A biographical account of a woman?s pursuit of running. She starts with 5k?s and has now progressed to ultramarathons and all-terrain extended runs. An amazing account of her dedication of doing the best she can and inspiring others in their pursuits. Goodreads:Runners? vocabulary is full of acronyms like DNS for ?Did Not Start? and DNF for ?Did Not Finish,? but when Mirna Valerio stepped up to the starting line, she needed a new one: DNQ for ?Did Not Quit.?Valerio has tied on her running shoes all across the country, from the dusty back roads of central New Jersey to the busy Route 222 corridor in Pennsylvania to the sweltering deserts of Arizona. When you meet her on the trail, you might be surprised to see she doesn?t quite fit the typical image of a long-distance runner. She?s neither skinny nor white, and she?s here to show just how misguided these stereotypes can be.In this prejudice-busting, body-positive memoir told with raw honesty, an adventurous spirit, and a sharp sense of humor, Valerio takes readers along on her journey from first-time racer to ultramarathoner and proves that anyone can become a successful athlete.

3.5 stars - Typical for amateur runner memoir. Probably completely uninteresting if you are not already interested in running or ultra-running.

I've met Mirna and listened to her read a chapter of this book in person and I thought her delivery of that chapter was really great. Now that I've finished reading the whole book I think that Mirna is best experienced in person or in her videos on FB and Instagram. She's a delightful, upbeat, funny woman and because I know that about her I was able to imagine that person reading the book to me but had I NOT known that I might not have felt the same energy coming from the book. maybe the answer is to do this particular book in audio?

I admire her very much for tackling tough challenges and showing up when others (myself included) would shy away from things we might not be very good at doing or where we might not quite fit in. I want to take from this book the idea that I should reach outside my comfort zone a little more often and maybe it's time for me to test the waters on trails and ultra-running instead of sticking with road marathons. What I don't think she adequately conveys in the book is just how much work goes in to doing what she does.




( )

The style is too blog-posty and doesn't have an overarching, well, arc, and that makes it hard to read despite the author's story being pretty darn interesting (and it was great to tell a skinny, somewhat fatphobic and definitely fat does not equal fit workout-obsessed friend about this book as I read it - 'oh now she's running a 50K, oh now she's on the fourth loop to make her 100K' - and see her face). That was good. Not enough to make up for the lazy editing (where. is. the. editor???), but nice. I suppose I'd make the book a 3.5 for the sheer strength of the appendix speech. Just to post a bit of a small on that one, I am now going to refer to my hard-triking self as a fat-ass bad-ass athlete , so thanks, author! ( )