Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

This is a (slightly) flawed masterpiece for runners but is essential reading for anyone who runs in any sort of serious way. It's a great tale, fairly well told and it has made me think very hard about how and why I run.McDougall tells the story of the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, shy, retiring and superhuman ultramarathoners. Put onto the scent he tracks down someone who is almost a legend - Caballo Blanco - an American who has gone native with the Tarahumara and lives and breathes running.The author skilfully blends the build- up to a joint US/Tarahumara 50-mile race in the mountains and heat of Mexico with research into how and why we run, taking in barefoot running, why we wear trainers (and - perhaps - why we shouldn't), why runners get injured and what runners should eat. He also manages to tell the story of the Leadville 100 - a daunting 100 mile race in the US mountains - which he makes a real page turner.I read the book in the build-up to running 2 marathons in a week ( I have just finished the second) and I was inspired by it, despite thinking I know what I am doing, having run 17 marathons over the last 27 years. I was also dismayed to find that there's more to inspiration required to run long distances well, but I am certainly going to try out some of the techniques mentioned in this book, especially the new ultra-thin shoes that make you feel as though you are running barefoot, something the author (persuasively) maintains is the way to avoid running injuries. The idea of running an ultra-marathon (say - 50 miles?) is made very tempting, although just doing 26 today was really hard. One day maybe....This is not a perfect book - it's style is a little breathless (no pun intended), there are lots of US sport references which are hard to decipher, everyone he meets seems to be a "real character" (although maybe they are) and it bangs on in massive detail about every meal everyone eats. I also got a bit confused as to who was who and where all these races where some of the time. But don't let these minor quibbles put you off - this is simply something you have to read as a runner. It will make you think, and it's also an entertaining page-turner. It's also full of nice quotes about running, my favourite of which is "You don't stop running because you get old - you get old because you stop running."It is also now made poignant by the fact that Caballo Blanco died earlier this year while out running at the age of 59 - seems as though a heart condition did for him.If you run and you are reading this and you haven't yet rad this book please do yourself a favour - buy it, read it and see how it makes you re-evaluate the way you run. Massively recommended.

I have always been interested in the legends of the Tarahumara Indians and have found very little about them in the way of reading hence the purchase of this book. I thought I might gain a bit more insight on these fabled ultra runners of Mexico by reading Christopher McDougall's book and I was not wrong. I found this book not only answered all of my questions on these legendary runners but it also gave a good account on the history and evolution of running. The story bounced from the home of the Tarahumara in Mexico's deadly Copper Canyon to the science laboratories of Harvard, to Kalahari Bushmen and the modern ultra elite racers of the US.Sections of the book also gave superb in depth explanations on the ethos of barefoot running, a scientific overview of running evolution and a very interesting interpretation of how Homo sapiens evolved as the most efficient endurance mammalian machine on earth. All of this was contained in a extraordinary story that pitted the best of the US elite ultra marathoners against the best of the Tarahumara runners in an ultra race set in the formidable Copper Canyon of Mexico. The real life characters in the book are not only extraordinary but exist in real life and some of them are worthy of their own books.In simple terms this is a story about a race between two worlds, the ancient traditional world of the Tarahumara runner against the modern world of the twenty first century ultra athlete. More than that however, it is a story about the joys of running, where a run is seen as a part of life not a chore in its daily cycle. The book is well written, full of humour and excellent explanations, it is simply the best book on running I have read. The sad epitaph of this book however is that as I write this review in Mexico itself, the recent news (this week) on the Tarahumara is that they have been forced to accept government assistance due to failed crops and there is deep concern as to their future existence.