Why do people buy and read books about running?

Because they want to buy and read them, it's their preference. You have a problem with people choosing their way of acquiring knowledge? Get a life.

If you already possess the wisdom of the ages about running, you can recognize it on this site. If you don't, then this site is marginally helpful at best.

Maybe some people don't look like staring at a computer screen all day.

I can't wait till Bekele makes a book about his biography. I would buy it in a heart beet literally. If you want to know about running, it would be best knowing what he knows, and trying to replicate him(of course nobody will ever be as good as him, but we just have to be our bests). I haven't brought much, because it is fun to come to letsrun to learn about running. I also enjoy sharing my 2 cents in it.

Lucas Tanner wrote:

Anyone who is interested in learning about interval training, tempo runs, etc. can learn all there is to know within a very short period of time just by brousing websites and forums like this one every so often. Sorry for the cliche but it ain't rocket science. Further, no one had discovered some revolutionary training method that will make a runner of average ability into an elite. Why are people so gullible?

"fifteen hundred years ago every body knew the earth was the centre of the universe. five hundred years ago every body knew the earth was flat and fifteen minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet. imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

this is a quote from the film Men in Black (1997) starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, but the sentiment it expresses applies to many other fields. when I started reading about human physiology and athletic training the prevailing wisdom was that muscles were formed of two types of fibers called slow twitch and fast twitch and lactic acid was thought to be a poison that hindered running and caused muscle cramps and needed to be eliminated from muscles as quickly as possible. today, largely thanks to advances in the science of physiology and human biology we think of muscle types as existing on a spectrum, and lactic acid is known to be an important component of muscle fuel and its levels are used as markers of progressive stages in the metabolism of ATP. anyone who thinks they can keep up to date with these advances in our knowledge and understanding by "brousing [sic] websites and forums like this one every so often," is sorely deluded and bound to be disappointed.

a second reason is that different people learn in different ways and sometimes it takes two or three different explanations before the reader truly understands what they have read. in mathematics, they refer to this point of true understanding as the "aha moment" and when a teacher brings her student to this point they both derive a huge amount of satisfaction from that shared achievement. reading widely can do that, "brousing" every so often, will not.

a third reason is that some explanations are just plain wrong. learning to tell the difference between seemingly plausible explanations and truly believable ones takes a level of understanding and knowledge that merely, "brousing [sic] websites and forums like this one every so often," will not achieve.

and finally, I find your implication that folks who read books can only be "gullible" to be highly offensive.

Cheers.

There's a lot of crap online, too. You want to find incorrect information about running and training? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. A noob would be better off getting a book for that reason alone rather than trying to siphon through the BS.

Also, I like to take a book with me to practice since I am not tied to my phone/internet like most millennials. Info at my fingertips without having to charge my device. Some of the best days of my life are when I forget my phone at home in the morning.

As owner of about two dozen running books and an author myself, here are two reasons I buy books.

A book takes about 8 to 13 hours to read. Imagine how much it would cost to hire Jack Daniels for that long, yet you get the end result of literally hundreds of hours of his experience in an organized, written book for less than the cost of a pizza.

A book can contain individual bits of wisdom that create those "aha moments" where you realize something important for the first time. That one bit of information more than justifies the cost of the book. I had one of those moments when reading Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training for Runners. It changed approach to the last few weeks before a major race. It wasn't just the information itself, it was the way the previous chapters framed the discussion to provide context for his point that created the aha moment for me.

Over the years I have accumulated a large number of books on running. That being said, the ones I have actually read are almost exclusively biographies or autobiographies (they have inspired me to get off the sofa and back out on the roads a fair number of times).

I haven't read an "advice" book since Marty Liquori's Guide for Elite Runners (this was around the time that I realized I was probably not going to be an elite runner). The one bit of helpful advice that I gleaned from Jim Fixx's bestseller "Running" back in the 1970s, was that if a dog starts chasing you, pretend to pick up a rock and they will more than likely run the other direction. This has worked for me 90 percent of the time. The other times I just had to run like hell.

Compare and contrast coaching strategies, workouts, training philosophies of elites. See what worked for some people/teams, see another team doing something different. Compare X coaching philosophy to whatever coaching you are currently getting, and think about your own results. I'm guessing you don't see the point in keeping a training journal either.

Okay, I'll bight. Some of us like books. If we also like running we're likely to like books about running. Not all running books are about various types of training. Many are biographies or narratives. Finally, and I think this is a big one, you mention gullibility. If you're gullible you are much more likely to get suckered into a bad idea on the internet than you will from a publication. Anyone can put anything onto the internet. Publishers, on the other hand, have editors who are knowledgeable about the subject of a potential publication and can not publish incorrect information.

Banana Bread wrote:

I can't wait till Bekele makes a book about his biography. I would buy it in a heart beet literally.

I don't think you could complete this transaction in approximately one second.

I buy and read a lot of books myself, just not about running. My point is that the basic principles of training are all there is to know. Of course each individual has to learn what works best for him or her regarding high vs moderate mileage, how slow easy runs should be and all of that on a trial and error basis. But when I read a book, I much prefer something more substantial than someone's sure fire plan for getting a new PR when the reality is that they don't have anything to offer that actually works that isn't already generally known.

A book is a useful media format for sustained description of complex ideas. To understand Daniels well enough to adapt his principles to your own needs or someone else's, for example, you need to read the whole book. You can't get that by just plugging numbers into his online calculator or reading blog posts or forums, as useful as all those things are.

Because they can you illiterate clown.

I don't know why people read books about running. What really surprises me though is that they created a whiskey named after a running book.

Hardloper wrote:

I don't know why people read books about running. What really surprises me though is that they created a whiskey named after a running book.

Thanks. I had always wondered why so many people on this forum reference a certain whiskey when discussing their training.

i disagree. a critical part of a program was obtained by doing it, not browsing. i have been running for 43 years. i never was a really good runner because i didn't start until i was 32. but i have run a 2:32 marathon, worked full time, and have never been coached except by some great books on training. in my 60's i was ranked 37th world wide 60-64 age group. by far the best training program for me was "Jeff Galloway's Book on running" . the critical part was doing mile repeats starting with 2 or 3 and then building up to 1 x 13 with a lap jog (i sometimes walked the lap). there is a gradual speed gain per lap just due to perceived effort but it is unimportant. confidence improves with every session and that confidence provides a very positive feedback. you will not get it by browsing. the program is tough mentally as well a physically. at the end you were running 5 times the repeats while maintaining a sustainable recovery throughout. improvements showed in shorter distance races prior to the marathon. i lowered my previous best by 5 minutes and it was not due to course or the weather. at 49 i used the same program and ran 2:47. i think my pace for the repeats at 37 years old was about 5:40/mile and about 6/mile at 49 but i am unsure as i never kept a log.

Galloway wrote other books but that first book was good for me. i did run against him once at the charleston distance classic. of course he finished ahead of me but so did bill rogers and frank shorter. i still have the polished lump of coal i won for finishing 5th in same age group as them.

i never ever could have reached my goals without that book. after the 2:32 i tried to go under 2:30 but due to a lack of speed getting my 10k to about 31 minutes was a serious mental barrier. it is good to do the plan with someone else who has similar ability.

Well, I have to admit that you makes pretty strong case against my thesis. And it certainly is hard to argue against success.

Lucas Tanner wrote:

I buy and read a lot of books myself, just not about running. My point is that the basic principles of training are all there is to know. Of course each individual has to learn what works best for him or her regarding high vs moderate mileage, how slow easy runs should be and all of that on a trial and error basis. But when I read a book, I much prefer something more substantial than someone's sure fire plan for getting a new PR when the reality is that they don't have anything to offer that actually works that isn't already generally known.

You didn't draw that distinction in your original post. To some extent, I agree with you. The most useful "How to" running books I've read have been "How They Train" books, Fred Wilt's, Joe Henderson's, gee, Jack Pfieffer's (? it's on a shelf somewhere,) Ted Brock's, I think that's the collection. I found it more useful to see what successful runners actually did rather than someone's plan for what someone wanting to be successful should do. And narratives are my preferred ones by far.

That said, there is still some value in reading an actual publication that others, who presumably know something about the topic at hand, have read, critiqued and judged worthy of publication and you don't always get that on the internet. Some years back there was a summary and "explanation" of Arthur Lydiard's training that someone started a thread about here. It is still referenced now and again. Lydiard was not happy about it though as it misrepresented some of his ideas. But nothing could stop it from showing up here.