Press & Reviews
Booklist
Feeling depressed and out of shape and living in a slummy Miami apartment, journalist Powell (This Love Is Not for Cowards, 2012) remembers how his father changed his own couch-potato life years earlier by running the Boston Marathon. Having little to tie him down to anywhere or anything, save his pooch Valentine, the 39-year-old Powell heads to Boulder, Colorado, to reinvent himself. His writing is congenial and honest, and along the road to becoming a marathoner, he admits the worst: he shoplifted as a kid, he thinks “church is boring,” he cheated on his wife and then divorced her, he wishes he had trashed his married lover’s studio instead of just leaving. In Boulder, a town serious about running, Powell lives in a former chicken coop, and as he starts shedding weight, he starts shedding his remorseful past as well, sharing with the reader the hills and the valleys (figurative and literal), the PowerBars and the lightweight shoes, and the sparely dispensed but growing approval from his father. A companionable run from real regret to near-respect.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Kirkus Reviews
“A brutally honest emotional odyssey.”
Boulder Daily Camera
“will evoke a wide range of reactions from readers, depending on their position and stage in life.”
Colorado Public Radio
“colorful descriptions of Boulder and the characters who live there.” | Audio playback
Saltmarsh Running
“Powell tells all, and reveals the unvarnished truth to the reader.”
