Review | Book review: how sport saved ultra-runner Charlie Engle
Engle was a drug addict and alcoholic for a decade, but when he hit rock bottom it was running that saved his life, as he recounts in this personable, plain-speaking autobiography
By Charlie Engle
Simon & Schuster
On any given weekend, Hong Kong’s trails are likely to be well populated with runners – on solo dashes in the latest equipment, in pairs or small groups, or in a pack taking part in one of the races that stud the city’s events calendar. Trail running seems to have exploded in popularity in recent years. Inclusive, accessible and addictive, the sport is an antidote to long hours spent in the office.
For ultramarathoner Charlie Engle, running – whether across the Sahara or Gobi, or on the track at Beckley federal prison, in West Virginia, in the United States – is what saved his life.
One of a trio who became the first to run across the Sahara Desert – from Senegal to the Red Sea, a distance of almost 7,000km – Engle has now published a memoir, Running Man, that chronicles his decade-long addiction to drugs and alcohol, his ascent in the ultramarathon and adventure-racing world and his 16 months behind bars. “Running Man” was Engle’s prison nickname.
