Martin Dugard is a renowned author of books such as Chasing Lance, The Last Voyage of Columbus, Into Africa, and others. That is not what first attracted me to Dugard. During the 2006 Tour de France, I began reading his daily missives about traveling around France watching and reporting on the events surrounding the Tour as well as the actual tour itself.

I was hooked by his engaging style, rants against complacency, and his general discussion of running, cycling, and other endurance sports. Dugard is a professional journalist and author, who is not afraid to bare a little of his own soul and passion with his weekly daily blog posts.

I would highly recommend checking him out at his blog Training Ground.

Dugard, who is also something of an adventurer, has completed the two-week Raid Gauloises adventure race; sailed on a tall ship across the Mediterranean; and spent time in an African prison while researching one of his books.

On a miscellaneous note, Dugard lived for six weeks on the Malaysian island of Palau Tiga during the filming of the television show Survivor. This became the subject of the bestselling Survivor: The Ultimate Game, co-written with series producer Mark Burnett.

I was encouraged by this article to write about the blogs I read and share why I read them, with you my readers.

On a side note, Martin is running the New York City Marathon this weekend, so stop by and wish him good luck/congratulations.