John Bingham is a beloved evangelist of running. Known by fans as The Penguin for his gentle humor and back-of-the-pack speed, Bingham's memoir An Accidental Athlete explores with wit and poignancy his evolution from a bespectacled fat kid in the 1950s to unlikely hero of the modern running movement. Bingham remembers unfulfilled childhood dreams of athletic glory seen through Coke-bottle glasses, his unhealthy sedentary years as he chased a career,...