Endure. Alex Hutchinson

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      Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

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      This edition published by HarpercollinsPublishers 2018

      FIRST EDITION

      Text © Alex Hutchinson 2018

      Cover layout design ©HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      Alex Hutchinson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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      Source ISBN 978-0-00-828509-8

      Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008277079

      Version 2019-02-05

      Dedication

       For my parents, Moira and Roger, whose curiosity, rigor,

       respect for differing perspectives, and talent for clarity remain

       the model I strive for in everything I write.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell

Two Hours: MAY 6, 2017

PART I: MIND AND MUSCLE

CHAPTER 1 The Unforgiving Minute

CHAPTER 2 The Human Machine

CHAPTER 3 The Central Governor

CHAPTER 4 The Conscious Quitter

       Two Hours: NOVEMBER 30, 2016

       PART II: LIMITS

       CHAPTER 5 Pain

       CHAPTER 6 Muscle

       CHAPTER 7 Oxygen

       CHAPTER 8 Heat

       CHAPTER 9 Thirst

       CHAPTER 10 Fuel

       Two Hours: MARCH 6, 2017

       PART III: LIMIT BREAKERS

       CHAPTER 11 Training the Brain

       CHAPTER 12 Zapping the Brain

       CHAPTER 13 Belief

       Two Hours: MAY 6, 2017

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       Index of searchable terms

       About the Publisher

      Foreword

       By Malcolm Gladwell

      All distance runners have races that, in retrospect, make no sense. I have two. The first came when I was thirteen, in my first year of high school. With no more than a month of training under my belt, I ran a cross-country race in Cambridge, Ontario, against boys two years older than me. One of them was among the best distance runners for his age in the province. I can summon the memories of that race even today, forty years later. I simply attached myself to the leaders at the beginning and never let go, and ran myself to complete exhaustion, finishing a close and utterly inexplicable second. I say inexplicable because although I would go on to have a creditable career as a middle-distance runner on the track in high school, that race remains the only truly superb distance race I’ve ever run. I’ve underperformed at anything over 1,500 meters for the rest of my running life.

      That is: with one exception. Two years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I ran a magical 5K in a small-town race in New Jersey, finishing a full minute faster than any 5K I’d entered since returning to serious running as a Master. On that summer day in New Jersey, I was suddenly my thirteen-year-old self from forty years ago in Cambridge. I dreamt big. I marveled at my running prowess. And then? Back to mediocrity again.

      Like the obsessive person—and particularly obsessive runner—that I am, I have puzzled endlessly over those two anomalous races. I have running logs from my teenage years, and I’ve gone back over them, looking for clues. Was there some indication in my earliest training of that kind of performance? Did I do something special? For my latter 5K, of course, I have infinitely more. Months of data from Garmin on every workout leading up to the event, and then still more from the day of the race itself: pace, cadence, splits. On more than one occasion, leading up to a race, I’ve attempted to replicate the exact preparation I had for my New Jersey PR. I want lightning to strike twice. It hasn’t, and I’m beginning to suspect the reason it hasn’t is that I don’t properly understand what it means to perform a feat of endurance. I think you can see where I’m going with this: I am the perfect audience for Alex Hutchinson’s Endure.

      A few words about Alex Hutchinson. We are both Canadians and both runners, although he is both a better Canadian (he still lives there; I don’t) and a much better runner than I ever