Born to Run - a quick review

“Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” by Christopher McDougall started with McDougall trying to find a way to run that didn’t hurt. He found two discoveries. First was that form matters and he learned the Evolution running method. (see http://www.evolutionrunning.com/) Second he found that modern scientific running shoes cause problems with your form and therefore with your body. He looks at the history and marketing techniques of Nike. Who knew that the higher priced and more padded the shoe, the more likely one is to be injured. Caveat emptor in the free market. Try to find good evidence (not always easy) and follow it. (You can find some evidence based practice on foot strike and running barefoot or shod at http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/index.html) The support and padding weakens the foot and encourages heel striking which is not in keeping with how your body’s natural shock absorption works according to what McDougall found. Along the way we learn about a tribe in Africa that can still hunt by running and exhausting the prey and anthropologists who theorize that homo sapiens was able to outlast Neanderthals because of our running ability. We meet an amazing cast of ultra-marathon characters including Scott Jurek and Cabello Blanco, who is an amazing story by himself, and the Tarahumara Indians of the Copper Canyon in Mexico. The race referred to is between the Indians and the American runners and embodies the best of sportsmanship and running out of love for the sport. The book is an amazing set of stories and a must read for runners.