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conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training about Boston, P><P, I>The with the genre: Reference, Encyclopedias & Subject Guides?
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conversations.value: <DIV><P><B>the author </B>has contributed to<I> Runner's World</I> for longer than any other writer. An article by Hal appeared in that publication's second issue in 1966. Author of more than 36 books, including the best-selling <I>Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide</I> (Rodale, 2011), <I>4:09:43: Boston 2013 Through the Eyes of the Runners</I> (Human Kinetics, 2014), and <I>RunFast</I> (Rodale, 2000). the author has also written books on many subjects and for various age groups. His children's book <I>The Horse That Played Center Field</I> was made into an animated feature by ABC TV. </P><P> He ran eight times in the Olympic Trials and won four World Masters Championships. One of the founders of the Road Runners Club of America, the author was a finalist in NASA's Journalist-in-Space program to ride the space shuttle. He has served as training consultant for the Chicago Marathon and Chicago Area Runners Association and also answers questions on Facebook, offering interactive training programs through TrainingPeaks and apps through Bluefin. At the annual meeting of the American Society of Journalists and Authors in 2003, the author received the Career Achievement Award, the highest honor given to writer members. </P><P> the author became acquainted with the Boston Marathon as a member of the U.S. Army stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, training with Dean Thackwray, who would make the U.S. Olympic team in 1956. the author knew then that he eventually needed to shift his focus from his usual track events (including the 3,000-meter steeplechase) to the marathon. He first ran Boston in 1959, then again in 1960, failing to finish both years. &#8220;My mistake,&#8221; the author realized later, &#8220;was trying to win the race, not finish the race.&#8221; </P><P> It took five years for the author to figure out the training necessary for success as an elite marathoner, becoming the first American finisher (fifth overall) in 1964. The previous year, he wrote an article for <I>Sports Illustrated</I> about Boston titled <I>&#8220;On the Run From Dogs and People&#8221;</I> (later a book by the same title) that contributed to the explosion of interest in running in the 1970s that continues to this day. </P><P> the author also wrote a coffee table book titled<I> Boston: A Century of Running</I>, published before the 100th running of the Boston Marathon in 1996. An expanded version of a chapter in that book featuring the 1982 battle between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley, titled <I>The Duel</I>, continues as a best-seller among running books. </P><P> the author has run 111 marathons, 18 of them at Boston. He considers himself more than a running specialist, having spent most of his career as a full-time journalist writing about a variety of subjects, including business, history, and science, for publications such as <I>Reader&#8217;s Digest, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic</I>, and<I> Playboy</I>. Among his more than three dozen published books are two involving major crimes: <I>The Union vs. Dr. Mudd </I>(about the Lincoln assassination) and <I>The Crime of the Century </I>(about the Leopold and Loeb case, featuring attorney Clarence Darrow). The 2014 publication of <I>4:09:43: Boston 2013 Through the Eyes of the Runners</I> resonated with the worldwide community of runners deeply affected by the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon. </P><P> the author continues to run and bike with his wife, Rose, from their winter and summer homes in Florida and Indiana. They have three children annd nine grandchildren. </P></DIV>
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conversations.value: What is the first three paragraphs for this book?
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conversations.value: Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training
  Trying to determine the history of the half marathon is no easy task. The marathon has a clearly established lineage, its beginning traced to the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the legendary run of the Greek warrior and messenger Pheidippides from the plain of Marathon into Athens. Legend has Pheidippides crying, "Rejoice, we conquer," then dying. Historians suggest that, attractive as it might be, the legend was at best, well, just a legend with few facts to back it up. Nevertheless, that did not prevent the organizers of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 from adding a long-distance race of about 25 miles (or about 40 kilometers) to the track and field competition. A Greek shepherd named Spiridon Loues won that race, and the name "marathon" was forever imprinted on all future races of about that distance. In 1908, the organizers of the Olympic Games in London lengthened the marathon distance to 26 miles, 385 yards (or 42.195 kilometers) so that the Queen's grandchildren could see the start. For several years, the International Olympic Committee and International Association of Athletics Federations argued over the precise distance of a marathon. Boston did not switch to 26 miles, 385 yards until 1924. As late as 1946, the European Championships in Stockholm featured a marathon only 40.2 kilometers long. Eventually, everyone agreed that 26 and 385 were the proper numbers for full marathons.
  Despite its tremendous current appeal, the half marathon can boast no equivalent history. The half has no myths. The half has no legends. No comrade in arms helped pace Pheidippides to the halfway point then slowed his pace and dropped out able to brag, "Hey, I got halfway. Credit me for inventing another event."
  Participation in half marathons has grown in popularity as the race distance is more accessible for more people.
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conversations.value: What is four more paragraphs?
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conversations.value: Developing a training plan and sticking to it will help get you to the starting line. Your training plan will also prepare you for the race so that you can meet your final goal: to make it to the finish line.
  It is more important than strength training, more important than stretching, more important than cross-training. All three are promoted by various running gurus in print and online to immunize runners from injury. Can this be true? I say a qualified maybe, in fact, a very qualified maybe. Specific exercises can strengthen muscles. Specific stretching exercises (static and dynamic) can lengthen muscles. Specific cross-training can improve your aerobic capacity on days when the muscles you use for running need a day off. But taken in doses that are too large, all of these activities can cause injury rather than prevent it. You need to know what you're doing, and maybe you can't accumulate that knowledge without the support of a good personal trainer or running coach.
  But rest? Everybody knows how to rest, don't they? Not necessarily, because some people don't know the meaning of the word. Does it mean slow down, or do less, or switch to a complementary sport? They don't want to take a day off. The Interdenominational Work Ethic affects us all.
  Admittedly, rest can be relative. For a beginning runner, rest might be an entire day off. My novice programs feature rest days on Mondays and Fridays. My advanced programs feature only a single day of rest, usually on Fridays, but sometimes on Saturday before a Sunday race. I also often allow advanced runners the option to run or rest. For an elite African runner, a rest day might feature an easy 10-miler (16 km) in the morning and another run of 5 miles (8 km) in the afternoon.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: For an elite African runner, a rest day might feature an easy 10-miler (16 km) in the morning and another run of 5 miles (8 km) in the afternoon.. I also often allow advanced runners the option to run or rest. My advanced programs feature only a single day of rest, usually on Fridays, but sometimes on Saturday before a Sunday race. My novice programs feature rest days on Mondays and Fridays. For a beginning runner, rest might be an entire day off.
  Admittedly, rest can be relative. The Interdenominational Work Ethic affects us all. Does it mean slow down, or do less, or switch to a complementary sport? They don't want to take a day off.
  But rest? Everybody knows how to rest, don't they? Not necessarily, because some people don't know the meaning of the word. You need to know what you're doing, and maybe you can't accumulate that knowledge without the support of a good personal trainer or running coach. But taken in doses that are too large, all of these activities can cause injury rather than prevent it. Specific cross-training can improve your aerobic capacity on days when the muscles you use for running need a day off. Specific stretching exercises (static and dynamic) can lengthen muscles. Specific exercises can strengthen muscles. Can this be true? I say a qualified maybe, in fact, a very qualified maybe. All three are promoted by various running gurus in print and online to immunize runners from injury.
  It is more important than strength training, more important than stretching, more important than cross-training. Your training plan will also prepare you for the race so that you can meet your final goal: to make it to the finish line.Developing a training plan and sticking to it will help get you to the starting line
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last four paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Leaving the expo, we hailed a cab to head to our hotel, the Monaco, and immediately got caught in traffic because Taylor Swift or maybe the Blackhawks or maybe just because it was summer in the city. I instructed our cab driver to forget Lake Shore Drive and cut across 31st Street to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, then across to Michigan Avenue. Having been born and raised in Chicago, I knew all the alternate routes to avoid traffic. Soon we reached the Monaco. After dinner, Rose and I strolled along the Riverwalk, a pathway beside the Chicago River, opened only recently, crammed with people enjoying a warm evening. A single jogger tried not too successfully to weave her way through the crowds. I suspected that she would not be running the half marathon the next morning.
  Thus, soon after sunrise on Sunday morning, while all the Taylor Swift and Blackhawks fans were sleeping, I positioned myself on the Randolph Street Bridge above Columbus Drive, about a half mile down course from the starting line, packed with nearly 15,000 runners. The bridge was crowded with other spectators, most of them holding cameras or smart phones to record the passage of a friend or family member.
  Despite our distance from the starting line loudspeaker, I could hear the countdown: three, two, one, then a horn. Starting guns having become less fashionable since Boston 2013. The first wave of runners appeared, the fastest of the fast, fewer than a hundred in the first wave. They disappeared below me beneath the bridge turning right toward the lake. Then another wave of about two or three hundred runners, then another wave similar in size, then another and another and another until 2,000 cleared the line. I did not wait for the final waves, but took a shortcut to intercept the runners as they doubled back beside the Chicago River.
  I followed Michigan back to the river and paused at the bridge next to the Wrigley Building. I could look upstream to see runners crossing the river heading north on Lake Shore Drive, then look downstream to runners heading south along State Street. Long before there was Rock 'n' Roll, either music or a race with music, engineers reversed the flow of the river into the lake, directing the water from the lake through the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River to the Illinois River and to the Mississippi River and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico, connecting to all the waters of the world. The symbolism struck me: that in flowing through 13.1 miles of City of Chicago streets, these 15,000 runners were connecting also to the many more hundreds of thousands running half marathons all over the world.