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Starting in East Providence, RI The Memory of Running relates the odyssey of Smithson Ide, an overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old loser. Within the span of one week, Smithy’s parents die of injuries from a car accident and he learns his long-lost sister’s remains are waiting to be claimed in a Los Angeles morgue. Smithy’s reaction to these tragedies is to climb on his three-speed Raleigh bicycle (long forgotten in his parent’s garage) and set off on an incredible cross country ride. Smithy’s trip is more than one of miles logged and states crossed. As he encounters men and women at their best and worst, he begins to remember who he was before beer, Vietnam and loneliness helped him to forget. He starts to find himself – his waistline – and friends as well