Musings from a 9-hour flight, part 2: My first book review

I really wanted to like Run Like A Mother. It was a gift from Mike, a token that I took to believe meant that he hasn't given up on me as a runner either. I was conscious that I was biased against it. I opened my mind. I enjoyed the first few chapters. Then I got a little annoyed. Then I got bored. I skipped a bunch of chapters in the middle about shoes, skirts, and the woman Dimity sees who doesn't wear a proper support bra. I wanted to like it, for the sheer fact that I want to connect with other moms who run. I just didn't.

I could justify my reaction by saying that I didn't like it for the reasons I loved Annie Lamott's book Operating Instructions, about her first year with her baby (she didn't gloss over the parts that really suck). I didn't like it for the reasons I read Marathon Mama's blog that doesn't sensor the frustration, the sometime futility, and the more than occasional f-bomb. I didn't like it for the same reason I didn't like the article in Runner's World that spawned the book: I don't really think these two women actually like each other that much, which creates a sense of forced friendship, without the intimacy, candor, and mutual respect that comes out of the true bonds of knowing in your gut that no matter how different you are, your running friends are the ones that get it, without saying a word.

All that is true, but glosses over the real reason I didn't like it: I don't want to take running advice from a woman who is in the same place I am. I want to hear from the Dara Torres, the Paula Radcliffes, the Constantina Tomescus: the unabashedly competitive, kick ass, "I'm an athlete who just happens to be a mom" moms. The anecdotes from the women they interviewed for the book were far more clever, honest and engaging then the pages of advice on everything from shoes to core exercises. It was too easy, too neat. I cry bullshit. I don't want to get speed work advice from a 4-hour marathoner. I know how to be a 4-hour marathoner. I want someone to make me believe I can be a 3-hour marathoner. I want a glimpse into that. How do you do that on 4 hours of sleep?

Perhaps it's just a simple matter that the book hits too close to home, so it's just not that interesting. We know the Dimitys: self-conscious, worried about being slow. We know the Sarahs: desperate to be fast, to catalog the next PR. We either look at them in the mirror or we run around the neighborhood with them in the morning.

My fundamental disappointment in this book is this: they took the title Run like a Mother. They took the first, highest profile opportunity to describe running from the perspective of a mother and made it an un-engaging, tactical how-to, most of which could have been picked up in any issue of Runner's World. Don't they read their own magazine? It's been done -- covered, refreshed and reprinted again. For all that Dara Torres skipped over in her book, she hit the core of why we all picked it up. She kicks ass. She's the athlete we secretly -- or not so secretly -- dream to be.

Dimity and Sarah played it safe. It was too neat. Too condescending. Too silly. We may never get more than a tenth of the way Dara Torres got, but her story is inspiring enough to get us out of bed, put on our shoes, and try. She is passionate, dedicated, unintimidated by age. It's not about her husband or how great it is that he supports her or her ability to find ideal support in her running bra.

The athlete moms we love dare to go for it. Isn't that the essence of running -- swimming, biking -- like a mother? It's about her incredible belief in herself. It's about hope. Isn't that the essence of mothering -- hope, passion, belief for our kids, our marriages, and ourselves -- like a runner?