It's a Bouncing Baby Book!
Writing a book, I've discovered, in many ways is not too unlike giving birth. There are months of anxiety, weight gain, moodiness, second-guessing. Your brain is rolling with questions like, "How am I going to afford this child?", "How will I know how to take care of this living being?", "Will I be a good parent?" Biggest difference was my gestation period was about 24 months instead of eight.In the beginning stages of creating this book, I had similar thoughts. "What makes me think I can write a book?" "Will anyone want to read it.", "How am I going to publish it?" But like having a child, if you wait until you're ready, you'll never have it. So, I took the plunge and began the process a little over two years ago.
I spent several months creating the workouts and brainstorming the other sections of the book. If your luck is anything like mine, you're probably familiar with the the "Suck-it-Away-Syndrome. You know whenever you have extra money, something breaks down sucking up every bit of that money. Bonus Money! Woohoo! Air conditioner breaks down. Refund check! Woohoo! Transmission goes out. Never fails. So, a couple of years ago, when I ended up with some extra money, I decided to go ahead and do a photo shoot for all the exercises in the book, even though the book was yet to be written. I hooked up with an awesome photographer, Daniel Rice of Allez Photography. We spent an entire day shooting the exercise photos with two of my clients (Matthew Halip and Kristen Bowles) who graciously agreed to be my exercise models. Now, when looking through the book, it's hard to believe that those 100+ exercise photos were all taken in my (at the time) little 400sq.ft. studio—a testament to Daniel's talent. (The cover photography was done by another talented photographer Deno Kontoulas of 48 Layers Photography.)
After the photo shoot, business at RunnerDude's Fitness began to grow and so did my need for space. I remodeled a larger space in the complex where the original RunnerDude's Fitness Studio was located. Great for the business, but not great for having time to work on the book. So, it was shelved for a while. During this time, I was working with a pretty big publisher who was very interested in the book. An insider told me it was at the final executive-level of approval. Then I was informed that the publishing company had cleared house and the new head editor wasn't interested in publishing my book. I was disheartened to say the least. I submitted my proposal to several other big publishing houses who all liked the concept, but all declined. I talked with some of my author friends who all encouraged me to self-publish. The upside is I have more control of the book. The downside, I have to do all the hoofing to publicize the book.I took the plunge and investigated all the self-publishing options and found CreateSpace to be the best option for my needs. Ironically around this same time, I got a press release from the publisher that was originally interested in my book announcing their new fitness book for runners. Looked very familiar. For a short time, I was livid. How dare they! But after looking through their version, I realized that my book still had so much more to offer. So, I forged ahead.
Another thing this book has is the behind-the-scene input of an awesome editor, Iris Sutcliffe. Not only did she do a great job in the editing of the book, she was a wealth of valuable advice on many other aspects of the book. She provided a sounding board, another eye, a fresh focus. We worked our way through some formatting and document issues, but we prevailed. When it was time to approve the final proof for CreateSpace, I was a nervous wreck. The finality of it was a bit overwhelming. Not only because of the worry of missing a mistake, but also just the shear fact that all the work had come to an end. That feeling however was short-lived and soon replaced with the panic that now I have to sell the book. LOL! That's where you come in. I hope you'll take some time to check out the book at www.fullbodyfitness4runners.com. And, if you like it, tell your running buddies about it.
Providing over 90 exercises for runners, nutrition tips from Olympian Jeff Galloway, fueling recipes from experts such as endurance runner Dean Karnazes and ChiRunning founder Danny Dreyer, good running form tips, and more, Full-Body Fitness for Runners is a must-have resource for every runner. Three levels of workouts (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced) are divided into lower-body/core and upper-body/core circuits. Each circuit consists of 12 exercises designed to build muscular endurance to support your running helping you run longer, strong, faster, and with less injury.
Inside Full-Body Fitness for Runners you’ll find:
- Jeff Galloway’s before-, during-, and after-running nutrition tips
- Anatomy of a runner
- Five steps for getting started
- Acclimation and what to expect
- 10 tips for new runners
- Stretching
- How to complete the workouts
- Lower-Body/Core Workouts (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced)
- Upper-Body/Core Workouts (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced)
- Full-body exercises
- Additional core exercises
- Partner exercises
- How to fit the workouts into your week
- Good running form
- “Wise Choice” foods for runners
- Pre-, during-, and post-run snack ideas
- Recipes from the experts
I'm pretty sure that as in the case of our family when "maternity amnesia" kicked in paving the way for a second and third child, I too will have "book-creating amnesia" paving the way for another RunnerDude book for runners. Stay tuned.
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