haruki murakami

Murakami Reveals Life as a Runner

Competitors take part in the women's marathon in the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Sunday. Japanese author Haruki Murakami writes about his love of long distance running in his memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.” / AP-Yonhap
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

Haruki Murakami is one of the most famous and critically acclaimed novelists from Japan, with legions of fans around the world. He is also a serious runner who makes it a point to run one marathon a year.

Murakami shows his passion for running in his new book, ``What I Talk About When I Talk About Running'' (translated by Philip Gabriel). Described as a memoir, the work is a compilation of essays written between summer 2005 and fall 2006 while Murakami was preparing to run in the New York Marathon.

The book's title is taken from the late Raymond Carver's short story collection ``What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," with permission from Carver's widow.

Murakami said the new book is about ``my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person." ``One thing I noticed was that writing honestly about running and writing and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing. So I suppose it's alright to read this as a kind of memoir centered on the act of running," he said in the foreword.

His life as a runner is inextricably intertwined with his life as a writer. He shares the exact moment when he first thought of writing a novel (1:30 pm on April 1, 1978, while watching a baseball game in Jingu Stadium). Imagine a young Murakami lying on the grass when a light bulb goes off in his head.

Murakami made it sound so simple, he went home and started writing. By fall, he finished writing his first piece ``Hear the Wind Sing," which won the new writer's prize of a famous literary magazine the following year.

Then he closed his jazz bar to focus on writing. Since writing is pretty much a sedentary activity, he took up running in fall 1982, and that's how he went from being a jazz bar owner who smoked 60 cigarettes a day to a full-time running novelist at age 33.

He takes readers to his training sessions in Kauai, Hawaii; Tokyo; and Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as to his numerous marathons and triathlons. One chapter is devoted to how he ran the ancient marathon route in Greece from Athens to Marathon under the scorching summer sun.

While he loves long distance running, Murakami doesn't recommend it. ``I think I've been able to run for more than 20 years for a simple reason: it suits me," he said.

He shares the life lessons he's learned from running, such as enduring pain and focus.

``Most of what I know about writing, I've learned through running every day. I know if I hadn't become a long distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have been different,'' he said.

Though he's been running for more than 25 years, Murakami, 59, shows no signs of slowing down. He admitted to a slump for a few years due to a bad case of ``runner's blues," but has since found renewed vigor for running.

``Long distance running (more or less, for better or worse) has molded me into the person I am today, and I'm hoping it will remain a part of my life for as long as possible. I'll be happy if running and I can grow old together. There might not much logic to it, but it's the life I've chosen for myself," Murakami said.

Writing in a self-deprecating manner, he knows he's not going to win the marathon but pushes himself to his limits. He wants his grave inscribed with the line, ``Haruki Murakami, Writer (and Runner): At Least He Never Walked."

``Until the feeling that I've done a good job in race returns, I'm going to keep running marathons and not let it get me down. Even when I grow old and feeble, when people warn me it's about time to throw in the towel, I won't care. As long as my body allows, I'll keep on putting as much effort ― perhaps even more effort, towards my goal of finishing a marathon," he said.

Runners should definitely pick up this book to read Murakami's contemplative thoughts about running. Fans of the reclusive author will have to content themselves with trying to glean insights about Murakami as a person in this slim volume. As for non-runners, his enthusiasm might even spur them to pick up a pair of shoes and start running.

cathy@koreatimes.co.kr