A review by athst
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson

4.0

This book is a good survey of the history and current state of science around human endurance. For that, it was worth a read. You learn about all the factors, such as oxygen, food, pain, muscle, and, most importantly, the mind. It’s recent enough that it covers topics such as Eliud Kipchoge’s first 2-hour marathon attempt and low carb, high fat diets.

The problem with the book is that it the author just provides a survey of all the things but doesn’t weave it all together into something more cohesive with a strong point of view. Instead, I often felt like I was reading magazine articles instead of a whole book on the topic. I appreciated the author’s objectivity and how focused on science it was, but that approach unfortunately made it less fun than it could have been.