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• A Core Course for Runners 
• The Run to Picnic Point 
• The Runner   
• Cicadas
• The trail
• The Low Run                        

Novels and short stories have celebrated distance running from various perspectives. In Alan Sillitoe's story, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, the sport represents freedom and an opportunity for meditation. "As soon as I take that first flying leap out into the frosty grass of an early morning when even birds haven't the heart to whistle," the narrator tells us, "I get into thinking, and that's what I like." He continues: "It's a treat, being a long-distance runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do."

In Patricia Nell Warren's novel, The Front Runner, a coach sees his athlete as a body in perfect motion. "What impressed me most," he observes, "was the effortlessness. His long, floating stride had an eerie, slow-motion quality. He just ghosted along. And he had a very light, soft stride––now that he was alone, I could scarcely hear his spikes stir the cinders as he went past. He had the most beautiful natural form I had ever seen––no wasted effort anywhere. He was almost unreal. He was that idea of a runner that haunts the minds of track people."

Several famous poets, too, have written about running––often with similar themes. Among the best-known are The Runner by Walt Whitman, Run Before Dawn by William Stafford, and A. E. Housman's The time you won your town the race.

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