The Running Ground

A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports

By: Nicholas Thompson

Narrated by: Nicholas Thompson

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A profound meditation on what running can teach us about our limits and our lives by a record-setting distance runner who is now the CEO of The Atlantic.

“This is not just an engaging memoir about running. It’s a meditation on what it takes to marshal and maintain motivation.”—ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again

“Endlessly surprising, revelatory, and heart-rending.”—ANNA WINTOUR

For Nicholas Thompson, running has always been about something more than putting one foot in front of another. He ran his first mile at age five, using it as a way to connect with his father as his family fell apart. As a young man, it was a sport that transformed, and then shook, his sense of self-worth. In his 30s, it was a way of coping with a profound medical scare.

By his early 40s, Thompson had many accomplishments. He was the Editor in Chief of a major magazine; a devoted husband and father; and a passionate runner. But he was haunted by the recent death of his brilliant, complicated father and the crack-up that derailed his father’s life. Had the intensity and ambition he’d inherited made a personal crisis inevitable for him as well?

Then a chance offer gave him the opportunity to train for the Chicago Marathon with elite coaches. Giving himself over to the sport more fully than ever before, he discovered that aging didn’t necessarily put you on an unbroken trajectory of decline. For seven years after his father died, Thompson transforms his body to perform at its highest capacity, and the profound discipline and awareness he builds along the way changes every aspect of his life. Throughout the narrative, he weaves in stories of remarkable men and women who have used the sport to transcend some of the hardest moments in life.

The Running Ground is a story about fathers, sons, and the most basic and most beautiful of sports.

Critic reviews

“It would seem disingenuous to say that Nicholas Thompson’s mesmerizing and moving The Running Ground isn’t really about running. But while running—from its practical agonies and ecstasies to its philosophical and deeply personal undercurrents—suffuses this book, something Thompson writes early on holds the key to its deeper revelations: ‘Running is the simplest of sports. But if we look closely, it can teach us about the hardest things in life.’ It’s those hard things that make this an endlessly surprising, revelatory, and heart-rending read.”—Anna Wintour, global editorial director of Vogue

“Most of us struggle to escape the specific gravity of our ordinary selves through the discipline of education and learning. Nicholas Thompson’s amazing memoir charts his awakening (and ours vicariously) through running. Here body, mind, and heart become an advanced machine that transcends age and time and generations, uniting him and us in the race of a lifetime. Bravo!”—Ken Burns, filmmaker

“The Running Ground is more than a book about running—it’s a deeply human and beautifully written story of honest introspection in which Thompson illustrates how the simplest sport can help us navigate the most complex terrain of our own lives.”—Kilian Jornet, ultramarathoner, world record holder for fastest time running up Mt. Everest

“This is not just an engaging memoir about running. It’s a meditation on what it takes to marshal and maintain motivation. Nicholas Thompson’s extraordinary strides illuminate how to unlock your potential.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and host of Re:Thinking

“At its heart, The Running Ground is about fathers and sons, ambition and aging, and the quiet grace of moving ever forward. It’s an important look at how one of the simplest human actions—placing one foot in front of the other—can help us outrun our shadows, and catch what we love most.”—Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators

“In this pensive memoir, Atlantic CEO Thompson (The Hawk and the Dove) ruminates on the lessons he’s learned from fatherhood and distance running. . . . [Thompson] manages to weave everything into an appealing whole. It’s a satisfying self-portrait.”—Publishers Weekly

“The best part of the book is the runner’s equivalent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when Thompson applies lessons learned from marathons and other long-distance journeys on foot to daily life, including acquiring discipline of his own and gaining mastery of useful life skills. . . . Thompson exudes calm and wisdom. . . . An exemplary memoir of a life spent on the run.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Tearful ending of an inspiring book

The narration was touching and while the running advice important the love and reflection about Thompson’s father’s life was the stand out portion of an excellent book.

A Running Memoir about Grounding Oneself

This memoir unfurls like a long run might, in that it meditates on the bonds forged partly through running between the author and his twice lost father, making peace with the legacy of a parent who was loved because of and in spite of his shortcomings after midlife.
In writing openly about his father’s alcoholism and non-normative sexual and romantic life, the author nudges those who might hesitate to admit their parents’ failures to reframe any potential shame.
The memoir, while highly personal, also presents profiles of five other notable runners, each unique champions in their own right of very different trajectories.
In so doing both, this memoir reflects on running as a sport and on life in general in ways that challenge commonly-held notions of “success,” even while the author himself had a privileged upbringing and is today CEO of The Atlantic magazine.
A refreshing read.

Relaxed Inspiration

I had this book on my wish list for months and after moderately successful return to running (aka trotting) at an over the hill age and s/p a muscle injury this book became my go-to inspiration for my new efforts.

The author is likable. He doesn’t tell someone how to train, nor insist they should run faster- more he shares how he coped along the decades with his style, body changes and more than anything creating an WISER vs agung mind set. He heard maybe he could run harder, and he could. I tried a little sprint at the end of my 2.5 miles - I could - and the runners high I have not had in 6 years sits with me now as I write this.

I ran maybe a half mile at a faster pace that I would not have done had I not read this book. And while that pace is well over a double digit, the fact that I was able to opens a light inside of me. Which is exactly the Light the author brings to the story.

He weaves his relationship with his complicated father in a journalistic vs emotionally saturated way. The story is deep and detailed - that everything that could be loved was loved- and yet honest how this relationship formed him and his own parenting style.

This is an easy read but a substantial one with a kind message woven over a demanding career, health scare, raising children and just being a regular human.

A Little Tailwind For Life…

Nicholas’ story beautifully blends the mind, body, spirit of connection and change through running. Loved this book.

Excellent read for athletes

I love listening to Nick’s story, the captivating understory of his father, and the inspirational athletes he met throughout his life. I hope he writes a continuation in 10 years!