In Running, former NCAA Division I track athlete Lindsey A. Freeman presents the feminist and queer handbook of running that she always wanted but could never find. For Freeman, running is full of joy, desire, and indulgence in the pleasure and weirdness of having a body. It allows for a space of freedom—to move and be moved. Through tender storytelling of a lifetime wearing running shoes, Freeman considers injury and recovery, what it means to run as a visibly queer person, and how the release found in running comes from a desire to touch something that cannot be accessed when still. Running invites us to run through life, legging it out the best we can with heart and style.

(Duke University Press, 2023)

What people are saying about Running:

“Freeman serves fresh thinking as she applies the speculative energy of queer theory to her own lifelong running journey.”

— Knox Robinson, in The Wall Street Journal

"You can fill a small library with books on running, but you won’t find many that touch on queerness and feminism in the sport. . . . [Freeman's] storytelling, along with her friend Hazel Meyer’s illustrations, chronicles Freeman’s lifelong relationship with running and illuminates the 'unexpected moments of connection and joy that we runners feel when we cover some distance together.'"

— Becky Wade, Runners World

“This is not your average handbook on running. It is far more incisive, far more tender, far more uncanny—and reading it will make you rethink what you know about an activity all of us at one time or another have pursued, resisted, witnessed, or even loved. Lindsey A. Freeman shows us that far from a solitary pursuit, running is about connecting to ourselves and each other. From the amateur to the Olympian and from the bodily to the transcendental, there is so much she both celebrates and scrutinizes. And in true handbook fashion, Hazel Meyer’s delightful, ludic illustrations provide the perfect running companion.”

— Mark Yakich, author of Football