Long Distance: Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously

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Harmony/Rodale, Oct 26, 2010 - Sports & Recreation - 224 pages
A new edition of a classic book about what it takes to be a world-class athlete and where the true meaning of endurance can be found.

At 37, the celebrated writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben took a break from the life of the mind to put himself to the ultimate test: devoting a year to train as a competitive cross-country skier. Consulting with personal trainers, coaches, and doctors at the US Olympic Center, he followed the rigorous training regimen of a world-class athlete.

Along the way, he learned to cope with his physical limitations and, when his father was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor, discovered something about the real meaning of endurance.

Told with his trademark intelligence, humor, and honesty, Long Distance is an insightful examination of the culture and mind-set of endurance athletes, and a moving and inspiring meditation on finding balance in our often harried lives.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
15
Section 3
37
Section 4
49
Section 5
61
Section 6
73
Section 7
83
Section 8
97
Section 11
131
Section 12
141
Section 13
153
Section 14
165
Section 15
175
Section 16
189
Section 17
205
Section 18
211

Section 9
109
Section 10
117
Section 19
216
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Bill McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including The End of NatureEnough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, and Deep Economy. A former staff writer for The New Yorker, he writes often for Harper's MagazineNational Geographic, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, a global-warming awareness campaign that in October 2009 coordinated what CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.

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