EVERYTHING YOU WANT IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HARD

From Wall Street trader and opioid addict to marathoner and Ironman.

Corporate adviser, podcaster, and fervent runner Rideout doesn’t hold back as he jogs breathlessly through a profanity-laced memoir of a life with more than its share of challenges, many of them self-inflicted. Rideout was born in 1971 in Somerville, Massachusetts, a city then “in aggressive decline,” and grew up in a family that was “poor, Irish, and Catholic so we fit right in.” A self-described “good kid,” Rideout took up hockey and football, did whatever he could to distance himself from his family, and worked his way into a career in finance in New York and London, while also making the move from alcohol to Percocet and OxyContin. Addicted and unhappy for years, he found a way out in running, commitment to his marriage and family, and “therapy, lots and lots of overdue therapy.” Here, the emphasis is on running, on courses including the Boston Marathon, a Chicago Marathon where he won recognition as the fastest marathoner over 50 in the world, and a spectacularly grueling “155-mile-long, self-supported, multi-stage ultramarathon that followed the historical footprints of Genghis Khan” across the Gobi Desert. Getting sober evidently hasn’t led Rideout to lose his edge: “More than one person had told me that before races I was like a caged pit bull, ready to tear someone’s face off,” he notes. Those not already addicted to marathons may not be inspired to take them up by statements such as “You need to time your body’s collapse perfectly” or “In a marathon, your brain gets so starved of glycogen that it’s impossible to think clearly or perform even the most basic math.” But even those more inclined to sitting at home will be fascinated by Rideout’s prickly personality and undeniable enthusiasm.

Life on the fast track, vividly described.