Book Review: Strides: Running Through History with an Unlikely Athlete by Benjamin Cheever

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Interesting stories of running and people met along the way

Cons: Too unfocused and rambling at times

The Bottom Line:

Run through history

With often lacking focus

Tighter is better

A Book I Won’t be Striding Back To

Because I’ve turned into a runner over the last few years, Benjamin Cheever’s book Strides: Running Through History With an Unlikely Athlete caught my interest.  And since it looked to be partly about his own adventures in running as well as a history of the sport, I was intrigued.  Unfortunately, it is often unfocused, leaving the result a disappointment.

On the history side of things, we get chapters filled with Greek myths about running, the early Olympics, how the Olympics were revived in modern times, and even some stories from recent Olympics.  When Benjamin is talking about himself, he starts with his first interest in exercising period, flashes back to his high school football career, and talks about trips he’s taken to run in France, Iraq, and Africa.

At times, the book is interesting and worth reading.  Most of those passages are the ones were Benjamin is talking about his own experiences.  While not captivating, I enjoyed hearing about them.

But when he tries to be a running historian, he wanders all over the place, mixing in people and incidents seemingly at random until it’s hard to tell exactly what the point of the chapter was.  More than once, I had to look back at the chapter title and first paragraph to see exactly what it was I thought I was reading about.  It felt like someone speaking and just letting his thoughts wander, sharing one exciting story after the next as he thought of them.

The perfect example comes in the chapter about his trip to France to run a marathon there.  He winds up on a tangent about how long the French live, and includes a story about a woman who lived to be 121.  No, she wasn’t a runner.  He never met her.  So I have to wonder why her story was included in this book at all, much less that chapter.

As the book winds down, he goes into the medical field and running, the friends he’s made along the way, and the brotherhood of runners.  I found all those chapters better put together and enjoyable.

I also really enjoyed the chapter on running and the military, which included his trip to run a 10K in Iraq in July and a trip to run with soldiers in Germany.  The people he talks to are varied and interesting, and even though there are many people mentioned, the flow of the chapter makes sense.

If the ramblings chapters had been tightened, this would have been an overall enjoyable read.  As it stands now, Strides: Running Through History With an Unlikely Athlete winds up being just middle of the pack.  Kind of like me as a runner.