Jim Axelrod is the national correspondent for CBS News. Over his career, he’s served as chief White House correspondent and was embedded during the Iraq War.

While covering Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, he suddenly realized he didn’t like what he saw in the mirror.

He says he was drinking too much, not sleeping enough and a little overweight. Jim says he was so narrowly focused on a definition of success that hadn’t been well thought out. He realized it was time for a mid-course correction.

He decided to run his way out.

Jim stumbled upon his late father’s times for the New York City Marathon. Before he could stop himself, he found himself thinking, “I could beat that.”

With one foot in front of the other, he began the slow and steady climb to a physically. mentally and emotionally healthier way of living.

He chronicles his experiences in his fascinating new memoir, “In the Long Run.”

Jim explains how he stopped measuring his own successes by someone else’s — mainly his father’s — yardstick, and how he learned to use a well-functioning, crystal clear magnifying glass to appraise all the moving parts of his life.

Plus, Jim says he found the healthiest pill you can pop in life to pull yourself out of despair on the right path toward happiness and fulfillment.