The best way to start this blog I think is by introducing my creature, my book. Yes, yes, I am going to talk to you today about my book like Paco Umbral in his day. A whole literary career to be remembered as the one of "I come to talk about my book". And that in those years zapping programs didn't work as they do now! Let's do my thing.
"You can be a runner too" is not just a book about running. It's a life experience, because that's what running means to me. It goes beyond putting one foot behind the other as fast as possible. It's much more emotional.
Sure, you're going to find advice on how to buy running shoes or how to take your first steps. There is, but I don't give it. I have surrounded myself with a great team of collaborators who are the ones who will help you to do well all the things I did wrong when I started running. To name a few, Alberto Cebollada gives us advice on how to buy shoes that fit like a glove, Imanol Loizaga has prepared a decalogue for beginners, the sports medicine specialist Pablo Aranda talks about the importance of the stress test, the psychologist Patricia Ramirez presents the emotional benefits of running, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
I tell in first person the experiences of a vintage runner, yes yes, vintage. No 40-something, 50-something, tall lady, with spurs or anything like that. Vintage. Like good wines that taste better the more years they have been in the bottle. It's a matter of experience.
I have learned many things running and now, with a certain humor and a lot of emotion, I tell them in this book. From how I bought my first good running shoes after starting with those very heavy "easytones" that falsely lifted your buttocks, to how useful they ended up being to save children's lives. Amazing, isn't it? Or how I entered my first race, a mile for sprinters, running at six minutes per kilometer. Or how I felt when I found myself on a treadmill surrounded by cables and wrapped in a mesh like the one we see soccer players wearing at the beginning of the season when I took my first stress test. Or what it's like to run with altered hormones and almost no estrogen, between hot flashes, because menopause is coming on top of you. O...
With "You can also be a runner" they will understand a little better what we women feel and how we live. They will identify with many of the situations I describe. What does your family say when suddenly, at over 40, you put on your running shoes and go out to run for miles? Do you running clandestinely so as not to take hours away from your children? Have you found new social relationships? Do you worry more about your diet? How can you change the world through running? Does running empower us?
These questions are answered in the pages of a book that aims to get as many people off the couch as possible.
"You can be a runner too" is the story of someone who had never thought of making running an important part of her life. I never thought I could become a runner. And I am. You can be a runner too.
I have been asked many times why I have used the word runner and there is an explanation. If the title had been "You can be a runner too" I would be directly excluding women. And if I had put "You can also be a runner" it would be interpreted as a book exclusively for women. So I decided to use a more inclusive term like "runner". Besides, the word is in fashion and everyone understands it.
The response of those who have already read it has been what I intended: men and women have experienced situations like the ones I describe, they feel reflected and have felt accompanied. Because running is very solitary in most of the occasions and that someone puts in black and white what we have lived and felt on the asphalt or in the mountains helps to strengthen our running spirit.
I tell there that I run alone most of the time, but if I need to do a long run and someone to support me, I find it. running socializes a lot. I didn't have any running friends until I got my running shoes on. Now I have no problem finding someone to run with me. There are a lot of lonelinesses that have been left by the wayside with the help of running shoes, and that's very good.
But best of all, the greatest valor of running is that it makes us all equal. Men and women, the employed and the unemployed, the rich and the poor. In tights and running shoes we are all equal: we have our legs, our hearts and our heads. There is nothing fairer than running.
In "You can be a runner too" there are many anecdotes of my beginnings. I'm sure you have your own, do you want to tell them to us?
We'll meet again soon!
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