RunRunLive

I’m talking books and running with Chris Russell on this week’s RunRunLive podcast!

Your fingers point to your athletic ability

A pair of recent studies found that for both men and women, people whose ring fingers were longer than their index fingers were more likely to be successful athletes.  Lower ratios (shorter ring fingers) are believed to be linked to higher pre-natal levels of androgens (male hormones).

The ratio for the average person is about 1, meaning that the two fingers are about the same length.  My ratio is about .9.  What’s yours?

Stop SOPA!

The Iceman Cometh

In the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of “Level Renner” magazine, you can find my article “The Iceman Cometh, Hopefully Quickly”.  The PDF version of the magazine is free!

Runners: What’s your obsession?

What do you keep track of?  Most runners  count things.  We keep logs to track miles, shoe usage, heart rates, race results (of course), and a multitude of other numbers related to our hobby/sport/life.  Mundane or bizarre (especially bizarre!), whatever it is you track, I want to know.

Most of us set goals related to the things we count.  We target a certain number of miles per week, or per year.  The marathon seems to attract this sort of thing.  We all know someone who counts their total number of marathons, or who’s trying to run a marathon in all 50 states, or on all seven continents.

Some people get a little off the beaten track.  For example, this group has a goal of running in 26 different cities, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet.  These people are actually spelling out the alphabet using their running routes.

Post your obsession in the comments, or email me if you prefer.   Thanks!

Free Shipping!

For a limited time*, if  you order your copies of Chasing the Runner’s High and R is for Running directly from me, I’ll send them to you with no charge for shipping & handling!  That can save you $4 or more off the cost of ordering books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Not only will you get free shipping, but since you’re getting the books directly from me, I can also personalize your books!

If you’re interested, email me.  Include your name, address, the books you’d like to order, and whether you’d like them personalized.  To pay, you can send a check or I can send you an online invoice so you can pay by credit card and your books will be in the mail the next day!

Don’t forget, shipping is always free if you order the ebook editions!

*this offer will expire once I’ve cleared enough books out of my garage, so order now to make sure you get yours!  The offer is for books shipped within the US only.  If you live outside the US, email me and we can work something out.

A couple of reviews…

Some love in a couple recent reviews of my work:

In Self-Publishing Review, Dan Burton says “Running really is a drug. Once you have felt the flow of juices that come when you finally hit that distance necessary to get the endorphins to kick in, there’s no turning back. You’ll get the bug. It’s clear that Charbonneau has it, and it’s clear he understands the addition, too, or at least is trying to understand. In that way, “Chasing the Runners High” may be as much a therapy as anything else. It is his experience and history with running, as close as one could get to a memoir of the sport—if a sport is what we could call it.”  Read more

The readers of Corpus Pretereo have this to say in the comments on Amazon about my story, “The Devil and Neil Armstrong”:

“This story is very clever, and I can’t say too much about it without giving it away. It involves time travel (of a sort), and uses a fascinating conceit to show how the past interacts with the present.”
- Jennifer Spohr

“I’m a sucker for a really good concept story, and “The Devil and Neil Armstrong” is a very tasty one. It took a while for me to catch on to what was going on–I actually went back to the beginning to reread a couple of details to be sure I understood. But it’s clever and thoughtful with regards to its subject matter (space exploration, always a favorite of mine) and has a delightful humorous twist at the ending.”
-April L’Orange

Runway podcast with Patrick Hallowell

Patrick Hallowell had some kind things to say about Chasing the Runner’s High in episode 39 of his podcast, “Runway”.  You can also hear me reading from Chapter 6, the section on racing.

Patrick records his podcast while he’s out running, so if you listen to it on your own run it’s like having an interesting friend right there, running along with you.

You can download or listen to Runway on Patrick’s site, RunningPodcasts.org, or iTunes.

How about that?

My post on how to block ads on the Kindle was picked up by Lifehacker yesterday.  The result has been interesting:

It’s not exactly “going viral”, but it is sort of fun to watch.  And approximately 1% of those visitors clicked through to check out my books, so thank you, Lifehacker.

Scene Saver

The December issue of Science Fiction Freedom includes my story “Scene Saver”.  This might be the first story to combine  fuzzy aliens and improv comedy.  It’s illustrated by Paul Burrow.

The e-zine is published on Issuu, and it’s free!