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I Run, Therefore I Justify Subsequent Tomfoolery
By bukkhead | September 28, 2007
BOOK REVIEW: ‘I RUN, THEREFORE I AM… NUTS’
by Bob Schwartz
244 pages
Published by Human Kinetics.
Bob Schwartz is the so-called “Dave Barry of Running.” Anyone who writes non-fiction columns in a humorous vein is the “Dave Barry” of that thing. I think it would be great if someone reviewed all of these Dave Barrys, and did so in a humorous vein, and then he could be the Dave Barry of Dave Barry writers. And then Russell would ask: does the Dave Barry of Dave Barry writers write about himself? What about the Barber of Paradox?
So how about this: I will be the “Dave Barry of Beginning Runners.” (Got to have a niche.) Here’s my first attempt. I am going to write about my experiences with the book, in a humorous vein, juxtaposed with my own running experience. Boy oh boy, I bet you can’t wait.
The book is a collection of essays, or columns as it were, with topics ranging from Training to Racing to Recovery. For the most part, Mr. Schwartz gives the impression that he is absolutely dedicated to running, and absolutely horrible at it. Running is his life, and he has the bruises and scars to show for it. (The same is true for me—but not for running. Sex. I am absolutely dedicated to it, and absolutely horrible at it. The former is true because I have a Y chromosome. The latter, well, I’m sure its genetic too. But I digress.)
I purchased the book because, as I am a beginning runner, I decided the book would be my “reward” for getting through a four-week running program. And I did, too, by george. Also by ignoring pain. And hunger. My evenings are usually busy with social obligations, and days are busy with that niggling little distraction called work, so I’ve been getting up at 5 am to run.
Which is why the book’s title spoke to me. I think, before there were numbers, the caveman word for 5 am was “the time only insane people and Grug who drinks too much Hrrgra are awake. “ (Those caveman, linguists tell us, had a pretty sophisticated vocabulary.) Getting up at 5 am is clearly nuts.
But I did it, and I bought the book, and now I know what they mean when they say “running is it’s own reward.” Because if I had know the book was going to be more or less the same column written over and over again, I would have passed. And stayed passed out at 5 am.
It’s not that Bob is a bad writer. And it’s not that he’s unfunny. Its just that the joke of being addicted to something bad for you wears thin after 10 pages. And with 220 to go after that, the book becomes a marathon of Davy Barry-esqueness. Maybe that’s appropriate. Or maybe I would have laughed more if I, too, were a veteran runner, and could identify more with Bob.
Or maybe if he’d ended each one with the signature Dave Barry one-line zinger. That would have been really nuts!
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