Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Born to Run


I've been running for over 20 years, and Born to Run is the first book that made me think about how I'm doing it, and actually convinced me to change my running technique. The book has three elements, all of which are intertwined in a provocative expose. The first element is an anthropological study of an Indian tribe in Mexico. The tribe just happens to run outrageously long distances (for days at a time), partly for fun, and partly for practical reasons. The second part of the book is an impassioned argument against running shoes, to be replaced by barefoot running or running with minimal cushioning. This is where the title of the book comes from. The argument is that humans were, for ages, subsistence hunters, meaning we hunted to stay alive. Since our prey could run faster than us in short spurts, we would run just fast enough to keep them in sight, forcing them to keep running in short spurts until they overheated (animals can't sweat) and we could finally get close enough to kill them. We were, quite literally, born to run, having evolved to allow this sort of long-distance hunting. But running shoes distort the runner's form and actually end up causing injuries, or so the argument goes. The third element of the book is the story of an ultra-marathon, a 100-mile race involving some of the best ultra-marthoners in the U.S. and several of the members of the Mexican tribe competing against one another. It's a riveting account, and ties together the other two sections of the book. If you're into running or human evolution, this book is highly entertaining.
-Brett Potash