Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Where to buy Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen books online?

Product Description
Full of incredible characters, incredible powerful achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that started with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is incorrect.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the ascetic Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles lacking rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by mysterious health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern being. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the leader was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a gorgeous young surfer, and a barefoot marvel.

With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
Book Description
Full of incredible characters, incredible powerful achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that started with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is incorrect.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the ascetic Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles lacking rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by mysterious health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern being. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the leader was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a gorgeous young surfer, and a barefoot marvel.

With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Christopher McDougall

Question: Born to Run explores the life and running habits of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Gap, arguably the greatest distance runners in the world. What are some of the secrets you learned from them?

Christopher McDougall: The key secret hit me like a thunderbolt. It was so simple, yet such a jolt. It was this: everything I’d been taught about running was incorrect. We treat running in the modern world the same way we treat childbirth—it’s going to hurt, and requires special exercises and equipment, and the best you can hope for is to get it over with quickly with minimal hurt.

Then I meet the Tarahumara, and they’re having a blast. They remember what it’s like to like running, and it lets them blaze through the canyons like dolphins rocketing through waves. For them, running isn’t work. It isn’t a punishment for eating. It’s fine art, like it was for our ancestors. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle—behold, the Running Man.

The Tarahumara have a adage: “Children run before they can walk.” Watch any four-year-ancient—they do everything at full speed, and it’s all about fun. That’s the most vital thing I selected up from my time in the Copper Canyons, the understanding that running can be quick and fun and spontaneous, and when it is, you feel like you can go forever. But all of that starts with your feet. Weird as it sounds, the Tarahumara taught me to change my relationship with the ground. As a replacement for of hammering down on my heels, the way I’d been taught all my life, I learned to run lightly and gently on the balls of my feet. The day I mastered it was the last day I was ever injured.

Q: You trained for your first ultramarathon—a race organized by the mysterious gringo expat Caballo Blanco between the Tarahumara and some of America’s top ultrarunners—while researching and writing this book. What was your training like?

CM: It really ongoing as kind of a dare. Just by chance, I’d met an adventure-sports coach from Jackson Hole, Wyoming named Eric Orton. Eric’s specialty is tearing endurance sports down to their basic components and looking for transferable skills. He studies rock climbing to find shoulder techniques for kayakers, and applies Nordic skiing’s smooth propulsion to mountain biking. What he’s looking for are basic engineering principles, because he’s convinced that the next huge leap forwards in fitness won’t come from might or equipment, but unadorned, simple durability. With some 70% of all runners getting hurt every year, the athlete who can stay healthy and avoid injury will place the competition behind.

So naturally, Eric idolized the Tarahumara. Any tribe that has 90-year-ancient men running across mountaintops obviously has a few training tips up its sleeve. But since Eric had never really met the Tarahumara, he had to deduce their methods by pure reasoning. His starting point was uncertainty; he assumed that the Tarahumara step into the unknown every time they place their caves, because they never know how quick they’ll have to sprint after a rabbit or how tough the climbing will be if they’re caught in a storm. They never even know how long a race will be until they step up to the starting line—the distance is only determined in a last-minute bout of negotiating and could stretch anywhere from 50 miles to 200-plus.

Eric figured shock and awe was the best way for me to erect durability and mimic Tarahumara-style running. He’d throw something new at me every day—hopping drills, lunges, mile intervals—and lots and lots of hills. There was no such thing, really, as long, slow distance—he’d have me mix lots of hill repeats and fleeting bursts of speed into every mega-long run.

I didn’t reflect I could do it lacking breaking down, and I told Eric that from the start. I basically defied him to turn me into a runner. And by the end of nine months, I was cranking out four hour runs lacking a problem.

Q: You’re a six-foot four-inches tall, 200-plus pound guy—not anyone’s predictable vision of a distance runner, yet you’ve concluded ultra marathons and are training for more. Is there a body type for running, as many of us assume, or are all humans built to run?

CM: Yeah, I’m a huge’un. But isn’t it sad that’s even a reasonable question? I bought into that bull for a loooong time. Why wouldn’t I? I was constantly being told by people who should know better that “some bodies aren’t designed for running.” One of the best sports medicine physicians in the country told me exactly that—that the reason I was constantly getting hurt is because I was too huge to handle the impact shock from my feet arresting the ground. Just recently, I interviewed a nationally-known sports podiatrist who said, “You know, we didn’t ALL evolve to run away from saber-toothed tigers.” Meaning, what? That anyone who isn’t sleek as a Kenyan marathoner should be extinct? It’s such illogical blather—all kinds of body types exist today, so obviously they DID evolve to go quickly on their feet. It’s really dreadful that so many doctors are reinforcing this learned helplessness, this thought that you have to be some kind of elite being to handle such a basic, universal movement.

Q: If humans are born to run, as you argue, what’s your advice for a runner who is looking to make the leap from shorter road races to marathons, or marathons to ultramarathons? Is running really for everyone?

CM: I reflect ultrarunning is America’s hope for the future. Honestly. The ultrarunners have got a hold of some powerful wisdom. You can see it at the starting line of any ultra race. I showed up at the Leadville Trail 100 expecting to see a bunch of hollow-eyed Skeletors, and as a replacement for it was, “Whoah! Get a load of the hotties!” Ultra runners tend to be amazingly healthy, young and—judge it or not—excellent looking. I couldn’t figure out why, until one runner clarified that throughout history, the four basic ingredients for optimal health have been clean air, excellent food, fresh water and low stress. And that, to a T, describes the daily life of an ultrarunner. They’re out in the woods for hours at a time, breathing pine-scented breezes, eating tiny bursts of palatable food, downing water by the gallons, and feeling their stress melt away with the miles. But here’s the real key to that kingdom: you have to relax and delight in the run. No one cares how quick you run 50 miles, so ultrarunners don’t really stress about times. They’re out to delight in the run and end strong, not shave a few inconsequential seconds off a personal best. And that’s the best way to transition up to huge mileage races: as coach Eric told me, “If it feels like work, you’re effective too hard.”

Q: You write that distance running is the fantastic equalizer of age and gender. Can you clarify?

CM: Okay, I’ll answer that question with a question: Starting at age nineteen, runners get quicker every year until they hit their peak at twenty-seven. After twenty-seven, they start to decline. So if it takes you eight years to reach your peak, how many years does it take for you to regress back to the same speed you were running at nineteen?

Go yet to be, guess all you want. No one I’ve questioned has ever come close. It’s in the book, so I won’t give it away, but I guarantee when you hear the answer, you’ll say, “No way. THAT ancient?” Now, factor in this: ultra races are the only sport in the world in which women can go toe-to-toe with men and hand them their heads. Ann Trason and Krissy Moehl regularly beat every man in the meadow in some ultraraces, while Emily Baer recently finished in the Top 10 at the Hardrock 100 while stopping to breastfeed her baby at the water stations.

So how’s that possible? According to a new body of research, it’s because humans are the greatest distance runners on planet. We may not be quick, but we’re born with such remarkable natural endurance that humans are fully capable of outrunning horses, cheetahs and antelopes. That’s because we once hunted in packs and on foot; all of us, men and women alike, young and ancient together.

Q: One of the fascinating parts of Born to Run is your report on how the ultrarunners eat—salad for breakfast, wraps with hummus mid-run, or pizza and beer the night before a run. As a runner with a lot of miles behind him, what are your thoughts on nutrition for running?

CM: Live every day like you’re on the lam. If you’ve got to be ready to pick up and haul butt at a moment’s notice, you’re not going to be loading up on gut-busting meals. I thought I’d have to go on some kind of prison-camp diet to get ready for an ultra, but the best advice I got came from coach Eric, who told me to just worry about the running and the eating would take care of itself. And he was right, sort of. I instinctively started eating smaller, more palatable meals as my miles increased, but then I went behind his back and consulted with the fantastic Dr. Ruth Heidrich, an Ironman triathlete who lives on a lacto-vegetarian diet. She’s the one who gave me the thought of having salad for breakfast, and it’s a fantastic tip. The truth is, many of the greatest endurance athletes of all time lived on fruits and vegetables. You can get away with garbage for a while, but you pay for it in the long haul. In the book, I clarify how Jenn Shelton and Billy “Bonehead” Barnett like to chow pizza and Mountain Dew in the middle of 100-mile races, but Jenn is also a vegetarian who most days lives on veggie burgers and grapes.

Q: In this hard financial time, we’re experiencing yet another surge in the popularity of running. Can you clarify this?

CM: When things look worst, we run the most. Three times, America has seen distance-running skyrocket and it’s permanently in the midst of a national crisis. The first boom came during the Fantastic Depression; the next was in the ‘70s, when we were struggling to recover from a recession, race riots, assassinations, a criminal President and an dreadful war. And the third boom? One year after the Sept. 11 attacks, trailrunning suddenly became the fastest-growing outdoor sport in the country. I reflect there’s a trigger in the human psyche that activates our first and greatest survival skill whenever we see the shadow of approaching raptors.

(Photo © James Rexroad)

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