About
Adharanand
Finn
The first thing people always ask me about is my name.
It’s Sanskrit and it means ‘Eternal Bliss’. I pronounce it ‘A-Darren-And”… to rhyme with ‘Another Land’.
Yes, it’s my real name. No, I’m not Indian. I was born in 1974 and my parents, who are both Irish, lived in an ashram in south London and had an Indian guru. Yes, you could say they were hippies.
PART 1
I grew up in Northampton and went to the local comprehensive school. After winning the school cross country a few years in a row, I joined the local running club, the now defunct Northampton Phoenix, and spent much of my early teenage years training hard and racing at meetings across the country, and dreaming of one day running in the Olympics.
Then university came along and I got distracted by other things.
Although I continued to run at least once a week, it wasn’t until my mid-30s that I started racing again. By then I was a journalist writing for national newspapers and magazines, and was dreaming of writing a book.
KENYA
An idea was sparked when my childhood fascination with Kenyan running collided with a suggestion by my sister-in-law, who lived in Kenya, to travel there to run the Lewa marathon. I realised that a book about the Kenyan runners had never really been written. I thought, “That’s a book I would love to read. Maybe I should write it.”
And so I did. The result was Running with the Kenyans.
JAPAN
After the book sold well and won lots of awards my publishers were keen for another tome on running. I had visited my younger brother in Japan many years before, and I remembered him taking part in a relay road race called an ekiden. After digging around I realised that Japan was actually running - and particularly ekiden - obsessed. I had my next subject.
As with Running with the Kenyans, the plan was to travel with my family to immerse myself in my subject for six months. I had three children, who were by then nine, seven and four. So naturally my wife suggested we spice things up by travelling to Japan over land and sea - by train and boat. It was a 9,000-mile journey that taught us much about the world and each other.
After six months in Japan I wrote The Way of the Runner.
ULTRAS
It took me a few years to alight on my next subject. In that time I kept hearing more and more about ultra marathons. And then I accidentally ran one.
An editor at the FT asked me to write a travel article about running across the desert in Oman. Something called the Oman Desert Marathon. I initially said no. Why would I do such a crazy thing? I still considered myself a road runner, someone who raced 10Ks. A 100-mile trudge across the desert was not my thing.
But on second thoughts I began to wonder: what was the appeal of such a race? I began to think it would be quite the adventure. As a life experience, rather than a running race, it sounded amazing. I got back to the editor and before I really knew what I was doing I was on a plane to Oman.
Another eight ultra marathons later, from the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, to a 105-mile loop around Mont Blanc, and 24 hours running around a 400m track in south London, I wrote my third book, The Rise of the Ultra Runners.
TODAY
Alongside my books, I spent 16 years as a news subeditor at the Guardian and I write regular feature articles for the Guardian, the FT, the Telegraph, Runner’s World magazine and many others.
In January 2020 I started a podcast. During my research I’d been having so many great discussions with people about running, but then using a few lines in my writing, so I thought it would be fun to record and share the full conversations.
I also host a series of running camps and writing retreats, and I regularly appear on podcasts, the radio and occasionally on TV. I’m available to book for speaking events.
I live in Totnes with my wife, Marietta, and my three children, Lila, Uma and Ossian. I still run most days.