And Then The Vulture Eats You by John L. Parker Jr.

SUMMARY: Great collection of ultramarathon stories!

This book it out of print, and not easy to find. But I checked Amazon, and there was a copy listed. Yet everytime I tried to order it, it said no more copies were availble. Then a copy showed up for $2. I ordered that, only to have it cancelled. I finally managed to find a copy of the book for $20. I was more than happy to pay the $20 to get it. This is a great price compared to the $70 copies I have found.
Anyway, I was looking forward to reading the book after seeing how highly recommended it was. The book contained stories by some big names in running: James E. Shapiro, Don Kardong, Kenny Moore, Hal Higdon, Ed Ayres, Tom Hart, Mark Will-Weber, and John L. Parker Jr.
The ultramarathons aren’t all your tradition 100 mile runs either. It starts off with a 6 day race (144 hours) story by James Shapiro. The next story is by Don Kardong about the Le Grizz 50 miler. This is followed by Kenny Moore describing The Great Hawaiian Footrace and 18 days of running 313 miles. Then comes Hal Higdon describing a run across Indiana. Ed Ayres dscribes his failed attempt at the Western States 100. Tom Hart describes his running 37 miles just to see if he could do it. Mark Will-Weber writes about a five stage race in England named Tour Of Tameside. John L. Parker Jr, closes out the book with a story about a race called The Ultimate Runner which consists of running a 10k, 400 meters, 100 meters, 1 mile, then a marathon.
All of the stories were good. I am sure I will be coming back and re-reading this book often.
Read more…

Posted by Rob in Reviews on October 29th, 2006 | No Comments