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Sometimes I think the point of all my running is to remember what it feels like to stop and rest.

• You suffer less when you know there’s always beauty somewhere around the corner.

• BDNF is a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. It helps new cells grow in a region of the brain called the hippocampus that underpins the capacity to learn and remember. Scientists tested this on rats. After depressed mice ran out to play, they had more BDNF in their brains. Further research has shown that running has a similar affect on human brains. When you run, you remember what it feels like to be free.

• We run back to disaster to remind ourselves that we’re strong enough to bear it.

• Nothing good can come from comparing your misery to someone worse off and judging your own as unworthy. Look to others in pain and understand that nobody is spared. Use that awareness to cultivate compassion and the energy you need to commit yourself to the liberation of all sentient beings.

• We fall down, but we get up. For a saint is just a sinner, who fell down and got up.

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