Book Review: An Accidental Athlete

An Accidental Athlete: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Middle Age by John “The Penguin” Bingham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

John Bingham is what he describes as an “accidental athlete” or an “adult-onset athlete”. At 43 years old, after years of eating, smoking and drinking too much, he started running. I think I enjoyed this book so much because I could relate to so much of what the author experienced in his life. He was a kid who wanted to play sports and had fun playing sports but wasn’t very good at them. When the day came that he figured out he wasn’t very good, he didn’t want to play anymore.

He had a lucrative career, great house, several motorcycles – all the trappings of success. He thought he has happy. It wasn’t until one day when he decided to move more that he realized life could be better. He started with biking and then decided to try running. When he first started, he ran a 30 minute mile! Even now he is a middle of the pack runner, which I can totally identify with. I really appreciated his philosophies on running; that it’s okay to be slow and the goal really should be to have fun.

The author does get a little repetitive at times, mentioning things in later chapters that he’s already said in previous chapters but it wasn’t enough to get on my nerves. I’m still recovering from surgery so I can’t run right now but after reading his book I really want to get out there again. I’ll probably re-read it when I’m able to actually run again. If you are an accidental or adult-set athlete or even someone who’s been running for most of your life, I think you will really enjoy this book.

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(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)