1932-1984
Popularizer of Running

A Best-seller.

James F. Fixx was a soft, self-indulgent, 220-pound magazine editor in 1969 when he received the call to exercise. He found that his "roly-poly" tennis game suffered because he had trouble getting to the net, so he took up running to improve his conditioning. That decision changed his life. Fixx fell victim to the obsession with conditioning that only runners can understand. He responded with the dedication of an athlete and the perception of a journalist. The result was the bible of runners in the late 1970s, The Complete Book of Running. It sold 993,000 copies in hardback and topped The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for eleven weeks in 1978.

A Runner's Passion.

Fixx's father suffered his first heart attack at thirty-six and died at forty-three. The author was aware of the genetic character of heart disease and the positive...