“Running is a dangerous sport”. Eventually, many have injured themselves doing any kind of strenuous activity. Running, weightlifting, skiing, soccer, you name it, our bodies do not seem to last a lifetime doing these activities. Someday, we have to slow down. But why, at a mere age of 40, do our bodies give out? We still have over half a lifetime left to live.
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall has brought this issue to question. McDougall, a forty-year-old runner who has been told his body cannot take the pounding of running anymore by his incurable, gnawing foot and knee pain, felt like something was not right. A primitive tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara, or Raramuri, are renowned for their long-distance running. The elders outrun their adults, while the adults outrun the teenagers. These Native Americans are contradictory to normal American belief of running. In America, younger is better. Teenagers and young adults are fresher and more sought after. Look at modern American sports, the media keeps telling Steve Nash to retire from basketball because his lingering back issues are taking him out of almost every game. Many athletes over the age of 30-35 all have similar issues. We don’t see athletes in their fifties throwing a football in the Superbowl or skiing down a slope in the Olympics. What makes the Tarahumara different? They only drink gallons of homemade beer. They only eat barbecue mouse and corn. And, they only run with sandals strung together by a little band of leather. Why are Americans so much more unfit, even with all of our technological and medical advancements? This is the question McDougall set out to solve.
The Tarahumara run because it makes them feel good, not because they are endorsed by Nike or gain fame from winning the Boston Marathon. The Tarahumara can run 400 miles nonstop, while men, women, and children are able to run at least 250 miles. These ‘Running People’ are running in the depths of north-western Mexico with no audience but of their own tribe running alongside of them. Understanding this difference can lead to a different running mindset. Instead of running to look hotter or to get a higher position in your sport, do it for yourself so your body can do what it has evolved over many generations to do - run. Run, searching for the runners high, and run as if you were a kid again running home to dinner.
Running with the newest running shoe is actually worst for your health. Research has shown that these shoes are actually doing more damage. Our bare-feet have been designed to give us the support and strength we need to run down dinner or escape a predator. Adding extra cushion to our arches or implementing microchips in soles to adjust the cushion at different times is not actually needed. A 1991 study in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal stated that there was a positive correlation with increase in injuries and increase in shoe cost.
So, what is America teaching us? We need expensive shoes to run well, we’ll be injured by the time we are forty, and medicine has no answers but to stop these strenuous sports. A look back into the history of man and the primitive tribe of Tarahumara shows us that these lessons are not true.
