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"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"
A Review of a Book by Haruki MurakamiBy Joseph Weber
March/April 2009
For the Washington Running Report
The running memoir of novelist Haruki Murakami is perhaps best described as one of those long training runs taken in a strange city-full of unexpected turns, detours, and surprises.
Take Murakami's first attempt at a marathon in 1983, as described in the 2008 memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running."
Invited to Greece by a men's magazine to do a travelogue piece, Murakami, the author of more than 12 book and translated in 42 languages, decides to retrace the original marathon course. His observations are hilarious yet insightful enough to earn the respect of serious runners.
Murakami describes the ancient road from Athens to Marathon as now little more than a "dreary commuter path." Along the way he encounters a dead dog, double-parked cars that force him into traffic, and more than a few stares from the café crowd.
"Can't imagine many of them have ever seen an Oriental man running down the streets of predawn Athens," Murakami recalls. "Like they're witnessing a scene from the backwater of history."
Everything is going well until about mile 19 when the onshore winds begin to blow and Murakami begins to recite the universal credo of the marathoner shuffler, "Just focus on moving my feet, one after another. That's the only thing that matters."
At mile 23, hilarity ensues as Murakami's fatigue turns to anger-directed at everybody from the innocent sheep along the road to the photographer clicking away inside the van. His faith-and his sanity-are restored moments after finishing when an old man snips some flowers from a potted plant and congratulates him. Within days, Murakami is deconstructing and plotting his next race.
Still, Murakami's descriptions of some of his 25 marathons, as noted earlier, are not without some unnecessary detours, even dead ends-including his page-long apology because Marathon Avenue in Greece is technically about a mile short of the official 26.2-mile course.
Readers surely would have let him slide with a quick explanation and mea culpa.
Murakami, born in 1949, began running seriously in his early 30s, about the same time he traded in his bar in Japan for the writer's life. Like many runners, he arrives at the sport in desperate need of a lifestyle change: in his case smoking 60 cigarettes a day and staying up all night.
"My fingers were yellow," Murakami recalls. "And my whole body reeked of smoke. This can't be good for me."
Eschewing the wisdom that authors must take the hard-living approach to life like Hemmingway and Raymond Carver, Murakami decides that running and writing are connected and that clean living will be the key to success.
(Murakami takes his title from Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.)
We should all be so lucky: After writing for several hours in the morning, Murakami naps in the afternoon, occasionally works out twice a day, and appears to divide his time largely between Hawaii and lecturing gigs around Boston. His biggest month, he tells us, is 186 miles, or roughly 46 miles a week.
Murakami clearly takes a Zen-like approach to running and life in general, which gives the book a gentle, easy pace that should be a welcome relief for runners deep into marathon training, logs, how-to books, and videos.
He runs because he likes running. To those who don't, he simply suggests why continue with "pointless torture."
His post-race analysis of one disappointing marathon goes simply: "Not enough training, not enough training and not enough training."
Murakami's secret to success: talent.
The book at times also has a melancholy tone.
An ultra-marathon in 1996 nearly breaks him. "I had lost something. . . . Just like when you lose that initial crazy feeling you have when you fall in love."
It would take Murakami years to recapture his passion. But as he approaches 60 and the book comes to a close, Murakami, like a true Zen master, accepts the slow decline.
"I think I'll keep going as long as I can," he writes. "I am, after all, a long-distance runner."