When I started this blog nearly four years ago (wha???), I was following one health-related blog on Tumblr: Your Nutritionista (now known as Your Healthista). I loved her blog, and I, too, wanted to share all this health and nutrition knowledge I was learning on my own journey.

I started my blog, and through the magic of the Internets, I discovered other people doing the same thing–especially these two.

I first met Liz when she visited NYC that same year:

She was totally anonymous at the time, so I blocked her face with a baseball?

I met Ben the next year, when he was on the Today Show.

We all had something in common: we all lost a bunch of weight and put it all on the Internetz, as it happened, bringing the ups and downs of trying to lose significant amounts of weight to our readers.

I got an email a few weeks ago from a publicist from Ben’s publisher, asking if I wanted a review copy of his book. Um, yeah?

So, if you’re not familiar with him: in a nutshell, he lost 160+ pounds, has done a few marathons and two Ironmans. (Ironmen?)

He was overweight his entire life, and towards the end of his college career, his grandma, Meemaw, asked how he was. He knew what she was getting at, but she was too polite a lady to ask how he really felt. The next day, he decided to start a blog and dedicate it to her.

He went from more than 360 pounds to 240 pounds and discovered running along the way.

I already knew much of his story from reading his blog: boy is depressed and has gambling addiction, boy starts running, loses weight, falls in love with running, changes life.

So, honestly, I wasn’t expecting to love his book. I’d already read much of it. But sitting down and reading it all at once, rather than as it unfolded, was really interesting, and, I most loved reading about how he pushed himself.

“If you test yourself and you pass that test, if you reach goal after goal after goal, your new goal must become never to allow yourself to become complacent.”

YES. While, yeah, sometimes I give myself too many goals, I get this–and it’s this attitude that’s inspiring about Ben. He definitely shows a depth in this book that’s different from his blog.

The book also has training plans for everything from 5K to Ironman, which seem to be geared towards newer runners. If you are a new runner and plan on embarking on a half-marathon distance or further, I encourage you to do some research before embarking on any plan, not just Ben’s.

What’s the most inspiring book you’ve read lately? What’s your favorite running book?