If you've been running for years like McDougall, you'll appreciate his problem. Running is hard on the body. In his journey to find a solution other than the cortisol shot from his doctors, he presents information from some of the best runners out there and the scientists who study them. In the process, he becomes involved in the genesis of a fifty-mile ultramarathon through the home of the Tarahumara tribe in the Copper Canyon of Mexico. The infectious enthusiasm throughout the book makes McDougall's case hard to dismiss: Human beings were born to run as they did before modern technology.
McDougall doesn’t judge us. He inspires us to go primal.
McDougall journeys to meet some of the Tarahumara tribe, in which all their members, men, women, and children, have been running for generations. Although modernization has brought them roads, jeans, and fast food, some remain true to their roots, and they run above and beyond marathon distances, over one hundred miles, wearing a thin, flat slice of tire rubber strapped to their feet.
In Born to Run, McDougall uses a cast of ultramarathoners, including Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton and Billy Barnett, Barefoot Ted, and Caballo Blanco. McDougal builds a story around these characters, and many of them are indeed characters with little need for dramatization. McDougall's story winds through a description of their lives while giving us the science of running, including what Nike doesn't want you to know.
Running is about how you use your body, not your technology
McDougall realizes what may be obvious to many, but easily forgotten with marketing and millions of dollars of shoe development research: Expensive running shoes will not teach us how to run. The general idea is to run like Tarahumara, glide forward whisper-soft without pounding the ground. Referencing scientists and publications, McDougall tells us that when we cocoon the foot and its beautiful arch in a high tech shoe or orthotics, we loosen our foot form, which leads to injury.
After laying out the research, McDougal concludes that the human body was made for running. Early humans used this spring-footed, upright, sweat-cooled form to chase down wild game until they dropped from exhaustion. We have little time to digest this significant claim, as McDougall then takes us with him and the others as they tackle the fifty-mile ultramarathon through the Copper Canyon. By the end, you will be ready to follow his advice: Simplify your exercise, your diet, your life, and realize...
You were born to run.
Source:
- Born to Run, Christopher McDougal, Random House, NY, 2009
- ISBN: 978-0-307-26630-9
Ara Bedrossian - He has a Masters in Public Health from the UT College of Medicine and has been contracted by the state of Ohio to improve public health ...
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