Originally posted Tuesday, November 12, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Peter Sagal is best known as the quick-witted host of NPR's 'Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" game show based on the news of the week.
But the Chicago resident has a hobby that he rarely mentions on his show: he runs. He runs a lot. Sagal only began doing so seriously at age 40. Now 53, he’s taken part in 14 marathons and estimates he has run the equivalent of around the world at the equator or about 25,000 miles.
He turned that hobby into a tome he calls "The Incomplete Book of Running," with a cover that evokes the 1970s best-selling classic "The Complete Book of Running" by Jim Fixx. He will be discussing his experience on the final day of this year's Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta book festival November 18. (Tickets still available here.)
Originally, when he signed a book deal in 2011, he imagined it would be a "breezy sort" of tome in which he would write about life as a mid-life marathoner.
But while penning the book, his personal life fell apart. He divorced, using running as an escape. "Running preserved me," he wrote, "running distracted me and running prepared me in ways I hadn't anticipated for challenged I couldn't have imagined."
At the same time, Sagal admits in a recent interview, “running doesn’t solve everything to put it mildly. I’m a poster child for that.”
Then in 2013, he escorted a legally blind man on the Boston Marathon. Minutes after they finished, they heard two massive booms. Two men had placed pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line, killing three and injuring hundreds.
For a time, Sagal wasn't sure how to proceed with the book. But after telling the Boston Marathon story to the Moth podcast, he found a central theme to wrap his book around.
Ultimately, Sagal’s book is not a spiritual bible on running nor a serious advice book for would-be runners. There are ruminations that fit both those categories, sure, but it’s really Sagal’s brain running to and fro, not always in chronological order, with Sagal-like humorous bits thrown in to boot.
And given his day job, it’s no surprise Sagal’s book is salted with random pop culture tidbits. He’ll reference everything from Squeeze’s Greatest Hits to the reboot version of “Battlestar Galactica” to Miley Cyrus to “The Matrix.”
“Anything you do whether it’s writing a movie or doing a radio show, you can’t try to appeal to everybody,” Sagal said. “What you can do is be specific about your point of view and references that other people will connect to you with similar thoughts, similar preferences. I don’t mind being very specific.”
Sagal first ran as a teen, inspired by Fixx, who helped convince millions to run for exercise in the 1970s. "He became this ubiquitous public figure," Sagal said. "He became incredibly wealthy. He even did an American Express commercial." But then poof! Fixx died at age 52 of a massive heart attack in 1984.
“I’m 53 now,” Sagal cracked. “So any time I get after this is a bonus!”
After the pain of his divorce, Sagal pieced his life back together and eventually met someone else. He remarried earlier this year. And while he continues to run, he no longer does so with the intensity he did a decade earlier.
“I don’t want to just become a casual jogger,” he said. “I will continue to race. There’s this quote, ‘Exercise is a chore. Training is a pleasure.’”
As for his main job at “Wait, Wait... Don’t Tell Me,” he’s now entering his third decade, but has no plans to leave any time soon. “I know how lucky I am,” he said.
The trick the past three years, he said, has been balancing Donald Trump news with everything else. The show almost always starts with a quote from Trump. And on occasion, they'll pose a true-false quick quiz of things he may or may not have done that week to the panelists.
“We know our audience wants two things: they want to talk about Trump and they want to know other stuff,” he said. “They want to be amused and distracted. We want to provide both things. Where we draw that line is an argument we have every week.”
BOOK PREVIEW
Peter Sagal in discussion with Lois Reitzes
7:30 p.m., November 18, 2018
$18 members, $25 non-members
MJCCA Zaban Park
5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody
ON THE RADIO
“Wait, Wait... Don’t Tell Me” is available in podcast form and on 90.1/WABE at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturdays and on 88.5/WRAS at 10 a.m. Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays.
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