I recently read Scott Jurek’s new book, Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. Jurek won the Western States 100 mile race an unprecedented 7 consecutive times and holds the American record of 165.7 miles for the 24 hour run.

In the book, Scott Jurek describes his tough childhood, growing up in Proctor, MN. His mother had multiple sclerosis and his father kicked him out of the house during his freshman year in college.

Jurek was a cross-country skier and runner in high school who began doing ultramarathons when he was in his early 20’s. He gradually transitioned from a kid who “hated vegetables” to a vegetarian and finally a vegan. Because of his mother’s illness, he began cooking at home and later became a short-order cook at a local restaurant. Eat and Run includes nearly two dozen vegan recipes, including Lentil-Mushroom Burgers and Holy Moly Guacamole.

Jurek recommends “belly breathing” and experimenting with nasal breathing to help you learn to breath abdominal. An additional benefit of nasal breathing during ultramarathons is that you can eat quickly and breathe at the same time.

He recommends maintaining a fast cadence and landing on your forefoot or midfoot, rather than your heel. Scott favors lactate threshold runs with a 5:1 ratio of work and rest (e.g., run for 10 minutes, followed by 2 minutes rest, then repeat).

Most of Eat and Run is made up of Scott Jurek’s stories about his key races and some of the challenges he faced during them, including running 56 miles on torn ligaments in Western States 100. Again and again, he accomplishes seemingly impossible feats of mental and physical endurance. Jurek also shares his experiences running with the late Caballo Blanco (Micah True) and the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico.

Eat and Run is a fascinating story of one of the world’s best ultramarathoners. If you are a fan of Scott Jurek’s, an ultramarathoner, or a vegan, you will enjoy reading this book.

Eat and Run will be released on June 5, 2012. I’m giving readers of How 2 Run Fast a chance to read this book before it is released to the general public.

To enter the contest to win a copy of Eat and Run, you can do any of the following:

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If you do more than one of these things, you will get an additional chance to win for each. Please make sure that there is some way to contact you if you win and check your Tumblr, Facebook, or email Inbox regularly. Good luck!

Update: Congrats to Mark Olson of Covina, CA, on winning the copy of Eat and Run.

If you didn’t win this contest, be sure to subscribe to this blog via RSS or email to hear about upcoming contests and giveaways.

Disclosure: I received a copy of Eat and Run from the publisher for review.

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