Adventures in Running and Ageing

[Graham Breeze]

It is a fascinating book.

Everyone ponders the aging process - why am I slower than I used to be? - with runners having the evidence of past recorded times to ensure reality cannot readily be ignored. Philip, having pondered this question with the inquisitive mind of the school teacher and the literary skills of an English graduate, has produced an excellent book complete, after researching the subject in depth, with his findings and conclusions.

The title may suggest a dull and worthy book but readers will find that it isn’t. Philip writes with wit and humour and in a warmly welcoming way. The book is really funny, sometimes hilariously, in a droll way with some good jokes. And because he is a long term runner he thinks like we runners do and readers will recognise and empathise with his comments with that “Yes!” of recognition.

All runners get injured. If they don’t it is because they are talkers and not runners and part of Philip’s tale concerns his own problems with injury - which are, of course, often linked to ageing - including his three-year recovery from a dislocated shoulder/fractured socket.

Philip was a teacher, not a medical doctor and so while his book contains a lot of sound scientific information about how the body ages (there are many footnote sources to medical research and extensive Acknowledgements) his overriding goal has clearly been to produce a book that will be good to read - or why bother? So the medical information is presented simply and clearly and he has broken his text into 35 digestible chapters. But it isn’t a “Janet & John” with pictures so there are occasional references to Shakespeare’s plays and the Greek and Latin source of medical terms.

As I approached the end of my running days I often pondered how much better I would have been if only I had known certain things when I was younger - a regret not limited to running - so I wish Philip had written his book a few decades ago. It is perhaps ironic that the people who read “ageing” in the title might pick it up because they admit they might be, perhaps, ageing, just a little; but this is a book that one cannot start reading and learning from early enough - if you aspire to be a runner.

The book is a joy to read (although an index would have been useful) and gives the impression that Philip actually enjoyed writing it because it was as much a voyage of discovery to him as, I suggest, it will be to everyone who reads it.