Combining all the health and fitness benefits of walking and road running, the outdoor adventure of sports such as hiking and mountain biking, and the spiritual renewal from a day spent communing with nature, is it any wonder that trail running is fast becoming one of the most popular fitness activities? Whether you're a complete beginner or have been hitting the trails for years, this fully illustrated, one-of-a-kind guide provides all the essential information including: finding trails and getting started; managing ascents and descents with ease; maneuvering off-road obstacles; strength, stretching, and cross-training; selecting proper shoes, clothing, and accessories; safety on the trail; racing and other trail events and more.

    It's filled with sage advice on opening life to its inherent joy, including:* Master your past in the present, or the past will master your future.* Instead of putting others in their place, put yourself in theirs.* True happiness in life is found always within.* As water carves through stone, those who persevere will win.* Turn your face to the sun and shadows will only fall behind you.Open Your Mind, Open Your Life is richly illustrated with exquisite Far East-inspired patterns and original watercolor art.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283-1352). Kenko's work is included in Penguin Classics in Essays in Idleness and Hojoki.

    Originally, the role of the Ninja was to gain information about the enemy and to sabotage his operations. Over the centuries the sect (which might be called the original Fifth Column) perfected the art of boring from within. The Ninja long ago perfected the art and techniques of covert entry, especially designed to infiltrate enemy territory in wartime.

    Canfield and Hansen bring you wit and wisdom, hope and empowerment to buoy you through life's dark moments.

    Transcripts of lectures present to an Honors Book of Morman class at BYU,1988-1990Has the smallest print I have every seen!!

    Improve flexibility, balance, and strength in three steps! Only the Full-Body Flexibility system blends the best stretching methods from yoga, Pilates, martial arts, and sports training into stretching sequences for your every need.In this updated edition, you'll find 175 stretches and 23 routines that will help you take these steps:- Strengthen muscles to support your body and maximize your entire range of motion.- Enhance flexibility by challenging your muscles with multiple techniques.- Balance muscles in opposing muscle groups on both sides of your body.Use the book's step-by-step instruction and detailed full-color photo sequences to enhance your body's natural movement, reduce muscular tension, strengthen joints, improve posture, and take your athletic performance to new heights.Whether you're seeking to improve overall fitness or simply searching for a more effective way to stretch, Full-Body Flexibility is your guide for staying active, healthy, pain free, and injury free.

    He encouraged to inquire into the origin of consciousness and the illusory nature of arising phenomena. The primary reason for the book’s effectiveness is that the author enjoys a profound intuition of his teacher's realization."This sequel to I am That and Seeds of Consciousness continues the moving account of a genuine master of Advaita Vedanta."-David Diaman (The Laughing Man)

    With evocative drawings and a distilled but faithful text adapted by acclaimed manga writer Sean Michael Wilson, The Book of Five Rings comes alive both as a guide to swordsmanship and strategy, and as a view into Musashi’s world.

    John 'Lofty' Wiseman presents real strategies for surviving in any type of situation, from accidents and escape procedures, including chemical and nuclear to successfully adapting to various climates (polar, tropical, desert), to identifying edible plants and creating fire. The book is extremely practical and is illustrated throughout with easy-to-understand line art and diagrams.

    He’s taken sf to places it’s never been (Snow Crash, Anathem). He’s reinvented the historical novel (The Baroque Cycle), the international thriller (Reamde), and both at the same time (Cryptonomicon).Now he treats his legion of fans to Some Remarks, an enthralling collection of essays—Stephenson’s first nonfiction work since his long essay on technology, In the Beginning…Was the Command Line, more than a decade ago—as well as new and previously published short writings both fiction and non.Some Remarks is a magnificent showcase of a brilliantly inventive mind and talent, as he discourses on everything from Sir Isaac Newton to Star Wars.

    Leading the charge is a fresh generation of brilliant young exercise physiologists including Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas, whose work has demolished many long-standing beliefs about running. Now Tucker and Dugas, whose blog, Science of Sport, has already created a devoted readership, join with esteemed fitness author Matt Fitzgerald to provide a captivating tour of the human body from the runner's perspective.Focusing on how runners at all levels can improve their health and performance, Runner's World The Runner's Body offers in a friendly, accessible tone, the newest, most surprising, and most helpful scientific discoveries about every aspect of the sport--from how best to nourish the runner's body to safe and legal ways to increase oxygen delivery to the muscles. Full of surprising facts, practical sidebars, and graphical elements, The Runner's Body is a must-have resource for anyone who wants to become a better--and healthier--runner.

    With a compassionate yet critical eye, William Scott Wilson delves into the workings of Musashi's mind as the iconoclastic samurai wrestled with philosophical and spiritual ideas that are as relevant today as they were in his times. Musashi found peace and spiritual reward in seeking to perfect his chosen Way, and came to realize that perfecting a single Way, no matter the path, could lead to fulfillment. The Lone Samurai is far more than a vivid account of a fascinating slice of feudal Japan. It is the story of one man's quest for answers, perfection, and access to the Way.By age thirteen, Miyamoto Musashi had killed his opponent in what would become the first of many celebrated swordfights. By thirty, he had fought more than sixty matches, losing none. He would live another thirty years but kill no one else. He continued to engage in swordfights but now began to show his skill simply by thwarting his opponents' every attack until they acknowledged Musashi's all-encompassing ability. At the same time, the master swordsman began to expand his horizons, exploring Zen Buddhism and its related arts, particularly ink painting, in a search for a truer Way.Musashi was a legend in his own time. As a swordsman, he preferred the wooden sword and in later years almost never fought with a real weapon. He outfoxed his opponents or turned their own strength against them. At the height of his powers, he began to evolve artistically and spiritually, becoming one of the country's most highly regarded ink painters and calligraphers, while deepening his practice of Zen Buddhism. He funneled his hard-earned insights about the warrior arts into his spiritual goals. Ever the solitary wanderer, Musashi shunned power, riches, and the comforts of a home or fixed position with a feudal lord in favor of a constant search for truth, perfection, and a better Way. Eventually, he came to the realization that perfection in one art, whether peaceful or robust, could offer entry to a deeper, spiritual understanding. His philosophy, along with his warrior strategies, is distilled in his renowned work, The Book of Five Rings, written near the end of his life.Musashi remains a source of fascination for the Japanese, as well as for those of us in the West who have more recently discovered the ideals of the samurai and Zen Buddhism. The Lone Samurai is the first biography ever to appear in English of this richly layered, complex seventeenth-century swordsman and seeker, whose legacy has lived far beyond his own time and place.---------------------------------------------------------------- INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM SCOTT WILSON ABOUT BUSHIDOQ.: What is Bushido?A.: Bushido might be explained in part by the etymology of the Chinese characters used for the word. Bu comes from two radicals meanings "stop" and "spear." So even though the word now means "martial" or "military affair," it has the sense of stopping aggression. Shi can mean "samurai," but also means "gentleman" or "scholar." Looking at the character, you can see a man with broad shoulders but with his feet squarely on the ground. Do, with the radicals of head and motion, originally depicted a thoughtful way of action. It now means a path, street or way. With this in mind, we can understand Bushido as a Way of life, both ethical and martial, with self-discipline as a fundamental tenet. Self-discipline requires the warrior at once to consider his place in society and the ethics involved, and to forge himself in the martial arts. Both should eventually lead him to understand that his fundamental opponents are his own ignorance and passions.Q.: How did the code develop and how did it influence Japanese society?A.: The warrior class began to develop as a recognizable entity around the 11th and 12th centuries. The leaders of this class were often descended from the nobility, and so were men of education and breeding. I would say that the code developed when the leaders of the warrior class began to reflect on their position in society and what it meant to be a warrior. They first began to write these thoughts down as yuigon, last words to their descendents, or as kabegaki, literally "wall writings," maxims posted to all their samurai. Samurai itself is an interesting word, coming from the classical saburau, "to serve." So when we understand that a samurai is "one who serves," we see that the implications go much farther than simply being a soldier or fighter.Also, it is important to understand that Confucian scholars had always reflected on what it meant to be true gentleman, and they concluded that such a man would be capable of both the martial and literary. The Japanese inherited this system of thought early on, so certain ideals were already implicitly accepted.The warrior class ruled the country for about 650 years, and their influence-political, philosophical and even artistic-had a long time to percolate throughout Japanese society.Q.: The Samurai were very much renaissance men - they were interested in the arts, tea ceremony, religion, as well as the martial arts. What role did these interests play in the development of Bushido? How did the martial arts fit in?A.: This question goes back to the Confucian ideal of balance that Japanese inherited, probably from the 7th century or so. The word used by both to express this concept, for the "gentleman" by the Chinese and the warrior by Japanese, is (hin), pronounced uruwashii in Japanese, meaning both "balanced" and "beautiful." The character itself is a combination of "literature" (bun) and "martial" (bu). The study of arts like Tea ceremony, calligraphy, the study of poetry or literature, and of course the martial arts of swordsmanship or archery, broadened a man's perspective and understanding of the world and, as mentioned above, provided him with a vehicle for self-discipline. The martial arts naturally were included in the duties of a samurai, but this did not make them any less instructive in becoming a full human being.Q.: What was sword fighting like? Was the swordplay different for different samurai?A.: There were literally hundreds of schools of samurai swordsmanship by the 1800's and, as previously mentioned, each school emphasized differing styles and approaches. Some would have the student to jump and leap, others to keep his feel solidly on the ground; some would emphasize different ways of holding the sword, others one method only. One school stated that technical swordsmanship took second place to sitting meditation. Historically speaking, there were periods when much of the swordfighting was done on horseback, and others when it was done mostly on foot. Also, as the shape and length of the sword varied through different epochs, so did styles of fighting. Then I suppose that a fight between men who were resolved to die would be quite different from a fight between men who were not interested in getting hurt.Q.: How is the code reflected in Japanese society today?A.: When I first came to live in Japan in the 60's, I was impressed how totally dedicated and loyal people were to the companies where they were employed. When I eventually understood the words samurai and saburau, it started to make sense. While these men (women would usually not stay long with a company, giving up work for marriage) did not carry swords of course, they seemed to embody that old samurai sense of service, duty, loyalty and even pride. This may sound strange in our own "me first" culture, but it impressed me that the company had sort of taken the place of a feudal lord, and that the stipend of the samurai had become the salary of the white-collar worker.MThat is on the societal level. On an individual level, I have often felt that Japanese have a strong resolution, perhaps from this cultural background of Bushido, to go through problems rather than around them. Persistence and patience developed from self-discipline?

    In Discipline Equals Freedom, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Extreme Ownership describes how he lives that mantra: the mental and physical disciplines he imposes on himself in order to achieve freedom in all aspects of life. Many books offer advice on how to overcome obstacles and reach your goals—but that advice often misses the most critical ingredient: discipline. Without discipline, there will be no real progress. Discipline Equals Freedom covers it all, including strategies and tactics for conquering weakness, procrastination, and fear, and specific physical training presented in workouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced athletes, and even the best sleep habits and food intake recommended to optimize performance.Within these pages discover the keys to becoming stronger, smarter, faster, and healthier. There is only one way to achieve true freedom: The Way of Discipline. Read this book and find The Way.

    For some, it was nothing more than an aimless wandering into the bush but for others, it has been a tale whose personas never lived to tell. Nevertheless, it has over the millennia been a necessity; an important phase and time for self-assessment and self-discovery.This transition, though often dangerous and risky in many cultures, must have reached its highest peak in history in the early 1980s when a regular odyssey of a boy in his early 20s turned into a near-death experience filled with momentous and deadly catch 22s.With the trigger happy boys soldiers armed with AK-47 in war-torn Africa, the Andes and the catastrophes of the Sahara desert to the disease in South America only describing the tip of the iceberg, Chris Donaldson's book takes you on a devastatingly blood-rushing and thrilling journey as you experience the tumultuous adventure just as it happened decades ago.Question is, are you interested in finding out: - How a young man's personality and sanity can endure before being challenged and changed by strains and stresses of solo traveling?- How one of the last true explorers to discover the world, before the internet, changed traveling forever?- How a wild journey dogged by misfortune, trouble, and fantasy ends?If you are, then this book is what you've been looking for!Scroll up and click Buy Now With 1-Click or Buy Now to get started!What could possibly go wrong when a 21- year old man decides to fire up his set of wheels; his beautiful caf� racing Moto Guzzi and head for somewhere, yet nowhere- in response to his desire to explore; break free from his mediocre, middle-class life and reach out for the unknown?What could go wrong during a 50,000-mile travel across the world, through 33 countries, executed by an unleashed 20-year old, making the spiritual transition to become a man?As it turns out, a ton of things could go wrong, but a life-time of lessons would be learned as well- the hard way.Ready for a journey of discovery through the eyes of someone who experienced all the horror, excitement, thrill, and hell; a boy turned man?Keep reading!Since the first set of people roamed the earth, boys have been transitioning into men by setting off on journeys without particular destinations. For some, it was nothing more than an aimless wandering into the bush but for others, it has been a tale whose personas never lived to tell. Nevertheless, it has over the millennia been a necessity; an important phase and time for self-assessment and self-discovery.This transition, though often dangerous and risky in many cultures, must have reached its hig