Description
Book SynopsisIn
Running, former NCAA Division I track athlete Lindsey A. Freeman presents the feminist and queer handbook of running that she always wanted but could never find. For Freeman, running is full of joy, desire, and indulgence in the pleasure and weirdness of having a body. It allows for a space of freedom—to move and be moved. Through tender storytelling of a lifetime wearing running shoes, Freeman considers injury and recovery, what it means to run as a visibly queer person, and how the release found in running comes from a desire to touch something that cannot be accessed when still.
Running invites us to run through life, legging it out the best we can with heart and style.
Trade Review"You can fill a small library with books on running, but you won’t find many that touch on queerness and feminism in the sport. . . . [Freeman's] storytelling, along with her friend Hazel Meyer’s illustrations, chronicles Freeman’s lifelong relationship with running and illuminates the 'unexpected moments of connection and joy that we runners feel when we cover some distance together.'" -- Becky Wade * Runners World *
"I found Lindsay A. Freedman’s little queer book
Running absolutely delightful and surprisingly validating, as I think many queer sportspersons will. In particular, Freedman talks about how running as a sport of individualism and triumph over one’s own fears or limitations has both mirrored and supported her journey in coming out as queer in ways that made me go 'Oh yes, that.'" -- S. Bear Bergman * Xtra *
"What is beautiful throughout
Running is the slow and tender movements through what it means to have a body, and what that body means in all the spaces in which it exists. . . . I hope queer people with an interest, active or passive, in running pick this book up, read through, and consider their own relationships to themselves and to a sport that is so easily made all too simple." -- Niko Stratis * Autostraddle *
"More poetic than practical, but intensely vivid and personal,
Running bounces from pop-culture analysis to academic inquiry, from a catalogue of injuries (including those from a devastating incident in which a vehicle hit her) to an exploration of the elusive 'runner's high.' . . .
Running is a worthwhile companion for people who want to be either—or both." -- Katie Noah Gibson * Shelf Awareness *
“Freeman serves fresh thinking as she applies the speculative energy of queer theory to her own lifelong running journey.” -- Knox Robinson * Wall Street Journal *
"
Running is more than a study of the sport—it’s a fearless love letter to the core of what it means to be a runner. . . . Part-memoir, part-handbook, and part-critical theory, untangling identity, the body, queerness, feminism, friendships, the unknown, failure, pain, control, success, and beyond; the full spectrum of what it means to lace up our running shoes to return to a complicated, duplicitous, and ever-changing sport." -- Ellie Jackson * Off *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Stride—Form—Cadence—Pace 14
On the Subversive Nature of This Handbook 17
A Note on “Just Do It” 30
Leaving It All on the Track 33
Running Is a Contact Sport 37
Running after Olympians 42
Running Is Your Life 56
Speed Play 58
Personal Best 61
In Training for the Boston Marathon 70
Running the Risk Of 84
Courage, or The Paris Marathon 87
Runner’s High 91
Let’s Let Our Running Be Real 97
On Hitting the Wall and Writer’s Block 101
Repetitive Stress 105
A Note on Cross-Training 112
A Note on Running to Music 114
Big Gay 10K 117
This One’s for the Rabbits, the Also-Rans, and the Dreamers 120
Loops—Practice—Repetition—Ritual 126
Cooldown and Stretching 131
Notes 135
Bibliography:
Things I Thought With, Things I Ran With 145
