Read from the opening piece, "Toeing the Line" of Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running by Rachel Toor:

"I like to call it "The Oprah Effect."

Oprah said to us: If I can do it, anyone can. She had excellent professional trainers, and she did it surrounded by a coterie of helpers. But even the richest woman in the world couldn’t pay someone to run a marathon for her. Oprah Winfrey had to take every step of the 1995 Marine Corps Marathon on her own. She finished in 4:29. This feat, heroic in its way, spawned a cottage industry of silly tee-shirts that said "I beat Oprah." But Oprah encouraged scores—hundreds, thousands—of middle-aged women, who looked in the mirror and did not see the whippet-thin shape of a distance runner, to hit the roads and start training for a 26.2miler. Oprah inspired a bunch of swaggering men to want to go out and beat her time. Al Gore ran the same race two years later. He finished in 4:58."

"Anyone can do it. It’s all in the preparation. If you train properly, you should be able to hit your marathon goal—plus or minus five minutes—on race day without a problem. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, or that 26.2miles isn’t a long darned way to go. If you don’t train well, you may still finish, but it won’t be pretty. Or fun. After crossing the line at the New York City Marathon, squeaking by in less than a minute under three hours, a ragged Lance Armstrong said the marathon was "without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done."

Some run a marathon to cross it off their life checklist. For others, marathoning becomes an obsession, a habit of mind and body. For me, starting to run was not about losing weight or getting healthy. I began in order not be excluded; I ran so that I wouldn’t be left behind. I’ve never been much of a joiner, but when I found something I loved doing—and realized that there were other people who shared my enthusiasm—I joined a running club. There are all kinds of different subcultures: gardeners, fly fishers, philatelists, economists, collectors of pig figurines. These are often solitary pursuits, but when clusters of zealots find ways of coming together—Internet chat groups, conventions, races—we turn into a herd, a pack. We recognize ourselves in each other.

By becoming a runner, I was welcomed by strangers as a comrade, and I gained, as my legs got stronger and my lung capacity increased, an increased and more complex capacity for friendship, especially with men. I have always had a handful of women I hold close—whose intense friendships I rely on, where we sustain and support each other. Through running I learned not to be one of the boys, but to be myself, a woman among men. I’m not a small talker. I tend to talk about big things, or speak not at all. Running gave me a lingua franca, a common language to share with new acquaintances.

This book is about how I evolved from a bookish egghead who ran only to catch a bus to a runner of ultramarathons. (Ultras are defined as any race longer than the marathon distance of 26.2 miles.) It was a pretty straightforward process and not that unusual: First I got my butt out the door and jogged for a while. I entered some shorter races, and then some longer ones. Then I just kept going. Once I’d done a handful of marathons, I started hanging around with a bunch of guys who used 26.2 milers as training runs for ultras, and poof: I was an ultrarunner. Bothered by the fact that running is a narcissistic activity—it’s all about me, me, me—I got to a point where I wanted to shift the focus from myself. I found ways—pacing, coaching, helping others achieve their goals—to share my fervor that provides rewards beyond anything I could ever have imagined."

To read a longer excerpt or to purchase Personal Record visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Personal-Record,673436.aspx.