Murakami is in his fifties. He admits to putting on weight easily. Running helps him keep trim. Is he obsessive about it? I would usually categorise anyone who habitually runs marathons (not to mention ultramarathons and triathlons) as obsessive, so yes. But Murakami manages to make the whole thing seem pretty ordinary.
Still, he is aware that, among writers at least, running at this level makes him a rare bird. Generally, he says, ‘I run in a void’. Contrary to many people’s assumptions, it is not time he uses for thinking. But he admits there is an emotional aspect to it: he is not above running away frustration, hurt and anger.
He gives several detailed descriptions of races, not omitting various painful and even humiliating experiences. These can be great fun. During one race, for instance, ‘a tiny old lady around 70 or so passed me and shouted out, “Hang in there!” Man alive.’
But I found myself warming to the book most during passages that felt like obiter dicta: brief descriptions of luminous days by Boston’s Charles River watching pretty Harvard girls in training; and of the writer’s other life, his travels, his current projects, and so on.
Believing himself a physical, rather than a cerebral, person, Murakami is particularly good on the link between physicality and understanding. Writing novels, he says, requires a balance between imaginative power and the physical abilities that sustain it. This physical aspect of creative writing ‘requires far more energy … over a long period, than most people ever imagine’.
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