Running Addiction

Aside from her rock star looks, Catra Corbett is a standout in the running world on her accomplishments alone. And, unbelievably, she's also a former meth addict. After two years of addiction, Catra is busted while selling, and a night in jail is enough to set her straight. She gives up drugs and moves back home with her mother, abandoning her friends, her boyfriend, and the lifestyle that she came to depend on. Her only clean friend pushes her to train for a 10K with him, and surprisingly, she likes it and decides to run her first marathon after that.

In Running Ransom Road, Daniloff, many years sober, confronts his past by setting out, over the course of 18 months, to run marathons in the cities where he once lived and wreaked havoc. Competing from Boston to New York, Vermont to Moscow, Daniloff explores the sobering and inspiring effects of running as he traverses the trails of his former self, lined with dark bars, ratty apartments, lost loves, and lost chances.

At the age of 68, Dr. Zeev Gilkis, a cancer survivor, decided to gift himself an unusual present for his 70th birthday - to run his first full marathon. In his previous book Running Back in Time, the author, writing at the time at age 69, told the story of the first half of his journey. The Beautiful Addiction relates the second part of his journey, through which Zeev gradually increases the distance of his runs from 21 kilometers to 42 kilometers while sharing his thoughts about life and becoming ageless, all the way to the surprising ending.