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Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon
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Simon & Schuster 2015
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Description
"Essential reading for every runner." —Men's Fitness

"Compelling...As becomes clear not long after its starting gun, this book transcends the search for a two-hour marathon." —The Washington Post
Two hours to cover twenty-six miles and 385 yards. It is running's Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. But now we can glimpse the mountaintop. The sub-two hour marathon will require an exceptional combination of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than anyone who has run before. So who will it be?

In this spellbinding book, journalist Ed Caesar takes us into the world of elite marathoners: some of the greatest runners on earth. Through the stories of these rich characters, like Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai, around whom the narrative is built, Caesar traces the history of the marathon as well as the science, physiology, and psychology involved in running so fast for so long. And he shows us why this most democratic of races retains its brutal, enthralling appeal—and why we are drawn to test ourselves to the limit.

Two Hours is a book about a beautiful sport few people understand. It takes us from big-money races in the United States and Europe to remote villages in Kenya. It's about talent, heroism, and refusing to accept defeat. It is a book about running that is about much more than running. It is a human drama like no other.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
10/27/2015
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781451685862
ASIN:
B00UDCNMFU
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Ed Caesar. (2015). Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. Simon & Schuster.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Ed Caesar. 2015. Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. Simon & Schuster.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Ed Caesar, Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. Simon & Schuster, 2015.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Ed Caesar. Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon. Simon & Schuster, 2015.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 18:43:52
Date Updated:
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      • bioText: Ed Caesar is an author and a contributing writer to The New Yorker. Before joining The New Yorker, Caesar wrote stories for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Outside, The Smithsonian Magazine, Esquire, The Sunday Times (London), British GQ, and The Independent. He has reported from a wide range of countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, Russia, and Iran. He has won a number of awards for his journalism, including the 2014 Journalist of the Year from the Foreign Press Association of London. His first book, Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon, was awarded a Cross Sports Book of the Year award.
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shortDescription
"Essential reading for every runner" (Men's Fitness), Two Hours is about the world's greatest distance runners and one of the most courageous and gifted athletes of the modern era as he attempts to beat the marathon world record.
Two hours to cover twenty-six miles and 385 yards. It is running's Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. Running a sub-two hour marathon will require an exceptional combination of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than anyone who has run before. So who will it be?

"Capturing the lives, training routines, and proud ancestry of these amazing runners, not to mention the pitfalls and dangers they face before and after they achieve fame...journalist Ed Caesar proves himself an engaging storyteller with a book whose time has come" (Publishers Weekly). In his "zippy, engaging book" (Financial Times), Caesar takes us...
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
Two Hours
fullDescription
"Essential reading for every runner." —Men's Fitness

"Compelling...As becomes clear not long after its starting gun, this book transcends the search for a two-hour marathon." —The Washington Post
Two hours to cover twenty-six miles and 385 yards. It is running's Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. But now we can glimpse the mountaintop. The sub-two hour marathon will require an exceptional combination of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than anyone who has run before. So who will it be?

In this spellbinding book, journalist Ed Caesar takes us into the world of elite marathoners: some of the greatest runners on earth. Through the stories of these rich characters, like Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai, around whom the narrative is built, Caesar traces the history of the marathon as well as the science, physiology, and psychology involved in running so fast for so long. And he shows us why this most democratic of races retains its brutal, enthralling appeal—and why we are drawn to test ourselves to the limit.

Two Hours is a book about a beautiful sport few people understand. It takes us from big-money races in the United States and Europe to remote villages in Kenya. It's about talent, heroism, and refusing to accept defeat. It is a book about running that is about much more than running. It is a human drama like no other.
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reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        September 28, 2015
        Debut author Caesar, a journalist and war correspondent, explores the world of elite marathon running and what it will take for someone to crack the two-hour barrier. Using the tale of champion Kenyan long distance runner Geoffrey Mutai as the through-story that holds the book together, Caesar jumps around, covering the origin and history of the 26.3-mile race, the science of long-distance running, and the role athletic shoe companies may play in an athlete achieving this record-breaking goal. Much of the book focuses on a tiny section of Africa where the best marathoners in the world—including Mutai—come from. Caesar, who has reported widely from Africa, does great work capturing the lives, training routines, and proud ancestry of these amazing runners, not to mention the pitfalls and dangers they face before and after they achieve fame. This strong tale covers the joys of athletic triumph and the pain of missed opportunities, whileinvestigating what it means to be born or bred a champion and what it will take to for someone to make running history. Caesar proves himself an engaging storyteller with a book whose time has come.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2015

        Journalist Caesar's debut lacks focus. Is it about marathoner Geoffrey Mutai, or is it about the possibility of running a marathon in two hours or less? Or is it, in fact, about both of these topics while also being a compact history of marathon running? The author spends too much time hopping back and forth between these related subjects. Curiously, the book's most interesting section is on the history of distance running, particularly the pedestrian (a catchall term for a combination of running and walking) craze of the mid- to late 19th century. His summary of the science behind why certain groups of people, Kenyans in particular, run faster than others is also well done. What we learn about Mutai and other runners, however, is generally uninspiring. Readers will not come away from this book knowing much more about what makes these men tick than when they first opened it. VERDICT Though the books are different in intent, readers might want to try David Epstein's The Sports Gene or Christopher McDougall's Born To Run.--Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY

        Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        September 1, 2015
        In the same way that the four-minute mile, once thought impossible, was shattered, runners and fans of the sport of running are now determining whether a marathon (of 26 miles, 385 yards) can be run in under two hours. Although record-keeping is less than exact (marathon courses vary in configuration, surfaces, and so on), the current best is just under 2 hours 3 minutes. Caesar is a young journalist who has immersed himself in the complex, often secretive, and, to some, utterly unfathomable sport of professional city marathoning and its history. He has interviewed and, at least to some degree, gotten inside the remarkable psyches of the world-class runners, nearly all of them East African (Ethiopian and Kenyan), who have been steadily lowering the standard, centering on the engaging Geoffrey Mutai. Genetics and drugs are discussed knowingly. Optimistic experts see two hours being bested within a few years; others more pessimistically think it may wait until the 2030s. But even high-schoolers have now run four-minute miles, and institutions and businesses with a special interest labor to promote sub-two efforts. It's only a matter of time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

subtitle
The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon
popularity
67
publisher
Simon & Schuster
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