Take a photo of a barcode or cover
kaylareads52 's review for:
Run With the Wind
by Shion Miura
Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the free proof in exchange for an honest review.
Three solid stars.
I'll start by saying that before receiving this ARC I was not familiar with this story in either anime or manga forms. I think that it would probably work better for me in those forms, as the illustrations and movement would be more dynamic than in the form I read it in.
However, there are some really beautiful themes and ideas here that are inspiring to me as an aspiring runner who will never reach the heights these gentlemen do in the sport. In this story, we have themes of determination, motivation, teamwork, goals, etc. Each person this 10 person relay team has their own skill level and motivation that they bring to the group, and each are committed to seeing this goal until the end, even if running wasn't a preferred activity for them to start. Through this journey, we see what determination and following through on commitments can do to one's personality and the way one sees oneself in relation to the rest of the world.
The first half of the novel is a set up and info-dump on these 10 characters and their relationships with each other in the space of this running goal that they've set mostly. We get some more in-depth glimpses of character, particularly with Kakeru and Kiyose, who are the most elite runners on the team from the start.
The goal they set up is inherently insane for some of the team members, and it was inspiring to see how commitment and follow-through improved times for the weaker runners (and by weak, I mean not automatically running at 5K under 20 minutes...which is a tough pace!). The second half focuses on racing, strategies for being most successful to their goal, and running the relay they had set out to train for--what amounts to essentially 10 half-marathons split among the 10 member team over the course of 2 days, to be completed as quickly as they can. Make no mistake--even the weak runners are more elite runners at this point (we're talking an average of 1 hour 10 min for a half).
As a runner who ran my first marathon this year, I was attracted to this story and loved the descriptions of running and how it feels to be really connected to the action and your body while running. Where this story fell more flat for me was mostly with the characters--we didn't spend a lot of time getting to know most of them, and I would have liked to know more than just what they were studying in college and how they decided to commit to seeing Kiyose's dream come to reality.
Here are some quotes I loved:
"No, it's strong," Kiyose said. "You can't pull through a long-distance race with speed alone. The weather, the course, the twists and turns of how the race unfolds, your own condition, your state of mind. You have to analyze all these different elements with composure. You have to persevere and keep moving forward even when a stretch of the race turns painful. What a distance runner must have is strength, in the true sense of the word. To be deemed strong is our honor, and that's what we strive for as we run every day."
"What a primal and solitary sport this was. No one could support a runner. It didn't matter how many people were watching or whether their teammates were running right next to them. In that moment, each runner was utterly alone, a single entity engaging the full mechanism of their body to keep going."
"The power to keep moving forward in the face of pain. The courage to keep fighting the battle within oneself. The tenacity to keep striving to overcome one's own limits rather than external records."
"What Kiyose was battling against weren't other teams. His real opponents were time and the old injury in his own leg."
Three solid stars.
I'll start by saying that before receiving this ARC I was not familiar with this story in either anime or manga forms. I think that it would probably work better for me in those forms, as the illustrations and movement would be more dynamic than in the form I read it in.
However, there are some really beautiful themes and ideas here that are inspiring to me as an aspiring runner who will never reach the heights these gentlemen do in the sport. In this story, we have themes of determination, motivation, teamwork, goals, etc. Each person this 10 person relay team has their own skill level and motivation that they bring to the group, and each are committed to seeing this goal until the end, even if running wasn't a preferred activity for them to start. Through this journey, we see what determination and following through on commitments can do to one's personality and the way one sees oneself in relation to the rest of the world.
The first half of the novel is a set up and info-dump on these 10 characters and their relationships with each other in the space of this running goal that they've set mostly. We get some more in-depth glimpses of character, particularly with Kakeru and Kiyose, who are the most elite runners on the team from the start.
The goal they set up is inherently insane for some of the team members, and it was inspiring to see how commitment and follow-through improved times for the weaker runners (and by weak, I mean not automatically running at 5K under 20 minutes...which is a tough pace!). The second half focuses on racing, strategies for being most successful to their goal, and running the relay they had set out to train for--what amounts to essentially 10 half-marathons split among the 10 member team over the course of 2 days, to be completed as quickly as they can. Make no mistake--even the weak runners are more elite runners at this point (we're talking an average of 1 hour 10 min for a half).
As a runner who ran my first marathon this year, I was attracted to this story and loved the descriptions of running and how it feels to be really connected to the action and your body while running. Where this story fell more flat for me was mostly with the characters--we didn't spend a lot of time getting to know most of them, and I would have liked to know more than just what they were studying in college and how they decided to commit to seeing Kiyose's dream come to reality.
Here are some quotes I loved:
"No, it's strong," Kiyose said. "You can't pull through a long-distance race with speed alone. The weather, the course, the twists and turns of how the race unfolds, your own condition, your state of mind. You have to analyze all these different elements with composure. You have to persevere and keep moving forward even when a stretch of the race turns painful. What a distance runner must have is strength, in the true sense of the word. To be deemed strong is our honor, and that's what we strive for as we run every day."
"What a primal and solitary sport this was. No one could support a runner. It didn't matter how many people were watching or whether their teammates were running right next to them. In that moment, each runner was utterly alone, a single entity engaging the full mechanism of their body to keep going."
"The power to keep moving forward in the face of pain. The courage to keep fighting the battle within oneself. The tenacity to keep striving to overcome one's own limits rather than external records."
"What Kiyose was battling against weren't other teams. His real opponents were time and the old injury in his own leg."