Eulalia reviewed Mindful Running by Mackenzie L. Havey
Improved my running and maybe my entire life too
5 stars
When I picked up this book I was a person who was deeply frustrated by my running exercises. Focusing on my finishing time, which I'd decided was my measurement of fitness, so that every time I had to slow down to catch my breath felt like failure. Worst of all I found that I wasn't improving at all since day one. I was rubbish, useless, incurably unfit. I picked this book up from my library it changed everything. Now I'm a person who runs because it feels good to move my body, to gently push it to great lengths, to see the slight seasonal changes in nature. Sometimes I pause to smell the hawthorn flowers or watch all the butterflys on the big buddleia bush because the time doesn't matter anymore, my enjoyment has priority. My fitness tracker still times me incidently, and reports that I'm faster than ever before. …
When I picked up this book I was a person who was deeply frustrated by my running exercises. Focusing on my finishing time, which I'd decided was my measurement of fitness, so that every time I had to slow down to catch my breath felt like failure. Worst of all I found that I wasn't improving at all since day one. I was rubbish, useless, incurably unfit. I picked this book up from my library it changed everything. Now I'm a person who runs because it feels good to move my body, to gently push it to great lengths, to see the slight seasonal changes in nature. Sometimes I pause to smell the hawthorn flowers or watch all the butterflys on the big buddleia bush because the time doesn't matter anymore, my enjoyment has priority. My fitness tracker still times me incidently, and reports that I'm faster than ever before. I'm trying not to care about that but I'm secretly thrilled! Amazingly, the author predicted this. I liked this book as it uses proven science and lists resources and avoids being too fluffy and wishy-washy like some mindfulness/self-help books can be. Some of the chapters are targetted towards the marathon-type runners but there still some wisdom in them for weekend-type runners