Book Review: Born To Run

Christopher McDougall's Born to Run is a book mostly about ultra-marathons (races longer than 26.2 miles) and the people who compete in them.  I picked it up, hoping to learn more about why as the title suggest humans are born to run.

The book starts out much like a series of magazine articles about several ultra-marathons and their stars.   Included amongst the stars are a group of Tarahumara, members of a
Mexican tribe who do a lot of long distance running in shoes similar to the one pictured below.  Also featured widely in the book is Caballo Blanco, a man who left civilization to live and run amongst the Tarahumara.

Luna sandle designed after the Tarahumara running shoes

The magazine style stories were interesting.  But the were not effective at convincing me that people should run ultra-marathons.  For some of the 100 mile races, there were descriptions of runners becoming delusional and even an example of someone going into kidney failure.  The book made me consider the possibility of one day running a 50 mile race, but ruled out anything further than that.

The most interesting chapters of the book were chapters 25-28 where McDougall talks about the creation of the modern running shoe along with human physiology and proper running form.  Proper running form has an athlete strike on the ball of the foot, leaning out to the outer edge, before placing the heal.  Take a look at the women's 1500M olympic trials slow motion video below to see an example of how we're supposed to run (wait for it).

According to the book, the first modern running shoe, created by Nike, was created with a ton of padding on the heel to allow people to strike on the heel and extend their stride.  This running form leads to knee injuries.  Since the invention of the modern running shoe running injuries have increased. There is no study of a single running shoe proving that it reduces chance for injury.  The solution to this problem?  Don't bother with modern running shoes.  Go with a normal sneaker, go barefoot, or go with a minimalist shoe.  Without the extra padding, you will strike more lightly and it is nearly impossible to land on your heal.  This will improve running form and reduce chance of injury.

After reading the book, I did pick up a pair of Vibram SeeYa's.  I'll provide an update on my experiences with minimalist shoes in a future post.

I recommend the book for anyone interested in running an ultra-marathon, improving their own running form, or learning a bit more about how humans became runners.