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Zusammenfassung von Born to Run

Name: Born to Run
Rating: 4.4 (172 reviews)
Author: Christopher McDougall

Christopher McDougall

A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

4.4 (172 Bewertungen)

33 Min.

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Born to Run
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What’s in it for me? Run toward your body’s true calling.

“How come my foot hurts?” The search for an answer to this unassuming question took journalist Christopher McDougall on an adventure to track down Mexico’s indigenous Tarahumara people, known as the world’s greatest distance runners.

Many Tarahumara can run hundreds of miles without resting, are the picture of health, and possess an uncanny serenity. Along his way to discover their Herculean secrets and explore the limits of human endurance – including his own – Chris encountered a trove of astonishing characters, athletic virtuosity, and scientific insights.

These blinks will dispel any myths you may believe about the human body’s capabilities. And they might just inspire you to do what you were born to do: run.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why dogs can’t run marathons;
what plants have to do with performance; and
why no running shoes are the best running shoes.

Running unites our two most primal impulses – fear and pleasure.

Distance-running has shot up three times in the US. The first time was during the Great Depression, when more than two hundred runners raced 40 miles a day in the Great American Footrace. Running became popular again in the early 1970s as the country struggled to recoup from wars, race riots, and a criminal president. And the third surge happened one year after the September 11 attacks, when trail-running became the nation’s fastest-growing outdoor sport.

As trends would have it, in fact, we’re experiencing another running boom now, during the COVID pandemic. And it’s not just because gyms are closed.

Maybe it was a coincidence that people turned to running during a national crisis. Or maybe there’s a trigger in the human psyche that mobilizes our greatest, most basic survival skill at such times. We run when we’re scared, and we run when we’re happy. We run to relieve stress, and because it feels good.

The key message here is: Running unites our two most primal impulses – fear and pleasure.

The problem was, running didn’t feel good to Chris – an otherwise athletic guy in his forties. Since trying to become a marathoner, he’d experienced multiple injuries, including ripped hamstrings, sprained ankles, and arch aches that just wouldn’t go away. According to his doctor, his body wasn’t designed for running’s abuse.

Actually, many medical professionals cite risk of injury as a reason not to run. And they’re not wrong. Every year, anywhere from 65 to 80 percent of all runners suffer an injury. That’s most runners, every year! No invention has been able to curb the havoc; if anything, the injury rate has actually increased. According to the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons, distance running is “an outrageous threat to the integrity of the knee.”

But Chris had a hunch that there was a way to run without the accompanying pain – and to really enjoy it. He remembered the elation of running around at top speed as a kid, with total abandon and delight.

And how did someone like ultrarunner Ann Trason think that running huge distances in the mountains was “very romantic?” What made the legendary Emil Zátopek love running so much that, after a full day of drills in army boot camp, he’d grab a flashlight and go on 20-mile runs through the dark and freezing woods in his combat boots?

Chris didn’t love running, but he wanted to. So instead of heeding his doctor’s advice to “buy a bike,” he set out to find a way to run, pain-free. His quest would lead him to a secretive Mexican tribe whose members seemed to be able to run forever – smiling every step of the way.

Members of the Tarahumara tribe see running as part of their identity.

Many adventurers enter the Copper Canyons of northern Mexico, but not all exit; the area is known as the “Bermuda Triangle of the borderlands.” The Tarahumara fled into the canyons 400 years ago to escape the abuse of Spanish colonizers, and their settlements have been well hidden and widely dispersed since. To travel to these quickly on foot, Tarahumara have developed an extraordinary athletic ability.

Tarahumara call themselves Rarámuri, which roughly translates to the “Running People” – and the name is no joke. They’ve been reported to run 300 miles in a single session – that’s nearly twelve full marathons in a row! Not only that, but they have far fewer rates of injuries that plague other runners worldwide.

The human body is evolutionarily well-adapted to long-distance running. 

If you can run six miles on a hot day, you’re a dangerous weapon in the animal kingdom. You just need to scare an animal into a gallop. Then, if you can stay close enough for it to see you, it will keep sprinting away. Soon, it will go into hyperthermic shock and drop to the ground.

This is, for example, how the San people of southern Africa track antelopes in the Kalahari desert. That’s not to say you should track down your next meal via persistence-hunting – but it does lend a clue to human evolution.

To become a better long-distance runner, befriend pain and fatigue. 

A man who called himself Caballo Blanco, or “White Horse,” showed up in the Tarahumara mountains one day. Caballo was a former boxer from California who wanted to find peace. He was sick of the prizefighting, sick of the performing, and sick of heartbreak. He began modeling his lifestyle after that of the Tarahumara, wearing sandals and eating pinole, or ground corn.

And, of course, he ran – soon tackling trails that were steeper and more winding than a black-diamond ski slope. He had a few tumbles and had to drag himself back to his hut at times, but he chose to see everything as an investment, claiming that “Suffering is humbling. It pays to know how to get your butt kicked.”

To run faster and longer, become a vegetarian.

As he got ready to hike out of the Tarahumara canyon, Chris found himself staring into a cup full of a gooey slime flecked with black bubbles. “Great,” he said, looking for a cactus to discreetly dump it behind. “What is it?”

The scum-like substance, which turned out to be pretty tasty, was iskiate, also known as “chilly chia.” Concocted by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and lime, it’s a nutritional powerhouse. The tiny seeds are packed with omega-3s, antioxidants, iron, zinc, fiber, calcium, and protein.

Running shoes actually do more harm than good.

Meanwhile, “Barefoot Ted,” another contender for Caballo’s race, was waging a personal vendetta against the running shoe – otherwise known as the worst crime ever perpetrated against the human foot. After trying shoe after fancy shoe, Ted McDonald had resorted to running barefoot in a last-ditch effort to eliminate the piercing pains in his back. On his first barefoot run, Ted went five miles and felt nothing. “I was totally amazed at how enjoyable it was,” he mused. He amped up his mileage, and, within months, had transformed himself into a speedy barefoot marathoner.

Amazed by his new talent, Ted kept pushing further. He signed up for 100-mile endurance runs, strapping on rubber foot gloves whenever he hit gravel or glass. He ran the Los Angeles Marathon in his bare feet and qualified for the Boston Marathon – something 99.9 percent of all runners never achieve. Now, he was coming to race with the Tarahumara to see whether the key to their resilience was their nearly bare feet.

Running can be a powerful form of meditation.

Fast forward nine months, and race day was just around the corner. Chris and the American racing group had met up in El Paso, Texas – including Jenn Shelton, a young poet, and her surfer boyfriend, Billy Barnett. These two were known for their hard partying almost as much as for winning ultramarathons across the East Coast.

The plan was to drive into Mexico together the next day, but all night Jenn and Billy had terrorized the hotel in drunken debauchery. Jenn had acquired a shiner by running face-first into a marble fountain, and Billy had spewed pink vomit all over Chris’s room. Whether they’d be fit to run in the grueling canyons the next day was doubtful.

Training like the Tarahumara will transform your body and mind.

Finally, the day of the epic race had arrived. At 5:00 a.m., the runners feasted on pancakes, papayas, and hot pinole. As they walked toward the starting line, the entire town greeted them. Flowers and paper streamers waved above the street, and a mariachi band in full costume strummed a few warm-up melodies.

The night before, Caballo had made them swear an oath: “If I get hurt, lost, or die, it’s my own damn fault. AMEN!” The 50-mile trail had a climb and descent of 6,500 feet along a sheer rock wall, and it was going to get hot. But it was too late to turn back. The mayor was already aiming a shotgun at the sky.

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Worum geht es in Born to Run?

Born to Run (2009) delves into the human capacity for long-distance running. First-hand accounts, an encounter with a secretive ultra-running tribe and cutting-edge research combine to argue for the idea that we may well be born to run.

Wer Born to Run lesen sollte

Runners and anyone training for a marathon
Armchair athletes
Health-conscious people

Über den Autor

Christopher McDougall is an American author, TED speaker and journalist who has written for Esquire, New York Times Magazine, Men’s Journal, New York and Outside. He’s also acted as a contributing editor for Men’s Health.

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