There are those of us whose idea of the ultimate physical challenge is the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon. And then there is Dean Karnazes. Karnazes has run 262 miles nonstop; he has won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon across Death Valley-considered the world's toughest footrace-in 130-degree weather, and he has run a marathon to the South Pole.

Ultramarathon Man is Dean Karnazes' story: the mind-boggling adventures of his nonstop treks through the hell of Death Valley, the incomprehensible frigidity of the South Pole, and the breathtaking beauty of the mountains and canyons of the Sierra Nevada. Karnazes captures the euphoria and out-of-body highs of these adventures and just as graphically describes the often gruesome bummers (he once fell asleep while running and just missed being hit by a car in the middle of a two-lane highway).

With an insight and candor rarely seen in sports memoirs, he also reveals how he merges the solitary, manic, self-absorbed life of hard-core ultrarunning with a full-time job, a wife, and family, and how running has made him who he is today: a man with an uberjock's body, a teenager's energy, and a champion's wisdom.

Hardcover in English.