Ranningu Suru Mae ni Yomu Hon (“Read This Before You Run”) by Hiroaki Tanaka, published in Kodansha’s Blue Backs science series, is a science book written by an exercise physiologist. At its centre is slow jogging—running at roughly walking pace—supported by physiological data.
This article was published in 2024 and revised in September 2026. It originally described the book as “more psychological than theoretical” and “not a book that teaches you how to run”. That was a mischaracterisation. The bulk of the book is training theory and physiology, as you would expect from Blue Backs. The bibliographic details and structure have been added, while the impressions are unchanged.
- This is a training book grounded in exercise physiology, not a psychology or mindset book
- That said, the theory works in the direction of lowering the barrier to running, which is what I took from it. The reflections below come from that angle
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Book details
| Title | ランニングする前に読む本 最短で結果を出す科学的トレーニング |
|---|---|
| Author | Hiroaki Tanaka (professor of exercise physiology, Fukuoka University) |
| Publisher | Kodansha (Blue Backs) |
| Published | 24 February 2017 |
| Subject | Exercise physiology and training |
| Language | Japanese only |
Chapters
- 1. Foundations: theory — why running beats walking
- 2. Foundations: practice — slow jogging as the shortest route to finishing a marathon
- 3. Running and weight loss
- 4. The physiology of running
- 5. Training towards a marathon
- 6. Race conditioning
- 7. Running and health
The contents make it plain: this is a concrete training book aimed at finishing a marathon and at sub-three-hour times. It is not a book about mindset.
What the book actually argues: slow jogging
The method is simple—run at roughly the pace at which you would walk.
The author supports this with physiological reasoning:
- No warm-up or strength training is required
- The load on knees and heart is low
- Calorie expenditure is about twice that of walking the same distance
- Measurable effects on blood pressure and blood sugar
This is the core. Rather than exhorting you to get out and run, the book is structured to demonstrate with data that you do not need to run hard.
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What I took from it: lowering the barrier
What follows is my own reading.
I started it expecting a running book and was mildly caught off guard when the early chapters explained, from a physiological angle, why most people do not keep it up.
What I brought to it was this:
- The thinking that happens before the shoes go on
- The moment of deciding to skip today
- How I judged myself on the days I did not run
The book does not address any of that directly. But because it dismantles the premise that it has to hurt to be worth doing, there was less left to deliberate about.
The tone: it does not scold
What made it readable is that the encouragement is not forceful. It never says “just push through”—it shows, with data, why a given approach is sufficient.
Rather than lifting the reader’s mood, it reads like clearing the desk. In my case, I stopped concluding “I lack motivation” and started thinking “my decision-making inputs were just disorganised”.
What changed afterwards
Nothing dramatic changed about whether I run. What did change is that I became able to observe myself while deliberating.
Being able to name it—”is this a physical issue today, or a mood issue?”—makes the day’s decision less careless. Run on the days you run; rest on the days you rest. What lingered was that rest days stopped registering as losses.
That is not because the book deals in psychology. As I understand it now, it is a side effect of gaining a theoretical basis for “you do not need to go harder”.
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Where opinions will divide
It is a science book, so it asks for some concentration. There are figures and data, and it is not the sort of book that fires you up.
It may also disappoint anyone looking for detailed form corrections or a week-by-week training plan. The emphasis is on explaining why the approach works, not on tabulating sessions.
Who it suits
Probably a good fit if you
- Want to start running but find the prospect too punishing
- Want to understand why an approach works before adopting it
- Are aiming to finish a marathon and want a method with evidence behind it
- Are running with weight loss in mind
Probably not if you
- Want a ready-made training schedule
- Are looking for form-improvement technique
- Find data and charts a burden to read
Summary
This is a training book grounded in exercise physiology, and slow jogging is its centre.
For me, the theoretical justification for “you do not have to run fast” ended up reducing the hesitation before running. It does not push you to run; it rearranges the premise, and that structure suited me.
Anyone hunting only for a concrete training plan will find it a detour. Read when you want to recalibrate your relationship with running, and it does a great deal of work.
