Sport Chit Chat

Greeting faithful readers! Zackdaddy is here to hit you with a book review of Dean Karnazes’ 50/50 Secrets I learned running 50 Marathons in 50 Days-and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance!

Firstly, after reading this book, I have concluded that no matter how much he tries to convince us he is normal, Karnazes is quite possibly superman in disguise. His journal format account of his journey is in depth, and provides the reader with insight into the challenges and tribulations Dean faced along possibly the most difficult running challenge in human history (next of course too, which he frequently reminds us of his running a 199 mile tag team race singlehandedly).

With that being said, although it is clear that Dean is not a professional author, and his writing is no means on par with that of one, this book is fantastic. It is full to the brim with tips from someone who is clearly an expert on what they are giving advice about. Perhaps the most important advice Dean gives is that we need to realize things for ourselves. This being said, his tips on running are invaluable to runners, basketball players, or athletes in general. The advice in this novel can help anyone from a first time runner to a 100 time marathon champ. It never hurts to listen to someone who’s been there, done that.

All the above praise notwithstanding, I have one major grievance with the book. The blatant advertising just turned me off reading at some points. I really don’t need to read about which brands Dean prefers, and just putting his sponsors name in print too many times irked me. I think the words accelerade and The North Face were mentioned about 100 times each.

Blatant over the top advertising is about the only thing I could really complain about with this book. I specifically recommend it to athletes of any nature as it can help you learn things that would never have come up otherwise.

-Zackdaddy out

I have been fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to review the new book by Dean Karnazes. For those of you who haven’t heard of Karnazes, I’ll give you a brief rundown. Karnazes is a runner who completed the astonishing feat of running fifty, that’s right FIFTY full lenth marathons, one per day, in each state. That’s right, fifty full marathons, in every one of the fifty American states, in the ridiculous time span of fifty days.
The book is both an inspirational piece, a guidebook, and a recollection of fifty days of what to any normal person must seem like suicide. I can’t even run one marathon, let alone fifty of them. It’s attitudes like mine that Karnazes sets out to correct. His goal is too teach everyone of us that we do have what it takes to accomplish our goals.
The book also contains many tips, including how to take your own performance to the next level. Now Karnazes has shown he may be the greatest runner of all time and he already has one book to his credit (The Ultramarathon Man). I’ll let you know how this one turns out.
-Zackdaddy out

Matthew Randazzo V’s Ring of Hell: The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry, follows Chris Benoit as a young boy to when he captured the WWE title to his untimely murder suicide of his family.

I was a huge wrestling fan until Vince McMahon’s faked death and then it was exposed by Chris Benoit’s tragedy(?). Anyway I stopped watching pro wrestling from that point on and I was a bit of a nerd wrestling fan, reading on insider news, listening to interviews etc. I’m not reviewing the book for the sake of reviewing it, I was a big Chris Benoit fan.

The book starts out very slowly, it’s mostly a book filled with slander and uncalled for bashing. Everyone is a victim of Randazzo’s criticism, whether it is Benoit, the entire wrestling industry, the Harts, Tom Billington (Dynamite Kid). For the first four chapters this drags on and on, telling stories about people who while related to Benoit don’t have much a story to relate to as Benoit or in any case don’t need to be ridiculed on for no reason. Everyone got bashed, even deservedly, it got away from the point…talking about Benoit and this book wasn’t a very good read until the 5th chapter.

The only person to NOT be ridiculed was Bad News Allen, even though he did too die of a heart attack but refused to call him a steroid junkie like Brian Pillman or any of the wrestlers who did die due to drugs (like Eddie Guerrero).

Once it started talking about Benoit’s career as it progressed from Stampede Wrestling to New Japan Pro Wrestling did things ever really lift off. It was great hearing about his times with Paul Heyman and ECW and then moving on the disaster of WCW. I think I ended up reading the book at lightning pace at that point, hearing really good facts about the wrestling industry such as the Hart family not wanting a tribute for Owen’s death after falling while performing a dangerous stunt.

Some of the facts of the book are a little bit chilling and Randazzo sometimes takes this tone too far or just contradicts himself by easing up his tone. Steroids played a big role in most wrestlers lives because they were forced to work through injuries or be fired. Eddie Guerrero after being fired for his alcohol habit was only allowed to be hired after more steroid use.

This book is VERY interesting as an uneducated wrestling fan…probably less if you were ever an expert and heard about these stories from before. There’s a lot of definitions and a lot to learn about the pro wrestling industry through this book even if it is unnecessarily cruel and vile. I would have done away with most of the first 4 chapters and then it would be an awesome book to read.

It doesn’t really come to any conclusions though…the book just kind of ends and the wrestling industry continues to be run with their grueling schedule even with much less ratings.

It’s been a sloow day in the world of sports. Typical Sunday in the NFL off-season. Anyway, here at Sport Chit Chat we’ll be reviewing sport related books in the future. The first book that we will review (in the next coming weeks/month) is the Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry by Matthew Randazzo V. The book itself covers one of the most heated (and most annoying) topic in all of sports, steroids.

I was a big fan of professional wrestling until the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit and his family. It was just the final straw for me and I couldn’t get myself to watch anymore. So I have a huge interest in the book already.

I’m a bit skeptical on what the book is about and I really believe it might be that ‘typical’ perspective on steroids in the pro-wrestling industry and in sports. His article “The Jacked-Up Truth About Steroids” is an interesting read.

Check it out below:

Attention, all grandstanding politicians, disgruntled sports fans, and anti-drug crusaders: don’t waste your time trying to fight steroid use. You have a better chance eliminating caffeine from white-collar workplaces than you will compelling professional athletes to abstain from drugs that can legitimately make them stronger, faster, and more resilient. Likewise, it is beyond naive to expect bodybuilders, actors, models, and other professional (and amateur) narcissists to refrain from using drugs that can exponentially improve their physiques by promoting muscle growth and burning fat. The War on Drugs has been a failure in suppressing even those purely recreational drugs with the most ghastly side effects. The government cannot possibly manage to effectively outlaw any narcotic with the universal utilitarian appeal of anabolic steroids — who doesn’t want to be stronger, faster, tougher, and more physically appealing?

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