‘Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen’
By Christopher McDougall
(287 pages, Nonfiction, Health and Fitness, Anthropology, 2009)
Foreign correspondent Christopher McDougall has been through some harrowing events, covering wars in Rwanda, Angola, and Congo. In this book, he takes on a new challenge: learning to love running and avoid serious injury. Born to Run is one of the most popular and well-regarded books on the sport, but even if you are not a runner, this would be an engrossing read. On his path to athletic glory, McDougall learns about the incredible Tarahumara ultrarunners, members of the Rarámuri indigenous group in the Copper Canyon region of Mexico. These incredibly gifted athletes can run with seemingly little effort and virtually no instance of injury for up to 100 miles or more, over incredibly rough terrain, in all weather conditions, all while wearing simple sandals called huaraches. After consulting with his doctor about foot pain he incurs as a result of his new sport, McDougall spends time with anthropologists and running experts, and he eventually travels to Copper Canyon and begins to run more like the Tarahumara. He learns through careful research about how the human body is specially designed to run for long distances, despite what we have been conditioned to believe. According to McDougall and the people he interviewed, the act of running is a key component in human evolution and the course of human history. He theorizes that the idiosyncrasies of human anatomy, including the fact that we have an Achilles tendon, allowed us to outrun any prey to exhaustion, thus providing humans with high sources of protein and allowing our brains to further develop and advance our civilization.
McDougall is a gifted storyteller, and this book is equal parts informative and entertaining. It reads like fiction, but is entirely based in reality and chock full of vetted scientific data to back up McDougall’s claims. Along the way, McDougall introduces readers to such colorful (and real-life) characters like Micah True, aka Caballo Blanco (White Horse)—a legendary ultra-marathoner who spent months running in the Copper Canyons and living with the Tarahumara. If you are already a runner, this book will give you a new appreciation for your body’s capabilities, and possibility make you rethink everything you that you knew about the sport. If you are not currently a runner, this book may inspire you to start, or at the very least, cause you to marvel at all that humans can accomplish.
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