Recent weather has been better suited to reading inside than running in the howling wind and rain, so here’s four books I’m recently checked out to help improve my running.

One has become my bible of sorts.

Running Injuries by Tim Noakes and Stephen Granger

Running Injuries; How to prevent and overcome them by Tim Noakes and Stephen Granger is a 2003 paperback edition and chock full of useful information.

I’ve taken it out of the library so many times, when I see it out on the shelves it’s like coming upon an old friend on the street. I’m happy to see him and eager to make his reacquaintance. And I do regularly seek it out.

Tim Noakes, 62, is a physician and research scientist in South Africa at Cape Town University, or at least he was there when he wrote this book along with Stephen Granger.

He’s written more than 400 science papers on exercise and is perhaps best known for the best-selling book, The Lore of Running.

But I didn’t know any of that when I saw his book on injuries the library shelf. What I particularly liked was the subtitle: How to prevent and overcome them.

Sections such as Understanding the Body (biomechanics and how structural realities affect the ideal running stride), Understanding the Mind (the psychology of injury), The Ten Laws of Running Injuries, plus a Troubleshooter’s guide to Site-Specific Injuries not only help me think through an injury, its treatment and recovery. Most of all, I find solace  in knowing that most runners find themselves injured. It doesn’t mean they give up. They either get smarter, or better at denial, and continue on.

Tim Noakes

Due to recurring injuries, I dip into Noakes’ book to remind myself of what’s going on, or not, with my body.

He writes in plain English things I’d prefer not to read ….(the IT band friction syndrome) “accounts for about a fifth of all knee injuries in distance runners. It is also the injury most resistant to treatment.”

He offers advice such as training tips, stretching and strengthening and specific treatment for this injury – all in two pages.

Which leaves room in the book for other parts of the body such as my other current malady – a strain or tear of the adductor muscle. And so on.

My repeated return to Noakes’ altar of healing and recovery also helped me gradually see the light – I must stretch more and run smarter.

Thus, the three other books I recently took out of the library:

Yogafit: A program for a more powerful, flexible and defined physique by Beth Shaw

Running Past 50: For fitness and performance through the years by Richard Benyo, the editor and running maniac who was the first to run from Badwater in Death Valley to the peak of Mt. Whinley along with his buddy

Run For Life: The anti-aging, anti-injury super-fitness plan to keep you running to 100 by Roy Wallack

I take a Yoga for Runners class Monday nights so the yoga book is more of a reminder of poses/stretches I can do at home.

I haven’t dipped yet into Benyo’s book but I liked the dedication:

This book is for Walt “The Ancient Marathoner” Stack and Dick “The Locomotive” Collins, two guys who, like fine wine, just got better the more they aged and ran.

I’m not much past 50 (and much more immature) but I figured there’s got to be some wisdom in Run for Life about how to keep running as our bodies rebel.

And if you’re running at 50 and 60, why not 100?

Instead of focusing on short-term training to get faster and short-term fixes for injuries, it focuses on a long-term strategy with coaching advice to correct posture and the most damaging aspects of running.

Run for Life by Roy Wallack

Wallack sums up the approach as:

Run soft. Run less. Run stronger. Run flexible. Run straighter. Run faster.

Sounds good to me.

The number one goal of his book? As Wallack says, it’s not about being fast but how effectively you slow the deterioration.

I know that might sound like trying to keep a piece of meat fresh past its due date. Or trying to keep a house from succumbing to the elements.

Having already established I have no ego when it comes to running (as competitive as I am with myself), I don’t care if I have to slow down or ‘run soft’ (short strides with rapid turnover) to save my knees so that I can run for many years to come.

I want to run past the retirement home with the front-porch crew watching with envy.