Personal Record

by Toor, Rachel

• ISBN13: 9780803234260
• ISBN10: 0803234260
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-01
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

Rachel Toor was a bookish egghead who ran only to catch a bus. How such an unlikely athlete became a runner of ultramarathons is the story ofPersonal Record, an exhilarating meditation on the making, and the minutiae, of a runner's life. The food, the clothes, the races, the injuries, and the watch are all essential to the runner, as readers discover here, and discover why. A chronicle of Toor's relationship with the sport of running, from her early incarnation as an Oreo-eating couch potato to her emergence as a hard-bodied marathoner, this book explores the sport of running, the community it brings into being, and the personal satisfaction of pursuing it to its limit. An homage to running, a literary take on how an activity can turn into a passion and how a passion can become a way of life, Toor's book runs all the way from individual achievementa personal recordto the world of friendship and community.

Author Biography

Rachel Toor teaches writing at Eastern Washington University and is a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education and a senior writer for Running Times. She is the author of The Pig and I (available in a Bison Books edition) and Admissions Confidential: An Insider’s Account of the Elite College Selection Process. A graduate of Yale University, she received an MFA from the University of Montana and currently lives in Spokane.