Book Review: Born To Run by Christopher McDougall

By Zan Parker on August 18, 2012

Picture by Jacobo Garcia, from flikr.com

As a former war correspondent, Christopher McDougall had already proven his fearless gusto for the pursuit of good stories. It oddly made sense then, that after being plagued with painful running injuries and counseled by doctors to throw in the towel, McDougall found himself traipsing through a canyon in Mexico, dodging drug lords and other death traps in search of the Tarahumara — a legendary tribe of distance runners.

McDougall’s book, “Born to Run,” is a chronicle of this quest, and his writing is a race in itself. With a wide open stretch of pages, the text explodes from the starting line with such captivating leads as: “For days, I’d been searching Mexico’s Sierra Madre for the phantom known as Caballo Blanco—the White Horse.”

The narrative winds forward and backward from the author’s first encounters with Caballo to labs and training fields, heading off on small tangents but always finding its way back to the Tarahumara. McDougall tempers the intensity of his encounters by facing his world with a touch of ironic humor, as he uses playful but pointed descriptions to poke fun at his running compatriots:

“As the rest of us had discovered during the long bus ride, Barefoot Ted talked the way Charlie Parker played the sax: he’d pick up on any cue and cut loose with a truly astonishing torrent of improvisation, seeming to breathe in through his nose while maintaining an endless flow of sound out of his mouth.”

The journalist later counters his jests by showing how Ted’s gregarious sympathies helped a Tarahumara warrior grieve over a great loss. The book is a study of human nature… in more ways than one.

In his efforts to understand the desire to run, McDougall makes side-visits to uncover the lives of North America’s own ultrarunners, explores theories of evolutionary design, and even chronicles one man’s search to discover whether a hunter bold enough and smart enough can really run a deer to death. A willingness to engage in extensive research adds credibility to a highly entertaining narrative.

This research collectively supports the barefoot running school of thought. At one point in his book the author quips, “Blaming the running injury epidemic on big, bad Nike seems too easy—but that’s okay, because it’s largely their fault.” He makes his case several times, and one need only go as far as his website to find a slew of resources on how to train and run correctly. http://www.chrismcdougall.com/

McDougall’s enthusiasm for the sport of distance running and athleticism in general is catching. For $6.50 used on Amazon, “Born to Run”is a book that can serve as both a diversion, and a guide to life change.

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