Australian author Marie Bean (50) will contest her 15th marathon during a tour to promote her book, Lazy Runner, and launch a second, Lazy Loser.
Bean, who will speak at the Dunedin Public Library the day before the marathon, has been a keen runner for 25 years and coach for the past seven.
She has remained injury-free and says her secret is ''lazy running''. She runs for fun, health and fitness, preferring the approach of the tortoise to the hare, though she has some lofty ambitions.
''I am on a quest to run a marathon on each continent. Six down and one to go - the biggie, Antarctica,'' she said.
As a coach, Bean found herself answering questions from runners across Australia and the world, and decided to put her thoughts into print.
''I just threw my hands in the air and thought, that's it, I need to write a book on how to run the `lazy runner' way,'' she told the Otago Daily Times.
Australian running great Robert de Castella contributed the foreword to the book, which contains running tricks and tips. The sequel encourages readers to avoid dieting while getting fit ''the lazy way''.
''Diets are only ever successful when we're on them,'' Bean said.
''Once we're off them, we put the weight straight back on, so it stands to reason that weight gain is caused by factors during the non-dieting phase of our life''.
''Lazy Loser examines what these factors might be. So it's for folks who never want to go on another diet in their life. It's also for those who feel guilty and stressed about what and how much they eat, but who'd like to stop putting on weight by eating and moving differently, without overhauling everything in their life.''
