Back in 2012 I wrote a book about starting running. The running book market was less saturated back then and the books that did exist were mainly by pro runners who had always run and were super fast. I had a moderately successful blog and got a deal with a small, independent publishing house.
I’d started writing it in a notebook while I travelled round Australia and south east Asia, the typed it up and finished it when I got back from my trip. My shared flat in east London was burgled and my laptop stolen midway through, but I carried on. I was sitting by the side of the road watching the 2012 Olympic torch relay when I got an email from my publisher to tell me they wanted to make my boo a reality.
I was excited to have a book I wrote out in the world, and I was too keen to go along with things. However, I never felt the publisher really got my audience and I always hated the cover of the book. But I finally had a real life copy of a book I wrote on my bookshelf and in some proper book shops and I was happy with that.
As more and more books came into the market, it grated on me that mine wasn’t something I was totally proud of. We all know the saying ‘don’t judge a book my it’s cover’ but we do and I wanted to at least like my own.
A few years ago, I requested a reversal of the rights of the book back to me. I wanted to publish it again on my terms. Yes, there are hundreds of running books around now, but if anyone were to come across mine I wanted it to reflect me. So I had one of my runners who is a talented book designer do a new cover for me and I did a very brief update to the copy.
It was a strange experience reading the book I wrote 12 years ago. There were things in there that I had completely forgotten about. The temptation, of course, was to completely rewrite it based on what I know know and everything that has come since I finished my fifth marathon (which is where the book ends). But I resisted. I may not have been happy with the cover, but the words needed to remain as they were and be true to the person I was when I wrote it. So there are just a few minor edits in there.
The Lazy Runner 2024 edition is now out in the world (just as an ebook on Amazon for now, but I’m working on the rest). Even if it doesn’t sell a single copy I feel so much better for having done this. It’s been on my to-do list for a long time and was blocking me from starting other writing projects.
If you ever read The Lazy Runner, I’d love it if you dropped a review on the new version’s Amazon listing. And if you haven’t, maybe have a read. There’s an extract from it below which I published here on Substack this year.