Is Running a Religion? A 1,400-Mile Pilgrimage Around Ireland with Author Adharanand Finn

My name is Adharanand Finn.

So that, uh, that's usually the first question is how do you say my name? So it rhymes with another land, Adharanand Finn, and it's an Indian name.

My parents were hippies in the, uh, early 1970s, uh, they gave me a, a crazy name.

That's it.

I have no Indian heritage at all.

In fact, I'm completely Irish.

Uh, both my parents are Irish.

Uh, so I've been a runner since I was about nine years old.

I got into running very young.

I've run my whole life.

Turned it into my career mid-30s when I wrote a book called Running With the Kenyans.

So I was already a writer and a journalist, and I had this idea.

Well, I, I, basically I wanted to read a book about the Kenyan runners.

I thought, "What's the story there? Why, why is this the world's most accessible, most universal sport dominated by this tiny corner of East Africa? It doesn't make any sense." And so I wanted to know more about it, and nobody, nobody'd written a book about it, and it just seemed, as a journalist, it seemed like an amazing subject.

Uh, and I also, as a runner, it seemed like an amazing opportunity.

So I went out there for six months, lived with the Kenyan athletes, wrote a book called Running With the Kenyans.

It was successful, so the publishers wanted another book.

So I ended up going to Japan.

Japan has a unique running culture.

We might get into that.

Uh, kind of copied the template, spent six months in Japan.

Both of these times I brought my entire family with me.

I wrote a book called The Way of the Runner, all about Japanese ekiden running.

Uh, and then I was, you know, feeling around for another subject, and this was back in about 2014, 2015.

And I just kept hearing more and more about ultra-running.