Dagny Scott Barrios

I picked this book up after sustaining an injury and found it to be very informative. It really helped me take a step back and assess my training. Or should I say, overtraining. Among other topics the book covers: how we become injured, how to avoid getting injured, treating injury, and the emotional side of injury. I found the second chapter on how to train properly, to be particularly helpful. Within this chapter she defines five laws of preventing injury:

1. Increase mileage gradually.
2. show more Increase intensity incrementally.
3. Increase mileage and intensity separately.
4. Alternate hard efforts with rest.
5. Pay attention to early warnings.

Those five laws seem pretty simple don't they? The problem is many of us don't educate ourselves enough about running, before we start running. Or we do educate ourselves and then don't listen to our new found knowledge. If more runners read and actually followed the author's advice, we'd have much fewer running injuries out there. I wish I would have read this book prior to starting my exercise regime, and followed her suggestions. I'm certainly going to now. show less

Not just for women. This guide provides great advice for all runner levels. It is especially useful for people trying to get back into running, beginners, and not-too-fiercely-competitive runners. One chapter is devoted to pregnant runners and one to women and body image, but the training schedule is not gender-specific. She provides a nice, gradual, 8-week transition into running for beginners and returners that is chock full of the basics of good running sense. Provides some decent show more diagrams on stretching, but personally I prefer the active isolated stretching techniques of Jim and Phil Wharton. show less

There were a lot of chapters that will apply more once I get out of the raw beginner phase, but that's a plus. I feel like this book will grow with me as a runner.

I feel I already knew most of the info. Seemed aimed at very beginers.