Neither inspirational or absorbing

The Long Run:
A Memoir of Loss and Life in Motion

by 

Catriona Menzies-Pike

I wanted to love this author and this book, and I did at first. But she is a literature Ph.D. She kept getting stuck on the point that historically, like in the 18th and 19th centuries and of course ancient times, women only ran to get away from men. There was no admiration for the "strong woman runner", only an endless series of images of poor, weak women pursued by big, dangerous men. Of course that's true and she had a right to point it out. Once. After a brief discussion, why couldn't she let it go?

And we all know that in the 20th century countless medical professionals warned that women couldn't run because their uteruses would fall out. (or words to that effect! You know they'd never be so explicit, right?)  She reviewed this bit of history, and again, couldn't seem to let it go.

I found these chapters incredibly boring and repetitive and they soured me on the rest of the book. Sorry, but I failed to feel the love here.