What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

you have. That’s one of the few good points of growing older. It’s been a while since I’ve run the streets of Tokyo, which in Se ...

Five OCTOBER 3, 2005 • CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Even If I Had a Long Ponytail Back Then In the Boston area every summer there ar ...

dangerous pastime can be enjoyable, I frankly can’t fathom.) As if pulled in by a magnet, people gather on the banks of the rive ...

June, roughly thirty-six miles per week. I also bought some new Mizuno running shoes. At City Sports in Cambridge I tried on all ...

Indian woman out for a stroll. She’s in her sixties, I imagine, has elegant features, and is always impeccably dressed. Strangel ...

system of our own that can resist the dangerous (in some cases lethal) toxin that resides within. Do this, and we can more effic ...

“He’s no artist,” I keep on running. On October 6 I’m giving a reading at MIT, and since I’ll have to speak in front of people, ...

Next to the boathouse by the river was a homeless man wearing layers of filthy clothes. He was pushing a shopping cart and belti ...

Six JUNE 23, 1996 • LAKE SAROMA, HOKKAIDO Nobody Pounded the Table Anymore, Nobody Threw Their Cups Have you ever run sixty-two ...

actually run the course do you realize how ridiculously huge Lake Saroma is. Yuubetsu, a town on the west side of the lake, is t ...

getting through, so I decided to take off my hat, which I had on to keep the sun off me. I’d worn the hat to keep my head warm, ...

you think about it—and I did think about it—Danton and Robespierre wound up with their heads cut off. Ultimately, using every tr ...

After that, I didn’t have to think anymore. Or, more precisely, there wasn’t the need to try to consciously think about not thin ...

away the mind, and I’ll never write an original story again. Still, at this point it didn’t feel like my mind was important. The ...

just that my desire to run had decreased. At the same time that I’d lost something, something new had also taken root deep withi ...

was so central to my life. Or maybe this is simply a matter of time passing. Maybe I just had to undergo an inevitable internal ...

Seven OCTOBER 30, 2005 • CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Autumn in New York As if to lament the defeat of the Boston Red Sox in the pla ...

we ran down the road, I was struck by a thought: The racing season is upon us. Adrenaline coursed through me. I usually run alon ...

feel a little remorseful. They’re absolutely right. You can replace your breath any number of times, but not your knees. These a ...

sweat. “Thank you all very much for taking the time to attend my reading,” I began. “If I’d known there would be this many atten ...