Interesting Article on Once A Runner

At the end of 2008, Slate.com published a very interesting article on Once A Runner, John L. Parker's novel about cross country. It's an intriguing piece about how Parker self-published the book back in 1978 and--in a vastly different media landscape--sold the book from the trunk of his car. Once A Runner (which, by the way, is a great title) went on to generate a cult following and was recently put back into print by a commercial publisher. It's now generally hailed as the seminal book on what it's like to be a distance runner. Imagine if he'd had today's media--FB, Twitter, blogs, etc.--at his disposal to market the book. Would've made the undertaking a whole lot easier.

Though it sounds like something I'd like, I've never read the book. In fact, I'd never even heard of it until about a year ago. I imagine I'll read it someday, but, at this point--with almost 300 pages written--I'm concerned that reading it might influence my own writing more than I'd want it too. Obviously, it'd probably be valuable see how Parker handled the subject matter, but it could also make me second guess the entire way I went about handling the subject, and I've put too much work in so far to risk the feeling of wanting to trash everything and start all over.