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A review by dunguyen
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson
4.0
After running a few marathons and many more half marathons, I'd consider myself quite knowledgable about endurance training. So when I curiously opened this book I expected to pick up a few more tricks or something that would help me run more and run faster. I didn't get this. Except I got a completely engrossing book about endurance and how we always find out new things about human performance.
This book isn't really how to run faster or further. It's about how the different systems in our bodies might work together to provide incredible endurance. In that sense, I could have been disappointed by the lack of clear and helpful advice. On the other hand, it does something much more than that. It provides me the knowledge that there are hidden depths that we might sometimes access if needed and that we are not mechanistic machines, limited by vo2max numbers or others, but that our limits are elastic and can change a lot. Hutchinson is a former runner and a journalist and is really adept at translating the scientific studies into something understandable. More than this, he's also not trying to sell you anything. If results are inconclusive, he reports that, leaving you to take your own position on it.
I highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in human performance and for anyone who's regularly running long distances, this is really a book for you!
This book isn't really how to run faster or further. It's about how the different systems in our bodies might work together to provide incredible endurance. In that sense, I could have been disappointed by the lack of clear and helpful advice. On the other hand, it does something much more than that. It provides me the knowledge that there are hidden depths that we might sometimes access if needed and that we are not mechanistic machines, limited by vo2max numbers or others, but that our limits are elastic and can change a lot. Hutchinson is a former runner and a journalist and is really adept at translating the scientific studies into something understandable. More than this, he's also not trying to sell you anything. If results are inconclusive, he reports that, leaving you to take your own position on it.
I highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in human performance and for anyone who's regularly running long distances, this is really a book for you!