As a fervent member of Haruki Murakami’s cult following, my interest was piqued when I learned of his self-coined “somewhat of a memoir” focused on his running journey. I first encountered this book much, much after its 2007 release because it is rightfully overshadowed by his classics like “Norwegian Wood,” “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” or my favorite, “Kafka on the Shore.” Hence, I was late to the party, but I read it in about two days to start my 2026 Goodreads book challenge on an ultimate high.
To understand this quasi-memoir, one must also understand a bit about the author and his normal style of writing: Murakami’s writing style is one defined by magical realism and fantastical worlds being created with flying fish, a quiet, constant whisper of jazz music, and unadulterated (oftentimes overtly sexual and creepy) love affairs, written in a blunt, sometimes brusque, manner similar to an old-timey detective show or novel. Because of this, it is odd that he wrote a memoir on running, rather than his own lifetime of love or deep passion for jazz music.
The book takes inspiration from “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver, a short collection of stories, of which the title story is a conversation between two couples over gin (though this is not Murakami’s favorite alcohol to write about: whiskey). Carver’s collection focuses on themes of characters struggling to define love amidst failed relationships, emotional pain, and domestic struggles, revealing more through what they don’t say. However, Murakami’s book is centered on his own journey cultivating the mental fortitude needed to write for five hours per day, the act of doing something so routine and mundane, and writing: lots and lots about how he writes, why he writes, and how he found himself pursuing a career in writing while continuing his lucrative jazz club career.
The memoir begins in 1982, just after Murakami sold his surprisingly successful jazz bar to devote his career to writing. In this new life stage, he begins running to keep fit. He describes himself as someone who has to do some kind of physical movement to stay in the shape he enjoys, unlike his wife, the complete opposite, who can eat anything and never change physically. The plot moves fluidly and a year later, Murakami had completed a solo course nearly the length of a marathon from Athens to Marathon (in reverse as Pheidippides who ran from Marathon to Athens), during which the temperatures were sweltering. After dozens of such races (one marathon per year plus many others), not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and, more importantly, on his writing.
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and nostalgia, the book culminates in Murakami’s preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon. The narrative is a retelling of his travels around the world, from Japan’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he used to share runs and a course with Olympians, to the Charles River in Boston, where he occasionally lived. His marvelous account of sport emerges through a lens of great physical, mental memories, and insights into his habits and life. We are shown his eureka moment when he decides to become a writer, his passion for vintage LPs and his trusty walkman, and the experience, after age fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back even with training being somewhat staid. The memoir is at times ghastly hilarious, sobering, philosophical (although I am sure he would not enjoy this assertion), and playful. Murakami toes the line between private and public, allowing readers a glimpse into his daily life through the motif of running.
Now, I wrote this article to argue neither that everyone needs to read the book nor that everyone should run (get it?) to pick up their tennis shoes and conquer the twenty-degree temperatures for the hope of a “runner’s high moment.” No, this is not what Murakami would have wanted me, or anyone, to gain from this memoir. Instead, I urge that we should all reject the rush to physical perfection, the rush to perfect our routines through “75 Hard” challenges and late-night core workouts on YouTube. What I truly gained from this memoir (other than a deep jealousy and reverence for Murakami as he never gets injured from running six miles six days per week) is that one should strive to find any activity where they reach a void, where they are alone — not necessarily with their thoughts, but in a thoughtless, mundane action that makes them feel somewhat fulfilled or rewarded. This does not mean we should all immediately go to the Matchbox and walk on the treadmill for four hours. We should all search within our bodies and minds to find a somewhat physically active action to fill this void.
“It might be a little silly,” admits Murakami, “I find spending an hour or two a day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring.” Like Murakami, I also have found respite in running, and as I run, I try to solely focus on the physical world in front of me — a sort of presentness. Although I have many less miles under my belt and a much less fortitudinous mind than he, I have still trained my mind to wander into nothingness while running. Similar to Murakami, I am also most comfortable alone, not in a scary, loner way but in a regular aloneness way. Rilke, the Austrian poet and novelist, urged us to “go into ourselves,” and he might be right. Aloneness brings space, an incognito arena into which you fall gently and swiftly. Some fall into this void more softly than others. More than just solitude, it is about escaping chaos.
Murakami reflects that revisiting his earlier running logs both admonishes and encourages him: “Bit by bit I’m remembering things that took place when I was a beginner runner more than twenty years ago. Retracing my memories, rereading the simple journal I kept (I’m never able to keep a regular diary for very long, but I’ve faithfully kept up my runner’s journal) and reworking them into essay form, helps me consider the path I’ve taken and rediscover the feelings I had back then. I do this to both admonish and encourage myself.” He later goes on to speak about his motivation for physical activity (or lack thereof), “I’m the kind of person who has to experience something physically, actually touch something, before I have a clear sense of it. No matter what it is, unless I see it with my own eyes, I’m not convinced … Only when I’m given an actual burden and my muscles start to groan (and sometimes scream) does my comprehension meter shoot upward and I’m finally able to grasp something.” Murakami insists to readers that physical experience is a prerequisite for understanding, only once his muscles are utterly aching then does mental comprehension emerge.
Echoing Dani Shapiro’s sage writing advice to “sit down and stay there,” Murakami figures that running has shaped his writing life: “sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story.” “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” moves with a lovely syncopation, one measured by footsteps, tapping keys, and thoughts in the process of formation. The memoir moves like a runner does, constantly and predictably down the pavement.
I apply Murakami’s self reflection to my own life: no matter the day or week, I try to keep up my running like Murakami. Running is somewhat of a lifeline, so I’m not going to quit just because I’m busy or feel like it. “If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.”
Murakami’s memoir is beautiful. Now aged 77 years old, I imagine his tiny frame running, perhaps slower now, but still in this state of void. Physical movement provides many with various feelings, some akin to repulsion or vice, lots with joyousness, but using this Murakami-esque thinking, running offers a rare and necessary nothingness. It is a void worth seeking.
