Matt Whyman's book falls loosely into that category of "my running journey". Some in this category are classic must-reads, and are treasured members of my library: Markus Torgeby, Dean Karnazes, Boff Whalley, Mike Cudahy, Charlie Spedding. And, latterly, Damian Hall. Their books are all about more than the running, and often, in differing ways, get to the heart of the somewhat obsessive, sometimes self-destructive nature of the activity. There are many others, of course, some of which are ghost written or highly edited accounts by "elite athletes", which can be a fascinating insight into the elevated world of elite competition. But there's also a fair amount of dross out there, occasionally self-published accounts of what might have been an interesting tale by an amateur runner, or hastily written accounts by a "celebrity runner". They are best not named and shamed, particularly by a very occasional running blogger such as myself, who doesn't even edit his posts seriously.
So where does "Failure is an Option" fit into the pantheon, and is it worth a read?
It's fair to say that, like myself, Matt Whyman is essentially a running "nobody" who has wandered through life with running as a constant thread from a relatively young age. Big goals get set and obsessed about. Relative failures and successes follow. Lessons get learned or they don't when they should have been. The book has it's central theme an audacious attempt to complete the Dragons Back 6 day Mountain journey across Wales. It is extremely topical as Matt was a starter in the latest, infamous, heatwave dominated, edition of the race. This is just one of many challenges in running that Matt has set himself and prepared poorly for in decades as a runner. (Hint: Matt, if you ever get to read this, just get yourself a coach, and stop being so stubborn. It took me 33 years, but now, 5 years later, it seems so obvious.) Throughout the book, Matt weaves his running story into his private life and he gives a feel of how his family and professional lives interact with his running. There are few traumatic incidents, with one notable exception (no spoilers!), and Matt lives in "comfortable" South East England. So when I got my review copy a few days ago, I immediately suspected that the book might be "one of those".
Happily it is not, and I whizzed through it in little over 24 hours, much as I would a short novel. And therein lies the secret as to why Matt's story is well worth a read. Matt's day job is as writer, a novellist in fact, and his obvious skill in making his running book flow is to leave out much that the rest of us would include. Also his prose is sharp, and some of his insights from "middle of the pack" are thought provoking and very relatable to my own experiences as an aging (more ag-ed these days) runner. For me the book was very easy to pick up and actually quite hard to put down. I thoroughly enjoyed it and needed little time to marshall my thoughts before posting this review.
Available direct by pre-order from the publisher with a nice little discount on 14th April.
https://www.v-publishing.co.uk/books/books-new-and-coming-soon/failure-is-an-option/
Evolved to run. Born to run. Older, greyer, still running.
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