There are people who run occasionally or run as part of another sport, and there are people who need to run for their mental wellbeing. Tom Raffio and Ellen Raffio address the latter group in Stories from the Starting Line. The couple, who met running, runs more than 100 races a year in New Hampshire and Northern New England and uses this depth of experience to write about the diverse runners they meet at races.

The runners who share their stories are parents running pushing jogging strollers, men and women still running strong in their seventies, women who had to fight for their right to run, professional runners chasing wins and many more just looking for an adventure on their feet. Tom and Ellen talk with runners including 1984 Olympic Marathon Winner Joan Benoit Samuelson; Jacqueline Gareau, the real winner of the controversial 1980 Boston Marathon; and elite mountain runner Joseph Gray along with dozens of others.

The book includes runners of all ages and abilities who run all kinds of distances and terrain from 5Ks on the road to marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons. It highlights the nationally recognized Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race, a 7.6 mile race up the auto road to the Mount Washington Summit in Northern New Hampshire, along with the numerous local road races that both raise money for charity and bring area runners together to do what they love. This includes the story of Millennium Running, a New Hampshire running events company that reimagined road racing so that when COVID-19 hit, the races could go on, which was not the case in most of the country. All these stories, and more, are part of Stories from the Starting Line.