[books 2013] Born to Run
Nov. 1st, 2013 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro63. Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
This book is about a lot of things. It's non-fiction, and while it packs in a lot of facts, it really reads more like an adventure novel.
It's an anthopology work in that it focuses on two interesting groups: the Tarahumara, a native people who live in the Copper Canyons of Mexico who are legendary for their extreme endurance running prowess, and the ultrarunning community - people who run races of up to 100 miles, in extreme environments such as Death Valley and at extreme elevation.
It's also about how the technology brought to bear on running and running shoes since the 1970s have made runners more prone to get injuries, not less so, and for distance running they've been getting slower too.
This is a really inspiring book. Not just the athletes, who are all insane in the best possible way, but the people who support them and their races. My personal favourite were the group who run the aid station at 12,500 feet of the Leadville 100 in Colorado. The guy who organised the race thought it wasn't safe to put an aid station that high up, even though it was really needed. But a local llama farmer and his friends put a load of stuff on the llamas and treks up there with a bunch of his friends and spends the weekend dispensing food and drink, and taking injured runners back down the mountain on the llamas.
There's some truly fascinating factoids too - extreme distance running is one sport where women's times are nearly as good as men's, and being older is no barrier to putting in some extremely impressive performances.
And most importantly, the more high tech your running shoes are, the worse they are for you. Which means that if I can ever find the time to start running again my Converse will do just fine.
This book is about a lot of things. It's non-fiction, and while it packs in a lot of facts, it really reads more like an adventure novel.
It's an anthopology work in that it focuses on two interesting groups: the Tarahumara, a native people who live in the Copper Canyons of Mexico who are legendary for their extreme endurance running prowess, and the ultrarunning community - people who run races of up to 100 miles, in extreme environments such as Death Valley and at extreme elevation.
It's also about how the technology brought to bear on running and running shoes since the 1970s have made runners more prone to get injuries, not less so, and for distance running they've been getting slower too.
This is a really inspiring book. Not just the athletes, who are all insane in the best possible way, but the people who support them and their races. My personal favourite were the group who run the aid station at 12,500 feet of the Leadville 100 in Colorado. The guy who organised the race thought it wasn't safe to put an aid station that high up, even though it was really needed. But a local llama farmer and his friends put a load of stuff on the llamas and treks up there with a bunch of his friends and spends the weekend dispensing food and drink, and taking injured runners back down the mountain on the llamas.
There's some truly fascinating factoids too - extreme distance running is one sport where women's times are nearly as good as men's, and being older is no barrier to putting in some extremely impressive performances.
And most importantly, the more high tech your running shoes are, the worse they are for you. Which means that if I can ever find the time to start running again my Converse will do just fine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-11-01 02:36 pm (UTC)Interesting! Literally everyone I've spoken to about running says you have to spend upwards of £60 on trainers, which has been putting me off doing any more.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-01 04:10 pm (UTC)My own extremely limited experience is that one day I was scheduled to hit the treadmill but got my shoes mixed up and ended up with my Converse high-tops when I meant to take my Nikes. I thought, hey, I run such a pathetic distance that it can't possibly matter, and discovered that the whole running experience hurt me slightly less in the Converse.
(er - not that Converse are cheap, but that's because there's crusty old punks like me willing to shell out for the name)
Read the book. The evidence is pretty convincing. Look at pictures of people who ran 50+ years ago. They had no specialist gear and made some pretty awesome achievements.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-01 04:30 pm (UTC)http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/the-myth-of-pronation-and-running-injuries/?_r=0
I've been running in dirt cheap (like, £5) trainers from Asda. It's been painful as hell the next day, but I suspect that's just because I'm woefully unfit.