{"id":1926,"date":"2010-04-07T08:43:52","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T13:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2010-04-07T08:43:52","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T13:43:52","slug":"book-review-born-to-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2010\/book-review-born-to-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Born to Run"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Born<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If you’ve not heard of the best-selling book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen<\/a><\/em> you might be want to double check that you are a runner with a network of runners. \u00a0It seems every runner on the web has written or talked about Born to Run, so why not me?<\/p>\n

Well I haven’t really wanted to spend the money and who wants to be part of a fad? That all changed a few weeks ago. \u00a0We had some time to kill and decided to go to a book store. \u00a0We were already in Uptown so we checked out Magers & Quinn<\/a>, a great Minneapolis treasure. I walked out with four books, all purchased below their market price. \u00a0Born to Run<\/em> was the only new book, the rest were used.<\/p>\n

I was getting bored by the other book I was reading and wasn’t sure if I’d make it through the 282 pages with only 2 weeks left in the month. \u00a0Well, I was pleasantly surprised that the book was a super-easy read and I finished it with time to spare in March. \u00a0I was prepared for a book like Bill Bryson’s Walk in the Woods<\/a><\/em> where it was story mixed in with a lot of random facts\/rabbit trails\/personal issues. \u00a0McDougall’s is almost all story. \u00a0Much of what I had heard about the book led me to believe it would be a treatise on barefoot running and a lot of research to back up that perspective.<\/p>\n

It is actually pretty late (chapter 25 page 168) in the book before McDougall really starts to present any heavy research and opinions on barefoot running. \u00a0And it does make you think. \u00a0For obvious reasons<\/a> I really liked this quote on pg 201:<\/p>\n

Once PF [plantar fasciitis] sinks its fangs into your heels, you’re in danger of being infected for life. Check any running-related message board, and you’re guaranteed to find a bunch of beseeching threads from PF sufferers begging for a cure. Everyone is quick to suggest the same remedies \u2013 night splints, elastic socks, ultrasounds, electroshock, cortisone, orthodics \u2013 but the messages keep coming because none of them really seems to work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Isn’t that great! Most of the book is about the Tarahumara Indians<\/a> in Mexico and how they run for days eating only pinole and wearing thin pieces of rubber (known as Huaraches<\/a>)\u00a0and never seem to get hurt. \u00a0In fact when some of them receive and start wearing running shoes they ended up getting hurt shortly thereafter. \u00a0The main emphasis of the book is a race held in Mexico in which Scott Jurek<\/a>, Barefoot Ted<\/a>, and a few not so famous runners take on the adventure and challenge of a 50 mile trail race against the Tarahumara’s\u00a0best runners. \u00a0I won’t tell you the ending! \u00a0The book spends a lot of time providing the back story for each of the runners and how the Tarahumara became known in the US running world.<\/p>\n

McDougall also takes a section of his book to look at the evolution of man and how we evolved into runners. \u00a0This quote made me laugh (pg 243):<\/p>\n

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To be fair, our brain knew what it was talking about for 99 percent of our history; sitting around was a luxury, so when you had the chance to rest and recover, you grabbed it. Only recently have we come up with technology to turn lazing around into a way of life; we’ve taken our sinewy, durable, hunter-gather bodies and plunked them into an artificial world of leisure.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So with that I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Born to Run, it alone may not convince or me to go barefoot but it is an excellent story about “A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen”<\/div>\n
If you’ve read the book what are your thoughts on it? \u00a0Would you rather borrow mine instead of purchasing it?<\/div>\n
[tags] book review, Born to Run, barefoot, barefoot running [\/tags]<\/div>\n
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