Things rarely live up to their hype. That’s what I told myself repeatedly when I first got my copy of Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. I was sure it could not live up to its mythical status. Once I opened the book, I read it in less than 24 hours. After I finished the novel, I assumed I had loved it only because I had waited so long to read it. I returned to the book yesterday and finished re-reading it about an hour ago. In case you haven’t guessed, it really is THAT GOOD! (Note: I don’t use caps and exclamation points on a regular basis.)

What makes it so great is that Parker is able to express what it means to be an obsessed runner. He doesn’t write to explain jogging (as Pearl Izumi would say); he writes about what drives the runner striving to farther or faster than he ever has before. He also tries to explain the difficulty of communicating this drive to others. “…they wanted to know “The Secret.” And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared, to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heartrending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials” (Parker 229).

Parts of Parker’s novel are hilarious. Some of it esoteric. A few spots are nostalgic. All of it is worth reading, though. It will challenge you to run harder and maybe help you understand why you want to run at all. I’ll leave you with one more line: it feels like poetry to me.

“Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free” (Parker 123).

Parker, John L. Once a Runner. Scribner: New York. 1990.