Event

Dean Karnazes, The Road to Sparta

Sponsored by Peninsula Arts & Letters and Kepler's

Thursday, October 27, 2016
7:30pm

Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025

The Road to Sparta: Reliving the Ancient Battle and Epic Run That Inspired the World's Greatest Footrace

Athletes and couch potatoes alike will want to meet one of the most incredible athletes of our time -- ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes. Karnazes recently ran 50 marathons, in all 50 US states, in 50 consecutive days, without experiencing any muscle fatigue. What's his secret?

Keplers is so pleased to welcome him to celebrate the publication of his new book, The Road to Sparta. In the book, Karnazes explores his Greek ancestry and investigates the history of the worlds first marathon by recreating the 150-mile long treacherous trail run from Athens to Sparta, depicting the epic drama that inspired the birth of the marathon.

The Road to Sparta is a tremendous Greek epic told in parallel narratives from the perspective of a modern day marathoner and an ancient hemerodromoi (Greek for daylong runner). While consulting with the foremost scholars on ancient Greece, Karnazes offers readers a rare glimpse into the mindset and motivations of an extreme athlete.

Karnazes also recreates the incredible journey of Pheidippides in 490 BC, who ran more than 150 miles in 36 hours to recruit the Spartans into battle against the invading Persians, forever preserving Western culture and enduring one of the greatest physical accomplishments in the history of mankind.

Endurance athlete Dean Karnazes is the bestselling author of Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, Run: 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss and 50/50: Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days. Named by Time Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World, Dean Karnazes has expanded the limits of human endurance and inspired countless others to be the best that they can be.