Published in 2023
247 pages
Zoë Rom is Editor In Chief of Trail Runner magazine and Managing Editor of Women’s Running. When she’s not running, she’s writing or reading. You can catch her doing stand-up and improv in the Roaring Fork Valley with Consensual Improv. Southern story-teller turned mountain-dweller, she starts every day with a cup of strong coffee and a good story. Her work has appeared on NPR’s Marketplace, Morning Edition and in REI Co-op Journal, Discover, Rock & Ice, Trail Runner, Backpacker, and Threshold Podcast.
Tina Muir is the founder and CEO of Running for Real, a support network and community for runners; a mother of two; and a former elite runner turned sustainability advocate. She hosts the Running For Real podcast, a collection of conversations about running, the climate emergency, and social justice, and co-hosts Running Realized, a podcast that provides a space to explore difficult subjects and offers insights to create meaningful change in the running world and beyond.
What is this book about?
Becoming a Sustainable Runner is not just another running guide on developing the physical attributes to run faster or longer. What it will help you achieve is a newfound purpose that merges your passion for running with your concern for your health, your community, and the environment. It weaves together concepts of internal and external sustainability in a way that will help you run, think, and act in a way that is in line with your values.
Divided into three parts, the book begins by giving you the tools to find excitement and joy in your runs and sustain your running for the long term. These include acknowledging stressors, setting new challenges, changing where you run and who you run with, and prioritizing physical and mental rest to minimize the risk of injury, illness, and burnout.
Next, discover ways to enrich your running through personal connections. Learn about the importance of joining or forming a running community that fosters comradery with others who believe in the power of service and in giving back in meaningful and impactful ways.
Then, tap into your passion to sustain our planet. Know what it means to be an eco-conscious traveler, make environmentally friendly choices about where you run and the products you use, and reduce your carbon footprint through the 3R’ reducing, reusing, and recycling.
Throughout the book you’ll enjoy stories from the authors about their personal challenges and triumphs as runners and stewards of the environment. Quotes and insights from well-known runners who are also climate change and environmental justice advocates underscore the breadth and depth of the issues facing us all.
As a runner, you have the power to change the world for the better. Becoming a Sustainable Runner provides actionable steps to help you do just that.
