I just learned that Malcom Gladwell is a distance runner. I saw him speak at the Philadelphia Library this week about his new book– The Outliers. He started one of his comments by saying that he was a runner and had always wondered about the reason so many great runners come from Kenya. He was fascinating. My friends and I spent the entire ride home discussing the ideas from his new book. His book asks questions that make us think…and ask more questions…
I have read two other books lately that were written by writers that run, Personal Record, A Love Affair with Running and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I liked them both for different reasons and found this review that sums that up nicely: Book Reviews
So in the spirit of Malcolm, I wonder if writers have an affinity to running?…maybe it’s because all that idle time in front of a laptop mirrors long hours of thoughtful or thoughtless running. Perhaps it requires an effort level and commitment that writers know all too well in their process. As a result of my Google research (not very scientific of me…but of true Gladwellian spirit again), I found this from an interview by Tim Adams of the Observer in the UK:
talking about Malcolm Gladwell…
He believes that his need to understand more about insistent success stories, and in particular why some people around him were more accomplished, or happier, than others, came from his fledgling running career; it was athletics that gave him his obsession with the nature of performance. As he talks, he occasionally compares running to writing; both, he suggests, are honest expressions of the application of effort.
Sometimes the same effort does not produce the same success because of other factors like talent, opportunity and funds-other ideas discussed in his book. So I begin to think about my own “long distance friends“… I used to think there was a certain personality type that I saw in runners but now I see it’s more of an attitude towards the effort required. I would not call all of them type “A” people (some are actually quite mellow) but I would say that none of them are afraid of a tough run.
