Runners of all levels and ages will likely see themselves in Benjamin Cheever's most recent book, Strides, his personal memoir and paean to running.

Cheever, the son of famous American author James Cheever, comes to running as a pudgy, 28-year-old, underachieving copy editor at Readers Digest struggling with a troubled marriage.

Then a one-mile run at a local park leaves him exhausted yet transformed. "I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, my face crimson with the effort, and I thought: I ran a mile. Impossible."

The 5-foot 7-inch, 170-pound Cheever soon sheds 15 pounds, which catches the attention of friends and the company's top editors.

Sound like somebody you know?

Despite all of his successes--including some 40 marathons and his share of sub-3 finishes--Cheever, it seems, never really outruns his athletic shortcomings and the specter of his famous father.

"During one away game, I was sent out to run a button hook," Cheever writes of high-school football exploits. "That play was filmed. . . . The football came flying into the picture, struck my chest, and then hit the ground."

Cheever knowingly leaves out the tedious details of his training and mile-by-mile accounts of races to make space for a few poignant moments that seem to reach deeper into the shared experience of runners.

Needing to break three hours in the New York City Marathon in 1978 to qualify for his first trip to Boston, Cheever--in an ill- fitting, $18 pair of Brooks' Vantage--crosses the finish line so close to the cutoff he must wait inside the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall for his time to be posted.

The following spring, Cheever's father brings the entire family to the Ritz-Carlton for the Boston Marathon to celebrate the athletic son he always wanted--only to famously upstage him.

(As for training logs, Sir Roger Bannister, the first runner to break the 4-minute mile, rarely ran for more than 45 minutes a day.)

Cheever no doubt takes pride in being in the company of runners.

He laughs at the typical, Monday morning response from coworkers about marathoning: "Did you win?" He shares a familiar grocery-store conversation about the marathon T-shirt he is wearing and embraces the unofficial runners' uniform of loose fitting jeans and Nike Triax watch--seen at airport baggage claims around the world. Thank goodness he stops short of admiring runners who wear their medals aboard the Tuesday morning red eye from Boston to the District.

Though largely a memoir, Strides: Running Through History with an Unlikely Athlete is also a travelogue and history lesson with U.S. soldiers running in Baghdad, within miles of the cradle of civilization, and a journey to Rift Valley to attempt to learn why African runners now dominate long-distance racing.

Cheever's reporting skills are at their best during the chapters on the origins of running, including the dubious life of runner Spyridon Louis, and reports of prostitutes racing for money through Rome in the Middle Ages. However, the book at times becomes mired in details such as an account of the 1335 siege of Arezzo, and his over-reliance on all things New York.