Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America?? the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico??s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity?? leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco?? a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe?? the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete?? as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mil"ough the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans?? including a star ultramarathoner?? a beautiful young surfer?? and a barefoot wonder.
With a sharp wit and wild exuberance?? McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America?? where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit?? and?? finally?? to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. Born to Run is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet?? and that you?? indeed all of us?? were born to run.
Christopher McDougall: The key secret hit me like a thunderbolt. It was so simple yet such a jolt. It was this: everything Id been taught about running was wrong. We treat running in the modern world the same way we treat childbirthits going to hurt and requires special exercises and equipment and the best you can hope for is to get it over with quickly with minimal damage.
Then I meet the Tarahumara and theyre having a blast. They remember what its like to love running and it lets them blaze through the canyons like dolphins rocketing through waves. For them running isnt work. It isnt a punishment for eating. Its fine art like it was for our ancestors. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings what were the first designs? A downward slash lightning bolts through the bottom and middlebehold the Running Man.
The Tarahumara have a saying: Children run before they can walk. Watch any four-year-oldthey do everything at full speed and its all about fun. Thats the most important thing I picked up from my time in the Copper Canyons the understanding that running can be fast and fun and spontaneous and when it is you feel like you can go forever. But all of that begins with your feet. Strange as it sounds the Tarahumara taught me to change my relationship with the ground. Instead of hammering down on my heels the way Id been taught all my life I learned to run lightly and gently on the balls of my feet. The day I mastered it was the last day I was ever injured.
Q: You trained for your first ultramarathona race organized by the mysterious gringo expat Caballo Blanco between the Tarahumara and some of Americas top ultrarunnerswhile researching and writing this book. What was your training like?
CM: It really started as kind of a dare. Just by chance Id met an adventure-sports coach from Jackson Hole Wyoming named Eric Orton. Erics specialty is tearing endurance sports down to their basic components and looking for transferable skills. He studies rock climbing to find shoulder techniques for kayakers and applies Nordic skiings smooth propulsion to mountain biking. What hes looking for are basic engineering principles because hes convinced that the next big leap forward in fitness wont come from strength or technology but plain simple durability. With some 70% of all runners getting hurt every year the athlete who can stay healthy and avoid injury will leave the competition behind.
So naturally Eric idolized the Tarahumara. Any tribe that has 90-year-old men running across mountaintops obviously has a few training tips up its sleeve. But since Eric had never actually met the Tarahumara he had to deduce their methods by pure reasoning. His starting point was uncertainty; he assumed that the Tarahumara step into the unknown every time they leave their caves because they never know how fast theyll have to sprint after a rabbit or how tricky the climbing will be if theyre caught in a storm. They never even know how long a race will be until they step up to the starting linethe distance is only determined in a last-minute bout of negotiating and could stretch anywhere from 50 miles to 200-plus.
Eric figured shock and awe was the best way for me to build durability and mimic Tarahumara-style running. Hed throw something new at me every dayhopping drills lunges mile intervalsand lots and lots of hills. There was no such thing really as long slow distancehed have me mix lots of hill repeats and short bursts of speed into every mega-long run.
I didnt think I could do it without breaking down and I told Eric that from the start. I basically defied him to turn me into a runner. And by the end of nine months I was cranking out four hour runs without a problem.
Q: Youre a six-foot four-inches tall 200-plus pound guynot anyone??s typical vision of a distance runner?? yet you??ve completed ultra marathons and are training for more. Is there a body type for running?? as many of us assume?? or are all humans built to run?
CM: Yeah?? I??m a big??un. But isn??t it sad that??s even a reasonable question? I bought into that bull for a loooong time. Why wouldn??t I? I was constantly being told by people who should know better that ??some bodies aren??t designed for running.?? One of the best sports medicine physicians in the country told me exactly that?that the reason I was constantly getting hurt is because I was too big to handle the impact shock from my feet hitting the ground. Just recently?? I interviewed a nationally-known sports podiatrist who said?? ??You know?? we didn??t ALL evolve to run away from saber-toothed tigers.?? Meaning?? what? That anyone who isn??t sleek as a Kenyan marathoner should be extinct? It??s suc