ATHLETICS:Books are as much about timing as subject matter, and running, like writing, is based on mysterious motivations and methods, writes Ian O'Riordan

ERIC LIDDELL of Chariots of Firefame always said a run along the beach at low tide was a sort of spiritual experience, a cleansing of body and soul, and he knew what he was talking about. There I was just last weekend running down Banna Strand, barefoot, naturally, the wind blowing in my hair and not a care in the world.

The sense of liberation that comes with a run like this is often hard to contain, and by the end of it, I was suddenly inspired to put it all down in writing - the idea being a sort of personal journey through the wonderful world of running, part travelogue, part philosophy, part whatever it turned out to be.

"I'm going to forget all that horseshit," said Jack Kerouac before throwing himself into On The Road. "I'm just going to write it as it happened." This would be the method to my madness. This would be the On The Roadfor the running literati. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Later, when explaining the idea to my faithful muse, I was calmly informed that, actually, a book of this very nature was doing well on the bestseller list: What I Talk About When I Talk About Runningis the most recent piece of work by Japan's Haruki Murakami, and it's all I hoped it wouldn't be.

Murakami is apparently the most influential cult author in the world today, though I hadn't heard of him. He sells millions of books in Japan and his fifth novel, Norwegian Wood, has been translated into 42 languages.

He deals mostly in fiction, and before his running book, his only non-fiction work was Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche.

What inspired Murakami to write What I Talk About When I Talk About Runningwas his gradual transition from a drinking, smoking jazz-club owner in downtown Tokyo to a dedicated, award-winning writer. He took up running at age 33 as part of his new lifestyle and was quickly hooked; now aged 59, he has run dozens of marathons all over the world. When Murakami talks about running he knows what he's talking about.

Running, like writing, is based on mysterious motivations and methods, and Murakami threads them all together in a beautifully entertaining way.

"I'm often asked what I think about as I run," he starts. "I don't have a clue . . . I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void. People's minds can't be a complete blank. Human beings' emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum."

So he takes us from there, and in the end, he has talked about so much more than just running. He turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, draws unexpected conclusions from the expected, and inspires not just in the running sense but in many other senses too.

What Murakami has done is write the book I've wanted to write for several years. He beat me to it, and the lesson there is that books are as much about timing as subject matter.

Murakami caught the crest of the wave that, all over the world, has drawn people into the simple yet fulfilling act of running. You only have to look out your window any evening of the week to realise that.

What he has also done is written a running book for non-runners, not the other way round. Murakami made his name as an author, not a runner, and yet here is a rare insight into the whole subject that manages to be intimate and imaginative at the same time. It was some uncanny coincidence, therefore, that I came across Murakami having recently read two other books that are practically all about running.

Irish athletics has a history of throwing up double acts, two stars that come along at the same time, such as Eamonn Coghlan-John Treacy, Marcus O'Sullivan-Frank O'Mara, and of course Sonia O'Sullivan-Catherina McKiernan - so it was entirely fitting that it threw up two running autobiographies at the same time as well.

Coghlan was first off the mark with Chairman of the Boards; Master of the Mile, published in August. Sonia followed swiftly with Sonia: My Story, published this month. Both books powerfully capture the remarkable careers of two of Ireland's most enduring sporting icons, the highs, the lows, and everything else in between. Both books are well written and in the end leave a slightly disconcerting feeling that here are two great athletes whose likes we will never see again.

They are similar stories in many ways in that both authors admit their careers are ultimately defined, unfairly or otherwise, by their Olympic experiences. Coghlan, famously, finished fourth on two occasions - in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980 - and this is one of the inescapable themes of his book.

"All I could think was f*** it, I've blown it again," he writes of his Moscow fourth place. "This, I thought, is what the Olympics is all about, getting it right on the day. It's not a case of not having the talent - it's more a case of luck not being on your side . . . And like all world-class sports people who have failed to translate their raw talent into a victory or a medal, it's a burden that I have had to deal with virtually every day of my life."

O'Sullivan is even more defined by her Olympic experiences - having finished fourth in 1992, bombing out in 1996, winning silver in 2000, before bidding a lonesome farewell in 2004: "The Olympics distort everything we do," she writes. "The Olympics are where it is at for your piece of history, for your pride, for your legacy, for your commercial value, for your own peace of mind.

"When we are on the circuit, we love the buzz of our own rivalries and competition. A race on a damp night in Hengelo can assume great meaning for us because of the politics and personal rivalries of our own little world. But for the millions who sit in their armchairs and come to athletics only when it interests them, the Olympics are the be-all and end-all. And the funny thing is, we all buy into that."

It's a sad but true reminder that for athletes, and particularly, it seems, those in Ireland, the Olympics are the overwhelming measure of success, when it simply shouldn't be that way. The only problem with Coghlan and O'Sullivan is that their books seem a little lost in time. Coghlan reflects on an era of distance running that will forever hold up for scrutiny, yet it all seems about 10 or even 20 years too late. O'Sullivan reflects on success and failures without really being sure of the difference, as if it's all still a little too soon.

None of this takes from two commendable and often inspiring reads. It's all there, and even without Murakami's sense of timing, Coghlan and O'Sullivan know what they're talking about when they talk about running.