Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Biggest Race the World Has By no means Seen

This book positively helped make my life permanently better!
Although I’m not an avid runner by any means, nor have I really ever been, I found this book to be a great read. It’s an engrossing, entertaining, and well written story about the author’s boldly persistent adventures during an unwavering quest for elusive answers to perplexing questions.And, as any great read might do it allowed me to feel connected, however remotely, to interesting peoples; and exotic places I probably wouldn’t’ve ever been able to imagine existed no matter how many more years I might live.More importantly, to me personally; it was what made me aware of: the existence and potential benefits of minimalist footwear; and, the absurdity of the school of thought that would have us believe nature’s evolutionary design success with the human foot can be vastly improved by a plethora of modern footwear gimmickry. And lastly, how transitioning back to nature’s time-tested, time-proven way (barefoot) might actually reset one’s ambulatory infrastructure to where it’s meant to be in the first place — the place it took a significant long two million years or so to leisurely perfect on its own.In fact: the wealth of somewhat esoteric information in this book proved to be an unparalleled revelation which provided me with fresh insights fundamental to my particular set of circumstances at that time.The key reason being; that although I’ve never actually suffered from plantar fasciitis or related knee injuries; as a teenager I was thrown off a galloping horse that stopped abruptly, and I landed on a fallen tree in a mountain wilderness area; sustaining multiple, grievous internal injuries due to the ensuing trauma. One of the worst, besides being diagnosed with hypogycemia and hypoadrenocorticism [aka secondary adrenal insufficiency], was a herniated lumbar disc which I’ve painfully had to deal with for most of my adult life. Walking, running, and sometimes even just standing at some kind of work-station or another has at times caused me severe and disabling lumbar spasms.The point is, after reading about the Tarahumara and the running-shoe industry; I decided to purchase a pair of zero-drop shoes (aka foot-gloves) and soon started the transition period. Walking for an hour or so each day to start with and slowly increasing the time as quickly as I deemed prudent.After about three months I was up to ten miles a day (on a good day) and felt the physical transition to be mostly complete at that time.It was then I tossed my expensive running shoes into the trash; along with my very expensive shoe orthotic inserts; and have never looked back. It’s been about six years now since my last visit to an Osteopath or Chiropractor (yeah, for real!).Astonishingly, other than some recent lower back pain from sleeping on a soft, worn-out mattress my bad disc has mostly been behaving its otherwise typically fickle-self for almost every day of those six years.Nor am I flatfooted by any means either! My arches have remained as healthily high, and every bit as strong (probably much stronger) as they ever were, and this without any arch-support whatsoever thank you very much.Neither am I otherwise suffering from any other sort of chronic foot/knee pain, even though I frequently walk for miles at a time (love walking now more than ever); and even jog a bit on occasion.And although I still prefer my bicycle for serious “endorphin hunting” (the only thing I’ve ever been hopelessly addicted to in my entire life); walking/jogging now feel decidedly better than they did with typical athletic-type shoes before transitioning. Indeed, this totally sordid business of genuinely needing arch-supports in modern shoes seems like an enormously cruel joke to me now. To be clear: the irony here being that apparently, the exact reasons I perceived requiring their dubious benefits in the first place; were primarily due to the fact (lumbar disc issues aside) that the footwear I’ve been beguiled into enduring most of my life was indeed the biggest, most pernicious joke of all!To conclude: after delving into Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run for the second time this decade, one of my takeaways is that; it’s not just a book for runners, elite or otherwise. It’s also an entertaining book for the open-minded everyman with an adventurous spirit.

I stumbled upon this and was mesmerized what a great read. I highly recommend and am so grateful for Christopher McDougall’s unrelenting journey to uncover why his feet hurt and his witty story telling.I am not always a runner and ashamed to admit it as it takes a lot of self discipline to get going again. However when l was on my game running 3+ times a week 2-5km and participating in 5km Park Run my feet kept falling asleep … I tried different Runners more cushion, no luck. I went back to trail running just a flat stiff sole and feet responded. Now that it’s Spring no snow I have ordered a pair of Running Barefoot shoes.

Super recommend for runners at all levels.

Histoire captivante pour qui aime la course a pied. Facile a lire, pleine d’informations passionnantes sur la course a pied, et très prenante. Une fois passé les dix premières pages on ne lâche plus le bouquin !