PRINT-Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

If running has a Martin Luther, it is Christopher McDougall, and Born to Run is his 95 Theses. This volume has done more than any other book to shake up the running community and to change the conventional wisdom about running. BTR is about four things:

-Ultrarunning in general

-The Tarahumara--a tribe of indian ultrarunners hidden away in Mexico

-Barefoot running and the snake oil Nike and other shoe companies have been selling for the last four decades

-Human evolution and the facts that support that humans evolved as runners

Runners who read BTR will leave with a different outlook on their sport. I don't know if this was the author's intent, but McDougall has a habit of being truthfully blunt. He explores the truth wherever it takes him, and in this case, it was in the remote areas of northern Mexico to run with the Tarahumara or more precisely the Rarámuri--runners on foot, a reclusive tribe that depends on long distance running. They do all this running on sandals made from tires. While among these people, McDougall meets the Caballo Blanco or "white horse." This was the crazy white guy who came from America to live and run in the Copper Canyons among the Rarámuri.


BTR is one part confessional, one part travelogue, one part diatribe, and one part athletic odyssey. There is so much in this book that it is difficult to encompass it in just a simple book review. But the explosive part of the book has to do with shoes or rather the fact that they are unnecessary for running and may actually be bad for running. All those running injuries may be a consequence of all those highly technical shoes especially with the gimmicks such as air, gel, springs, and built up heels. These shoes encourage heel striking, but the unshod human foot does not land heel first but lands midfoot with a pronation action. The heel comes in contact with the ground last. But with padded trainers, the heel hits first sending the shock up the leg causing all the familiar injuries runners experience. As McDougall points out, humans evolved as long distance running machines. We have little body hair, fat buttocks, the ability to sweat, and can run effortlessly for miles and miles with barefeet. This ability enabled human ancestors to do persistence hunting. Basically, they ran down game until they overheated. Then, those early humans killed and ate what they caught. Humans are literally "born to run."

McDougall was not a runner when he began this odyssey. He kept getting hurt. But as he discovered these insights, he ditched his shoes and found salvation. He is not the first leader on this, but he is definitely the most prominent first follower setting off an explosion in barefoot running and natural running and the sale of the Vibram Five Fingers shoes that aren't really shoes but gloves for your feet.



McDougall goes on to give praise to ultrarunner Scott Jurek who eschews the glory that Dean Karnazes enjoys. Then, he tells of the hidden race that Jurek and a few others joined in with the Tarahumara who are a people not given to violence and enjoy good health and longevity. They are a fascinating people and a living link to a past that has been forgotten. But modernity threatens to wipe these people out.

The tragedy of the Tarahumara is the encroaching drug war. Mexican drug lords who are brazen in their violence harass and kill the Tarahumara. Mexico is a war zone of crime, and the Mexican authorities are a joke. The Tarahumara were able to run away from the conquistadors unlike the Aztecs, but they will not be able to run away from these criminals. Anyone who makes the pilgrimage to the Copper Canyons to run with the Tarahumara risks death at the hands of these drug runners who place zero value on human life. The most heart wrenching part of the book is when a prominent Tarahumara runner is found dead--the victim of the drug violence that pervades the entire nation of Mexico.

McDougall has written an impressive and unsettling story with Born to Run. It is already being called the best book on running ever written, and I am inclined to agree. They will be talking about this one for a long time.

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