Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner by Dean Karnazes

From the Publisher

As an athlete, ultrarunning legend (Men's Journal) Dean Karnazes has run 350 miles without rest and is probably the first person to eat an entire pizza while running. As an author, he has inspired countless couch potatoes to get off the couch, cancel the cable, and start running. In September, Karnazes embarks on his most monumental feat ever, The North Face Endurance 50. Beginning September 17 (at the Lewis & Clark Marathon in St. Charles, Missouri), Dean will run fifty marathons (each marathon is 26.2 miles) in fifty states on fifty consecutive days. The North Face Endurance 50 will culminate with Dean's run in the New York City Marathon on November 5.

Visit www.thenorthface.com/theendurance50 for a list of event dates and cities, and to keep tabs on Dean as he gets ready for September. Promotional blow-in cards for this unprecedented run, sure to receive extraordinary media coverage, are inserted in this paperback edition of Ultramarathon Man, which also includes a new epilogue with Dean's diet and training tips.

Publishers Weekly

Many would see running a marathon as the pinnacle of their athletic career; thrill-seeker Karnazes didn't just run a marathon, he ran the first marathon held at the South Pole. The conditions were extreme-"breathing the superchilled air directly [without a mask] could freeze your trachea"-yet he craved more. Also on his r sum : completing the Western States 100-mile endurance run and the Badwater 135-mile ultramarathon through Death Valley (which he won), as well as a 199-mile relay race... with only himself on his team. This running memoir (written without a coauthor) paints the picture of an insanely dedicated-some may say just plain insane-athlete. In high school, Karnazes ran cross-country track, but when his favorite coach retired, he quit the sport. Fifteen years later, on his 30th birthday (in 1992), on the verge of an early midlife crisis, he threw on his old shoes and ran 30 miles on a whim. The invigorating feeling compelled him to pursue the world of ultramarathons (any run longer than 26.2 miles). "Never," Karnazes writes, "are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in." Yet his masochism is a reader's pleasure, and Karnazes's book is intriguing. Casual runners will find inspiration in Karnazes's determination; nonathletes will have the evidence once and for all that runners are indeed a strange breed. Agent, Carole Bidnick. (Mar.) Forecast: A 60 Minutes segment on Karnazes airing in March will generate interest, as will a nine-city author tour, which he will complete by running. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Extreme-endurance athlete Karnazes chronicles his running career. It didn't begin auspiciously. After a single high-school season on the cross-country team, he quit and didn't run again until his 30th birthday. That night, after a drink at the bar, he ran 30 miles from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay-a mere sprint compared to the distances he's covered since then. Karnazes has engaged in athletic contests that test the limits of human endurance: 100-mile runs, back-to-back marathons, treks across Death Valley, and one memorable marathon across the snows of Antarctica. (His competitors used snowshoes; he wore sneakers.) With plain talk and plenty of inspirational quotes, Karnazes tells readers just what it's like to run 20 miles up a mountain side and know that 80 miles remain, how leg muscles feel when cramp strikes, and where the mind wanders when the body is punished so severely. Reading his account of his first 100-Mile Endurance Run, the reader winces as his blisters are lanced, then plugged with Super Glue, and cringes when he takes a wrong turn that adds distance to an already impossibly long trail. Karnazes does a lot of thinking about the reasons he took up such a demanding hobby. He can't say exactly why, though he surmises that it may be linked to the death of his beloved 18-year-old sister Pary in a car accident. He also points to the comfort of having clearly defined goals (races are conceptually simple affairs) and wonders whether he might have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Whatever his reasons, Karnazes has made a life for himself in which he runs thousands of miles a year, sleeps only four hours a night, holds down a day job in business, and almost never misses his son'sballgames. Charming and surprisingly quirky, providing the perfect escapist fantasy for couch potatoes and weekend warriors alike. Author tour

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