This is the first in what will be a weekly book review. We won't post negative reviews, if the book would receive a poor review it doesn't make the cut.  We would love your comments on style, content and books below. Enjoy.

The Road to Sparta is a thunderous Greek epic told in parallel narratives from the perspective of a modern ultramarathoner and an ancient hemerodromoi (daylong runner). Dean Karnazes explores his own Greek ancestry while consulting with the foremost scholars on Ancient Greece to tell the story of the world's first marathon, all while recreating the historic 153-mile run from Athens to Sparta in one of the world's most impossible feats: the Spartathlon.  - Synopsis from the Author’s Page

Dean Karnazes wanted to run in the footsteps of his Hero: Pheidippides, the father of the marathon. Inspired by the memory of Dean’s grandfather and his Greek heritage Road to Sparta is equal parts autobiographical and historical.

The first half of story brings us from Dean’s childhood, in the arms of his Grandfather Gus through an adolescence of wanderlust in suburban California, weaves the tale of how he became “the fittest man on the planet” and eventually leaves us exhausted but victorious at the feet of Leonidas - King of Sparta – 153 miles from Athens on a sunny afternoon.

Pheidippides is the famed Greek “all day runner” who history remembers as announcing the victory at Marathon and promptly falling dead of exhaustion after running the 25+ miles from the battlefield to the center of Athens. And thus the modern marathon was born…sot of…as always, truth is more than fiction.
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What Pheidippides actually accomplished was so much more: After running the 150 miles to Sparta as a herald, Phei turned around ran another 130 miles to Marathon with his news, promptly picking up a shield and helping drive the Persians back into the sea. When victory was at hand he completed one last run into Athens yelling “Nike, nike!” <<Victory, victory!>>  and fell into the history books.

Three big take-aways from Road to Sparta:

1. Find your passion and commit. Dean regained his passion on the night of his 30th birthday. He had been a successful exec with a big paycheck but was missing something. Out with his colleagues after a steady night of drinking in celebration, Dean stripped down to his boxers, ran 30 miles and never looked back.

2. Blend fitness into your everyday routine. Dean made his living as a runner but being a celebrity takes time. “My shoes have logged tens of thousands of airline miles…I also developed a body-weight training program that I could whip out during any brief period of downtime.”
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3. Let your Heroes guide you.  The larger-than-life memory of his Grandfather and the epic example set by Pheidippides helped Dean overcome his obstacles on The Road to Sparta.

Hero Tenets on the run:

Be a person of Action:  Dean laces up every day. Twice. His advice for marathon success is running every morning and evening for at least 45 mins each.

Be Excellent: Dean has set himself to be a perfect runner. Among numerous achievements he has won the 135 mile Badwater desert Ultra, raced 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days and run across America.

Live by a code: Dean’s ethos: To thine own self be true. His code: Hard work, no excuses; Failure is giving less than your best; live life to its fullest.

Champion: Dean used his love of running to lend his celebrity to Greece at a time of great economic strife in that country. That effort culminated in his running the Spartathlon.

Find Balance: “The Athenians came to believe that only when mind, body, and spirit were aligned in perfect harmony could true human potential be realized and arête (excellence and virtue) be achieved.” [46]

Be fit: Within the Academy “Students spent their time practicing running, jumping, throwing and wrestling while philosophy and mathematics professors sauntered about … always ready to engage in an enlightened conversation….” [46]

Wander: “Later, Aristotle [student of Plato and mentor of Alexander the Great] would move outside the walls of the gymnasium and conduct his classes while walking around. His pupils became known as the Peripatetics, wanderers.” [46, a big page]

For more on Pheidippides, Greek runners and the Battle of Marathon try these:

Herodotus, Histories, Book VI “Erato”

Christopher McDougall’s Natural Born Heroes

Sir Edward Creasy’s The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World

#read and #run with @wanderlosttoday #Lost Library's #review of Road to #Sparta by @DeanKarnazes on www.wanderlost.today 

333 squats. Any way you like...plia, air, goblet, jumps, sumo...your call.
16  sprints. 1/16 Mile (100m), max effort.
333 High Knees.
141 jacks.
4 victory burpees.
Have fun!

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Get #fit with the daily #RAID and #VIKINGfit at www.wanderlost.today. 333 SQ; 16 100m sprints; 333 HGK; 141 JK; 4 B! Beat that #new years #resolution!

I’m sure you’ve heard a variation of the oft quoted statistics about new year’s resolutions, something like: “Less than 10% follow through.” Those statistics form a sort of collective pessimism that excuses us from success.  As it turns out they’re also BS.

According to a study by Dr. John Norcross from the University of Scranton, after two weeks 71% of people are still at and after six months nearly half, 46%, of have stuck to their guns. The study goes on to say that people who resolve to change at the New Year are 10 times more likely to succeed than folks that start at another time.

So what does that tell us? Now is the time: Adventure is calling, start today. If we dig a little deeper it also tells us that now is the most critical time. The first two weeks is critical to success, half of total failures happen by the second week of January.

Almost half of Americans make a new resolution. Not surprisingly 77% of those resolutions are weight control or self improvement related. Seven out of ten specifically named resolutions have to do with health improvement or being more adventurous.

“12% of new gym memberships come in January,”  according to Darren Beattie at Quora.com, “The second week of January is almost always the busiest of the year” representing about a 33% increase in volume. “80% of the New Year’s Resolutions crowd drops off by the second week of February [6 weeks]."

So we know that it’s going to take two months to turn that resolution into a habit and that the most critical period it between weeks 2 and 6.

“Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Canada, says that resolutions are a form of "cultural procrastination," an effort to reinvent oneself. People make resolutions as a way of motivating themselves, he says. Pychyl argues that people aren't ready to change their habits, particularly bad habits, and that accounts for the high failure rate. Another reason, says Dr. Avya Sharma of the Canadian Obesity Network, is that people set unrealistic goals and expectations in their resolutions,” according to a Psychology Today article.

I believe it’s not as simple as all that. I think deep within the collective unconscious we recognize the yearend as a “return” and the New Year as a “call to adventure.” Think of that 2 week hump in your resolution to be your “refusing the call.” 

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​#Adventure is calling, answer. Get your #newyears #resolution on track with VIKINGfit. #new year new #health  @ www.wanderlost.today

This one's a doosey. Get out your TABATA timer and set it to 30 rounds of 50/10 seconds.

30 mins, 2 rounds of 15 exercises, 50 seconds on, 10 off.

Warm up or cool down with 1 mile run or a 5k row.

1. Plank
2. Crunches
3. Mountain Climbers
4. Flutter Kicks
5. Half Sit Ups
6. Side Plank, left
7. V-ups
8. Bicycles
9. Russian Twists
10. Oblique Crunch, left
11. Side Plank, Right
12. Oblique Crunch, right
13. Superwoman
14. Bridge
15. Scissors
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Rinse and Repeat.

Get to the #core of your #newyears #resolution at www.wanderlost.today. #heroic #health today with VIKINGfit's #dailyraid!

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Quid & 5 Pence

100 Push Ups
100 Air Squats
100 Crunches
100 Jump Jacks
100 Lunges

5 Pull-ups

2000m Row

At your fitness level: Break the RAID into sets. For example: 4x25 each. Finish with the Pullups.

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Sart your #newyears #resolution off right. #new year new #health with VIKINGfit at www.wanderlost.today