LITTLE ROCK — Train Like a Mother: How to Get Across Any Finish Line and Not Lose Your Family, Job or Sanity by Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea (Andrews McMeel Publishing, March), 214 pages, $14.99.
What’s with this title? Do the authors expect us to believe that mothers are big experts on training for footraces? Or are they making a vulgar pun?
Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea, two accomplished professional writers, are certainly not too refined to play with the slang suggestion carried by the word “mother” - ahem! - a person of formidable skill.
But they are, in fact, writing a book for women with children: mothers. Mothers who run.
Why do mother runners need their own book? Can’t they use one of the umpteen dozen books already in print that address a general audience?
Why does anyone need any new book? We already have plenty of fine books about zombies, about the Civil War, about the inspiring life stories of modern statesmen - why make more? People go on making more books because other people will pay money to buy the new books.
If women runners who have children want to read a book addressed specifically to them and written by women who understand their problems, who are you to say they shouldn’t want that?
These authors have more than 16,400 Facebook fans and 2,500 daily visitors to their blog site anothermotherrunner.com.
And besides, their target audience does have a particular obstacle to setting aside time for fitness: children.
Could fathers read the book?
Fathers can read anything they wish to read. But they should be prepared to read a little more here than they care to about unfamiliar bodily fluids.
Actually, anyone who objects to jokes about any of the human body’s biological emissions ought to select a different book. Mothers are humanity’s original janitorial service, and runners live in the locker room. These writers are mothers and runners.
So what’s in this book?
Abundant humor and easy to understand training schedules for mothers who wish to run a 5K, a 10K, a half-marathon or a marathon. They provide two plans for each distance - one for mothers who merely hope to go the distance and another, more complex program for those who aim to “own” it.
McDowell and Shea alternate from chapter to chapter, each projecting her distinct attitude. McDowell identifies herself as not being a “natural” or a fast runner: She speaks for women who run for sanity and wellness primarily and get faster or win trophies, if ever, accidentally.
Shea’s the self-described knee-jerk competitor with a lifelong affinity for sports and some real speed as a racer.
So does Shea take the lead in this book, which is about racing?
No, their voices alternate. This reinforces their assertion that women can enter races for reasons other than an urge to dominate.
They also quote snippets from many other women who comment on their website.
Anything especially good?
Chapter 10, “Injuries: The Five Stages of Grief” is right on the money. Adapting the famous five steps of grieving elaborated by noted psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, McDowell explains how confused runners can become during the inevitable times when they’ve hurt themselves and can’t run. Her observations could help some crazed woman take better care of her health.
I also laughed a lot over another chapter’s “plan” for teaching your family how to be a proper cheering section. As if.
Who are the authors?
McDowell, a longtime sports writer and two-time marathoner, lives in Denver with her husband and two children. Shea, an eight-time marathoner and a freelancer published in all kinds of sports and fitness magazines, lives in Portland, Ore., with her husband and three children.
Train Like a Mother is their second collaboration; the first was the similarly funny Run Like a Mother. They also produce a biweekly podcast available on iTunes.
ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 04/02/2012