My Favorite Running Books (That Have Actually Helped Me Improve!)
Hi! Very excited to share a few of my favorite running books with you.
(PS who was around when I would share monthly book reviews? That was a fun stage! Maybe I’ll bring it back someday..)
When I decided to take my running goals a bit more “seriously” (using that term loosely here - running is still based on fun and games for me!) I decided to start researching and reading more running books. I figured getting more formal education couldn’t hurt, right?
I still plan to hire a 1-on-1 running coach in my near future before I run another full marathon. That hasn’t happened yet because I’ve prioritized that money on other fitness costs (buying a Peloton Tread, buying a new road bike, Ironman race entry fees, etc) but I absolutely know the value of a good coach…and it will happen!
My Favorite Running Books
But for now, as I've been my own coach, I've loved diving into memoirs, how-to books, training plans, and basically anything that inspires me to continue chasing my running goals.
Here are a few of my favorite books I’ve read recently.
My Favorite Running Memoirs
Don't Call It A Comeback by Keira D'Amato
If you’re a mom, READ THIS! Oh my gosh…this book is so inspiring!
Keira D’Amato set the women’s American marathon record at age 37 after taking an 8 YEAR BREAK from running.
There are so many memoirs by Olympians and running pros who go straight from high school to college to the pro field, never taking a break and dedicating their full-time career to running. I love those stories, but they’ll never be relatable to me…
..but Keira’s story? So incredibly relatable and inspiring! She shares all about how she decided to quit running in her early 20s, started a new career, had babies…and then pursued the slow, gradual journey back into running marathons.
This book will absolutely fire you up. And like I said, it’s incredibly relatable. I mean, she shares about how she couldn’t even run a mile when she decided to start running again. And I think we can all think of moments in our lives (especially postpartum mamas!) who have experienced that sensation.
Let Your Mind Run by Deena Kastor
Deena Kastor, the GOAT of marathon running, wrote this incredibly insightful book that ties together two of my all-time favorite topics: running + mindset.
Her story is so vivid (good job to runners who hire a ghost author or co-author to help with the writing - it makes this one really good!). Her autobiography is really powerful.
And honestly, the book could stand alone just as a “here’s my life and here's how I did it” book. But she really ties in the practical, teachable stuff about overcoming limiting beliefs, lies we tell ourselves, and how to think bigger.
It’s a great book for both runners and non-runners. But if you’re hoping to get inspired about your next race or training block, definitely read this one.
Choosing to Run by Des Linden
I adore Des Linden (2X Olympian the 2018 Boston Marathon winner) for her sarcastic, non-nonsense approach to life. It totally comes through in her writing, which is something I expected from her tell-all memoir.
But what I didn’t expect was the vulnerability and candor about the health hardships she experienced along the way. No runner has a flawless journey with a perfectly linear upward trajectory - everyone stumbles.
Des stumbled to the point where she almost quit, which is…should I say it? I will… It’s really really wonderful to know that pros have that feeling, too. Haha. Pros have hard patches and nearly quit all the time!
My favorite part of this book is when she gives the play-by-play of her Boston Marathon win, which was the first time a US female won that race in 33 years! Pretty epic.
The Longest Race by Kara Goucher
I didn’t reach Kara Goucher’s memoir for a long time because I figured the entire thing was all about her former Nike coach and the doping scandals he was involved in.
And it definitely is about that…
…but it’s also Kara’s running memoir, and there’s a lot in this book that’s just about her story. I love hearing about how runners grow up, their high school experiences, their first crushes, their eating plans, etc.
She shares very openly about her disordered eating, her postpartum weeks and months, her highest highs and her lowest lows.
And, of course, this memoir shed a very important light on Nike as a company. From what I’ve read from other Nike-sponsored athletes, this book played a pivotal role in reconstructing Nike’s maternity leave and overall approach about how they sponsor and support female athletes. Because how it was handled during Kara Goucher’s time at Nike was pretty atrocious.
My Favorite Running How-To and strategy books
80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgerald
This is coming from someone (hi, me) who has no formal training in running. I was never on a cross country team, I never ran track, and I’ve never had a running coach. 100% of my running is self-taught, starting at a 5K Turkey Trot with my dad when I was 10-years-old and working up from there.
Start with 80/20 Running as your first running how-to book! I wish I had read this book years ago!
Matt Fitzgerald is such an accomplished athlete and researcher, and he writes in an easy-to-understand way without watering down any of the science.
I’ve heard over and over again that heart rate training is the way to go, and it’s more important to do your run workouts based on time instead of distance (for instance, go run a 60-minute run instead of a 6-mile run). I’d also heard people say how important it is to keep “easy days easy so hard days can be hard.”
And in all honesty, I thought I was doing that. Until I read this book and I totally changed my approach to running.
80/20 running will give you all the tools you need to properly train for any distance. This book made it all finally “click” so that I really embraced the art of the slooooooow, low-heart-rate run for 80% of my weekly mileage.
The result when I started training this way? I dropped 11 minutes off my half marathon PR in 13 months (going from a 1:47 to a 1:36.)
Run Like A Pro (Even If You're Slow) by Matt Fitzgerald
I loved 80/20 Running so much that I started gobbling up all of Matt Fitzgerald’s books! And there are a lot of them. My second favorite is Run Like A Pro because he covers all the bases of running.
In each chapter he discusses a different component of running, like pacing, diet, mindset, and recovery. He shares, based on his decades of research, about how the pros do it, and then he breaks it all down so that anyone (regardless of their pace) can adopt the principles.
It is so so practical! I got tons of great ideas out of this one book.
While he briefly touches on 80/20 running methods in this book, Matt shares a lot more details about 80/20 running in his 80/20 Running book I mentioned earlier, so I recommend reading through that book first. And after that, read through Run Like A Pro to get better versed on the other aspects of running training.
ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer and Katherine Dreyer
My favorite book for running posture! Chi running is a book based on the Tai’chi technique, so there’s a lot of mind/mental/woooo stuff in here (which you know I love!)
But the biggest takeaway from this book is all the posture stuff. I actually read this book about 5 years ago, and I STILL think about some of the posture exercises on literally every single run!
This is a pretty robust book, but if you just read the posture exercises and understood the concepts about body placement and avoiding injury, I have a feeling you’d get a lot out of it. Even if you don’t read every word.
The only thing that Matt Fitzgerald doesn’t seem to talk about much in his books is posture, so that’s where I feel like Chi Running comes in and fills in the gaps.
How To Run The Perfect Race by Matt Fitzgerald
Umm, yes. Another Matt Fitzgerald book. Sorry! Disclosure: if I ever talk about my favorite triathlon books, Fitzgerald’s 80/20 Triathlon will most likely be on that list. So just get used to seeing this guy on my Goodreads profile!
How To Run The Perfect Race is actually just a book all about pacing. And if you’re curious how he fills an entire book with just talking about pacing…I was too!
Turns out, it’s a lot more complicated than I ever knew. There’s a lot more to it than just “try to finish the race as fast as you can.”
There are so many drills and techniques available in training runs, and being able to implement those gave me a huge advantage in these early running months before I’m able to hire my own coach.
If you’re also a self-coached runner, I highly recommend this book.
Ok, want to add anything? Let me know if you have any favorite running books that have inspired, motivated, or educated you!
PS: my 2025 Dallas half marathon recap and how to choose a word of the year.