New York : Vintage Books, 2011, c2009.
1st Vintage Books ed.
287 p. ; 21 cm.
For the past couple of months my son has been insisting that I had to read Born to Run - so I did. He was right; it was a great read! Not perfect, but pretty amazing!
The book is an exuberant introduction to the phenomena of ultrarunning, but it is more than that. It is a celebration of human running, of adventure and determination, and the amazing - and often larger than life - personalities of ultrarunners. Even more, the book serves as a provocative look at human origins, evolution and the possibility that modern humans (all of us!) are born with the capacity to run far longer and farther than most of us have ever run - and to do it with minimal injuries. This last aspect has McDougall casting a rather critical eye on the whole modern running shoe industry.
McDougall's hook for the book is his search for the enigmatic indigenous people of Northwest Mexico, the Tarahumara who survived contact with the Spaniards by avoiding engagement with them, opting instead to live in the very sparse, barren, and rugged terrain of the Copper Canyon in Mexico. The Tarahumara also happen to be world class endurance runners, and McDougall's renewed interest in long distance running (which had hobbled him with injuries) is rekindled during his successful search for the Tarahumara. His contact person, almost-mythical gringo runner and hermit called el Caballo, draws McDougall into his wildly ambitious plans to stage a race in the dangerous Copper Canyon pitting the greatest ultrarunners from North America against the greatest Tarahumara runners. As you can imagine, the outcome is hair-raising and almost unbelievable.
I have to admit that when I first began reading the book, I was a bit put off by McDougall's overblown style and descriptions - every character is the most amazing, most awesome, most eccentric, most etc. etc., that one could imagine. However, on Googling some of the characters in the book, they have in fact accomplished ridiculously grueling feats of running endurance - and often faster and more energetically than any other humans on the planet. My only other complaint is that the book would have been much better with at least some photos - particularly of the characters who populate the book.
This book will definitely have you thinking a lot about running, whether you are someone who has never run before or are a seasoned marathoner. And it does it with fun, adventure and a true zest for the subject. Not bad for a book on something as common as running from here to there!
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