Born to Run

I finally finished Born to Run by Christopher McDougall yesterday and this will be a review of the same. I say review, but opinion piece is probably a better description of what this will be. There will also be a Sillytrain competition with the following parameters:

1) The deadline is Tuesday 14th of May, @23:59 CET (GMT+1 hour).
2) Only entries with a score >= 4, will be considered.
3) Attempts should be left as a comment, please include an email address. I'll contact you for a postal address after you win.
4) There is only one winner, so the highest score wins.
5) There will be a bonus additional prize for the winner, if it's not Jimmy Treanor.
6) The theme of any submissions should be running.
7) The main prize is a brand new copy of Born to Run.
8) In the event of multiple winners, assuming validity, the first entered will be accepted.

Born to Run is an extremely important book to me, it has everything; it's well written; suspense? Check; humour? Plenty; inspiration? You bet. In short, it tells the story of the book's author's journey in search of the Tarahumara, a Mexican, indigenous tribe of runners. Running for these people is, since childhood, the only form of transportation and recreation and they do all this running in a pair of do-it-yourself sandals, and without anything like the frequency of injuries, associated with distance running, that are commonplace among the high tech running community.

As well as inspiring me toward thinking seriously of taking up marathon running as my main sport as soon as I'm physically able, it has made two significant improvements to my current life. Firstly, McDougall makes a great case for incorporating chia seeds into the diets of his readers. Secondly, He makes a very scientific defence of bare footed running as an evolutionary reason for our success over other primates.

There are also two set pieces, which I won't spoil, about The Tarahumara going up against serious professionals in Ultra marathons, which take place in wild terrain, in cruel temperatures, and often can be 100 miles+ in distance.

In conclusion, if you only read one sports book in 2019, and you are yet to have the pleasure, make it Born to Run.

Comments

  1. Jimmy TreanorMay 8, 2019 at 3:22 PM

    To complete triathlons necessitates extraordinary unimaginable indestructibility

    ReplyDelete
  2. DeclanMay 9, 2019 at 4:00 AM

    Kind of off theme, but I'll allow it

    ReplyDelete
  3. DeclanMay 12, 2019 at 8:44 AM

    Jimmy, that sillytrain is fucked 1-2-3-4-6-6-7, score, therefore, is 4.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DeclanMay 14, 2019 at 12:43 AM

    To complete marathons necessitates unbelievably, unimaginable indestructibility. That was submitted by Ryan, son of Jimmy, Treanor, no doubt, to get around my 5th stipulation in the rules. Well, I could be petty and point to point-3, but I won't as I'm sure there's an 8 waiting to be dropped just before the deadline of 23:59(CET) tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ClaireMay 14, 2019 at 9:43 AM

    To complete marathons necessitates unbelievably unimaginable, neurobiological unintellectuality ..... WORD!

    Iwould be delighted to get my hands on a second copy of this excellent book, just to have it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jimmy TreanorMay 14, 2019 at 3:58 PM

    Ten years since her last win in the big race in London, Irena Mikatenko's individual extraordinary maneuverability uncharacteristically overenthusiastically deteriorated

    ReplyDelete
  7. DeclanMay 14, 2019 at 11:36 PM

    A hat-trick of victories for Jimmy Treanor, Congrats! Born to Run will soon be on its way to you.

    ReplyDelete

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