At first glance, these two books look mighty similar: both have playful titles, both use a training shoe as their cover art and both have running as their subject. Mark Rowlands's book, however, is more highfalutin. He's a professor of philosophy and his discussion of running twists through and around his careful thoughts on philosophy and life in general; especially life as lived by a man in his 40s, conscious of his age, his small sons' lives, of death's quickening approach. His book is structured around runs that were important to him throughout his life.

Alexandra Heminsley, too, builds much of her book around significant runs, but hers is more personal. She's not so bothered about catching the meaning of our brief existence as with discovering what running can do for her and, by extension, you.

So, you buy a book about running and discover it's about philosophy… Don't let this seemingly odd combination put you off Rowlands's offering: he's a lovely writer, funny and moving. His philosophical thinking is easy to understand, though you do need to concentrate, and running helps him reach his conclusions, most notably in the final section, where he has a eureka moment as he flails through the final furlongs of the Miami marathon.

He's also a dog-owner. His most successful book so far has been The Philosopher and the Wolf, in which he charted his life with his pet wolf Brenin (while also pondering morality and social contracts). Dogs feature a lot in Running With the Pack, too, and add some vivid images: Rowlands running on the Rathbone peninsula in Ireland with a crew of canines at his side; in Miami, recently, with a puppy companion picking his way over hot stones, hidden snakes. He has big dogs and has to take them running or they wreck his house.

But none of this is why he runs. Rowlands believes – philosophically and in his heart – that you should run for running's sake: not because it stops the dogs smashing your valuables, not because it helps you think more clearly, not because it makes you fitter, not even because it makes you happier. All these reasons are "work" reasons, meaning that you're engaging in an activity (running) for its benefits. He thinks we should run for "play" reasons. Play is when you're so absorbed in an activity you forget everything else other than what you're doing. "Once I reach the run's heartbeat, the place of dancing thoughts, goals have long been left behind… I am running only to run."

Why should this matter? Because, says Rowlands, if we don't do things that contain their own wonder, in and of themselves, we are living our lives in a never-ending, futile chase for happiness. Chasing happiness is not the same as achieving it, being "immersed in and surrounded by it". He uses Plato's "idea of the good" in almost a religious fashion, recommending that we search it out and live within it as much as we can.

Actually, he works his way through a lot of philosophers: Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Schlick (me neither). Towards the end, he deals with Sartre's existentialism, a young man's philosophy if ever there was one. But he twists Sartre's innate nihilism, his despair over the emptiness of our consciousness, into an upbeat conclusion: "When I understood that no reason could make me stop, what I experienced was joy." If you're of an optimistic bent, hopeful that life will offer up moments of wonder and delight, then Rowlands is your kind – my kind – of philosopher.

Heminsley's Running Like a Girl may seem more prosaic – no "Being and Nothingness" references here – but could well engage you more. More than 10 years younger than Rowlands, she's at a different stage in her life, unencumbered by marriage, children, dogs, permanent base. Which sounds, to a fully locked-down, middle-aged git like me almost idyllic, but freedom can feel unrooted and without much point. Running gradually gives Heminsley a focus, helps her through and out of that strange, unhealthy navel-gazing and broken-heartedness that stymies your 20s.

There is drama in this book, but Heminsley doesn't over-egg it; she does, at one point, run a marathon crying her eyes out, but it seems a reasonable reaction in the circumstances. Her honesty is winning: her first run is a disaster; on another, she has to dash into a pub lavatory to avoid soiling her pants; she completes a marathon and then immediately slips back into slobbishness, running half-heartedly, without enjoyment, gradually losing her fitness and her mojo. Her sketches of her family members are witty. I loved her mum, dramatic and highly polished, shouting: "Darling, keep going, you laugh in the face of pain!" as her daughter struggles through the 11-mile mark on a marathon.

What's truly excellent about this book, though, is its generosity. Heminsley wants to help other women to run and she has provided a practical section at the back, where she explains how to overcome injury, how to buy the right gear (particularly the correct bra), exactly what you will need if you build up to running marathons – surprisingly fascinating even if, like me, you have no plans to do so. There is also a shocking chapter entitled The Women in Whose Tracks We Run about female runners, banned from road races until the 60s and 70s, who forced officials in the US and Britain to include women, simply by turning up and running.

In the end, then, two very different books. Both, though, are likable, readable and enlightening. Also inspiring if, like me, you've only just discovered the seven fathoms of joy that result from galumphing around the park in your new-rave trainers. With the pack or like a girl, what these books do is persuade even the most unconfident of non-joggers that they just might be born to run. Come ON!