Terri Schneider’s Dirty Inspirations: A Book Review

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One of the best things about reading well researched nonfiction is that you discover new books to read that expand the depths of your knowledge base. While reading Travis Macy’s Ultra Mindset, he cited and noted Terri Schneider’s Dirty Inspirations: Lessons from the Trenches of Extreme Endurance Sports. This text follows the author’s life and her journeys through endurance sport, and does so in more of a memoir fashion. Thankfully, Schneider avoids the precepts model; she is not out to teach her reader a list of ideas or thrust a unique philosophy upon her readers. Instead, Schneider, who starts out as a triathlete before venturing into adventure racing, climbing, and just about anything sport that is both extreme and endurance based, moves to share her experiences and pull you through them.  

While this is not a text that will overly excite you, it will inspire you. You will see her fail, succeed, and experience the world. Ranging from locations you know and understand to the obscure reaches of existence that have never crossed your mind, she has climbed, run, biked, rowed, or transversed it. She admits defeat as often as she declares victory and does so in a humble, caring manner. Further, chapters are written in such a way that you can put the book down from time to time and pick it back up again a week later without missing a step. This characteristic might seem like an odd thing to laud, in general, as an avid reader who reads five or more books at a time, the ability to put some aside while you grab the latest fancy is endearing. That said, if you enjoy endurance sport and want to read about someone’s wild ride through life and sport, give the book a look here.