Born to Run

Highlights

Page 9

the injury rate hasn’t decreased a jot in thirty years. If anything, it’s actually ebbed up; Achilles tendon blowouts have seen a 10 percent increase. Running seemed to be the fitness version of drunk driving: you could get away with it for a while, you might even have some fun, but catastrophe was waiting right around the corner.

Note: Where can I sign up!

Page 22

What doomed them, as far as anyone could tell, was their fame, good looks, and talent; the singers challenged the drug lords’ sense of their own importance, and so were marked for death.

Note: Jesus

Page 29

The last time the Tarahumara had been open to the outside world, the outside world had put them in chains and mounted their severed heads on nine-foot poles. Spanish silver hunters had staked their claim to Tarahumara land—and Tarahumara labor—by decapitating their tribal leaders.

Page 29

“Raramuri men were rounded up like wild broncos and impressed into slave labor in the mines,” one chronicler wrote; anyone who resisted was turned into a human horror show. Before dying, the captured Tarahumara were tortured for information. That was all the surviving Tarahumara needed to know about what happens when curious strangers come calling. The Tarahumara’s relationship with the rest of the planet only got worse after that. Wild West bounty hunters were paid one hundred dollars apiece for Apache scalps, but it didn’t take long for them to come up with a vicious way to maximize the reward while eliminating the risk; rather than tangling with warriors who’d fight back, they simply massacred the peaceful Tarahumara and cashed in on their look-alike hair. Good guys were even deadlier than the villains. Jesuit missionaries showed up with Bibles in their hands and influenza in their lungs, promising eternal life but spreading instant death. The Tarahumara had no antibodies to combat the disease, so Spanish flu spread like wildfire, wiping out entire villages in days. A Tarahumara hunter would leave his family for a week in search of game, and come home to find nothing but corpses and flies.

Page 37

“Many of the best runners were from Yerbabuena,” Ángel said. “They had a very good trail which would let them cover a lot of distance in a day, much farther than you could get to from here.” Unfortunately, the trail was so good that the Mexican government eventually decided to slick it with asphalt and turn it into a road. Trucks began showing up in Yerbabuena, and in them, foods the Tarahumara had rarely eaten—soda, chocolate, rice, sugar, butter, flour. The people of Yerbabuena developed a taste for starch and treats, but they needed money to buy them, so instead of working their own fields, they began hitching rides to Guachochi, where they worked as dishwashers and day laborers, or selling junk crafts at the train station in Divisadero. “That was twenty years ago,” Ángel said. “Now, there are no runners in Yerbabuena.”

Page 44

Months later, I’d learn that iskiate is otherwise known as chia fresca— “chillychia.” It’s brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime. In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3s, omega-6s, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber, and antioxidants. If you had to pick just one desert-island food, you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease; after a few months on the chia diet, you could probably swim home.Chia was once so treasured, the Aztecs used to deliver it to their king in homage. Aztec runners used to chomp chia seeds as they went into battle, and the Hopis fueled themselves on chia during their epic runs from Arizona to the Pacific Ocean.

Note: Hyperbole like this makes me trust him less

Page 59

Even as late as the 1940s, the 10th Mountain Division commandos were forbidden to set foot in downtown Leadville; they might be fierce enough for the Nazis, but not for the cutthroat gamblers and prostitutes who ruled State Street.

Note: I’ve lost faith in this guy. I don’t know whether to believe him or not

Page 61

You might think poor Aron had already suffered enough, but little more than a year after his accident, he took Ken up on the offer. New prosthetic swinging by his side, Aron made it to the finish under the thirty-hour cutoff and went home with a silver belt buckle, thereby stating better than Ken ever could what it takes to toe the line at Leadville: You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.

Note: Pretty cool

Page 68

Ann had run track in high school, but got sick to death of “hamstering” around and around an artificial oval, as she put it, so she gave it up in college to become a biochemist (which pretty much makes the case for how tedious track was, if periodic tables were more spellbinding). For years, she ran only to keep from going nuts: when her brain got fried from studying, or after she’d graduated and started a demanding research job in San Francisco, Ann would blow out the stress with a quick patter around Golden Gate Park. “I love to run just to feel the wind in my hair,” she’d say.

Page 68

She could care less about races;

Note: Jesus was this book even proofread

Page 69

Relax enough, and your body becomes so familiar with the cradle-rocking rhythm that you almost forget you’re moving. And once you break through to that soft, half-levitating flow, that’s when the moonlight and champagne show up: “You have to be in tune with your body, and know when you can push it and when to back off,” Ann would explain. You have to listen closely to the sound of your own breathing; be aware of how much sweat is beading on your back; make sure to treat yourself to cool water and a salty snack and ask yourself, honestly and often, exactly how you feel. What could be more sensual than paying exquisite attention to your own body? Sensual counted as romantic, right?

Page 73

Of course, there was one way Fisher could ease the media pressure on Team Tarahumara: he could shut up. No one had ever mentioned Tarahumara machismo until Fisher began telling reporters about it. “They don’t lose to women,” he said. “And they don’t plan to start now.” It was a fascinating revelation—especially to the Tarahumara, who wouldn’t have known what he was talking about. The Tarahumara are actually an extraordinarily egalitarian society; men are gentle and respectful to women, and are commonly seen toting infants around on the small of their backs, just like their wives. Men and women race separately, that’s true, but mostly for logistical reasons: moms with a passel of younguns to look after aren’t free to spend two days traipsing across the canyons. They’ve got to stay close to home, so their races tend to be short (by Tarahumara standards, “short” clocks in at forty to sixty miles). Women are still respected as crackerjack runners, and often serve as the cho’ kéame—a combination team captain and chief bookie—when the men race. Compared with NFL-revering American guys, Tarahumara men are Lilith Fair fans.

Page 75

“Sure,” Fisher replied. “You got twenty bucks?” “For what?” the startled runner asked. For crimes against humanity. For the fact that “white guys” had taken advantage of the Tarahumara and other indigenous people for centuries, Fisher would explain. And if you don’t like it, too bad: “I couldn’t care less about the ultra community,” Fisher would say. “I don’t care about white people. I like for the Tarahumara to kick white butt.”

Note: Getting real tired of this dude

Page 76

“Then I get to Leadville and meet this strange guy,” Tony Post went on. “He seemed like an inconsolable hothead. That was the contradiction. Here you had these really gentle people, being managed by the worst of American culture. It was like …” Post paused to reflect, and in the silence you could almost hear the realization dawning and forming in his mind. “It’s like he was jealous they were the ones getting all the attention.”

Page 78

His head was a Library of Congress of running lore, much of it vanished from every place on the planet except his memory.

Note: Show, don’t tell. So much hyperbole

Page 84

In the 1990 World Chess Championship, Kasparov made a horrible mistake and lost his queen right at the start of a decisive game. Chess grand masters around the world let out a pained groan; the bad boy of the chessboard was now road kill (a less-gracious observer for The New York Times visibly sneered). Except it wasn’t a mistake; Kasparov had deliberately sacrificed his most powerful piece in exchange for an even more powerful psychological advantage. He was deadliest when swashbuckling, when he was chased into a corner and had to slash, scramble, and improvise his way out. Anatoly Karpov, his by-the-book opponent, was too conservative to pressure Kasparov early in the game, so Kasparov put the pressure on himself with a Queen’s Gambit—and won.

Note: This dude has lost all credibility. I bet this isn’t even true

Page 88

Carl loaded her up with sports drink and Cytomax carbohydrate gel,

Note: Nice product placement, asshole

Page 92

Vigil had reached the uncomfortable conclusion that all the easy questions had been answered; he was now learning more and more about less and less. He could tell you exactly how much of a head start Kenyan teenagers had over Americans (eighteen thousand miles run in training). He’d discovered why those Russian sprinters were leaping off ladders (besides strengthening lateral muscles, the trauma teaches nerves to fire more rapidly, which decreases the odds of training injuries). He’d parsed the secret of the Peruvian peasant diet (high altitude has a curious effect on metabolism), and he could talk for hours about the impact of a single percentage point in oxygen-consumption efficiency.

Note: Nice. He hinted earlier and he’s answering now

Page 92

That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they’d never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind’s first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle—behold, the Running Man. Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else. And like everything else we love—everything we sentimentally call our “passions” and “desires”—it’s really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We’re all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.

Note: Poetry

Page 93

But the American approach—ugh. Rotten at its core. It was too artificial and grabby, Vigil believed, too much about getting stuff and getting it now: medals, Nike deals, a cute butt. It wasn’t art; it was business, a hard-nosed quid pro quo. No wonder so many people hated running; if you thought it was only a means to an end—an investment in becoming faster, skinnier, richer—then why stick with it if you weren’t getting enough quo for your quid?

Page 94

So what happened? How did we go from leader of the pack to lost and left behind? It’s hard to determine a single cause for any event in this complex world, of course, but forced to choose, the answer is best summed up as follows: $ Sure, plenty of people will throw up excuses about Kenyans having some kind of mutant muscle fiber, but this isn’t about why other people got faster; it’s about why we got slower. And the fact is, American distance running went into a death spiral precisely when cash entered the equation. The Olympics were opened to professionals after the 1984 Games, which meant running-shoe companies could bring the distance-running savages out of the wilderness and onto the payroll reservation.

Page 97

“Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry,” Mark Twain used to say.

Page 98

Anticipating a barrage of abuse back home, Clarke delayed his return by stopping off in Prague to pay a courtesy call to the bloke who never lost. Toward the end of their visit, Clarke glimpsed Zatopek sneaking something into his suitcase. “I thought I was smuggling some message to the outside world for him, so I did not dare to open the parcel until the plane was well away,” Clarke would say. Zatopek sent him off with a strong embrace. “Because you deserved it,” he said, which Clarke found cute and very touching; the old master had far worse problems of his own to deal with, but was still playful enough to grant a victory-stand hug to the young punk who’d missed his chance to mount one. Only later would he discover that Zatopek wasn’t talking about the hug at all: in his suitcase, Clarke found Zatopek’s 1952 Olympic 10,000-meters gold medal. For Zatopek to give it to the man who’d replaced his name in the record books was extraordinarily noble; to give it away at precisely the moment in his life when he was losing everything else was an act of almost unimaginable compassion. “His enthusiasm, his friendliness, his love of life, shone through every movement,” an overcome Ron Clarke said later. “There is not, and never was, a greater man than Emil Zatopek.”

Page 99

Maybe the ancient Hindus were better crystal-ball-gazers than Hollywood when they predicted the world would end not with a bang but with a big old yawn. Shiva the Destroyer would snuff us out by doing … nothing. Lazing out. Withdrawing his hot-blooded force from our bodies. Letting us become slugs.

Note: I wonder if this is true

Page 106

One man followed them. He was never seen in Leadville again either. It was the Tarahumara’s strange new friend, Shaggy—soon to be known as Caballo Blanco, lone wanderer of the High Sierras.

Note: Very nice storytelling

Page 108

By that point, even the Tarahumara seemed to be sick of dealing with the Pescador. They also noticed that he kept trading up for newer and nicer SUVs, while all they got for the long, lonely weeks away from home and their hundreds of miles of mountain running were a few bags of corn. Once again, dealing with the chabochis had left the Tarahumara feeling like slaves. That was the end of Team Tarahumara. They disbanded—forever.

Note: Fucking annoying bunch of people

Page 125

talks about exhaustion as if it’s a playful pet. “I love the Beast,” she says. “I actually look forward to the Beast showing up, because every time he does, I handle him better. I get him more under control.” Once the Beast arrives, Lisa knows what she has to deal with and can get down to work. And isn’t that the reason she’s running through the desert in the first place—to put her training to work? To have a friendly little tussle with the Beast and show it who’s boss? You can’t hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

Page 128

As nutritionist, he had the perfectly named Sunny Blende, a beautiful endurance-sports specialist who not only monitored his calories, but hoisted her top and flashed her breasts whenever she felt Sweeney needed perking up.

Note: Weird

Page 149

“I never really discussed this with anyone because it sounds pretentious, but I started running ultras to become a better person,” Jenn told me. “I thought if you could run one hundred miles, you’d be in this Zen state. You’d be the fucking Buddha, bringing peace and a smile to the world. It didn’t work in my case—I’m the same old punk-ass as before—but there’s always that hope that it will turn you into the person you want to be, a better, more peaceful person.

Page 152

“I forget that heavy Heidegger word, but it’s the one that means I’m an expression of this place,” Ted says,

Note: I’m finding it harder and harder to give a shit about these people

Page 170

Asics spent three million dollars and eight years—three more than it took the Manhattan Project to create the first atomic bomb—to invent the awe-inspiring Kinsei, a shoe that boasts “multi-angled forefoot gel pods,” a “midfoot thrust enhancer,” and an “infinitely adaptable heel component that isolates and absorbs impact to reduce pronation and aid in forward propulsion.” That’s big bucks for sneaks you’ll have to toss in the garbage in ninety days, but at least you’ll never limp again.

Note: So dishonest

Page 170

“Since the first real studies were done in the late ’70’s, Achilles complaints have actually increased by about 10 percent, while plantar fasciitis has remained the same,” says Dr. Stephen Pribut, a running-injury specialist and past president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine. “The technological advancements over the past thirty years have been amazing,” adds Dr. Irene Davis, the director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. “We’ve seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don’t seem to defeat the ailments.”

Note: Ever consider that maybe more people are running now than earlier?

Page 175

“I was a size twelve and flat-footed, and now I’m a nine or ten. As the muscles in my feet got stronger, my arch got higher.”

Note: Such wow. His foot shrunk

Page 179

“To her surprise,” as BioMechanics magazine would later report, “the plantar fasciitis symptoms abated and the patient was able to run short distances in the shoes.”

Note: I wonder if he could run longer distances. If he couldn’t I wouldn’t be surprised if the author would keep that from us

Page 179

For a guy who told so many people how to run, Bowerman didn’t do much of it himself. He only started to jog a little at age fifty, after spending time in New Zealand with Arthur Lydiard, the father of fitness running and the most influential distance-running coach of all time.

Note: The fuck is up with this cheap shot

Page 180

But he came home a convert, and soon penned a best-selling book whose one-word title introduced a new word and obsession to the American public: Jogging.

Note: He’s so keen to besmirch Bowerman that he doesn’t mention that Jogging recommended cheap shoes

Page 184

programming iPods.

Note: You don’t program iPods. This dude is such a noob

Page 191

When he was a Nordic skier and cross-country runner in high school, his coaches were always telling him he needed plenty of lean meat to rebuild his muscles after a tough workout, yet the more Scott researched traditional endurance athletes, the more vegetarians he found.

Note: Fack off

Page 200

but maybe (to paraphrase Bill Clinton) there was never anything wrong with Jenni that couldn’t be fixed by what’s right with Jenni.

Page 202

“You don’t stop running because you get old,” said the Demon. “You get old because you stop running.”

Page 207

Respecting that speed limit was a lot easier before the birth of cushioned shoes and paved roads; try blasting up a scree-covered trail in open-toed sandals sometime and you’ll quickly lose the temptation to open the throttle. When your feet aren’t artificially protected, you’re forced to vary your pace and watch your speed: the instant you get recklessly fast and sloppy, the pain shooting up your shins will slow you down.

Page 208

“Do you know about phenols?” Tony added. “They’re natural plant chemicals that combat disease. They basically boost your immune system.” When Cornell University researchers did a comparison analysis of wheat, oats, corn, and rice to see which had the highest quantity of phenols, corn was the hands-down winner. And because it’s a low-fat, whole-grain food, pinole can slash your risk of diabetes and a host of digestive-system cancers—in fact, of all cancers.

Note: Sounds like he’s selling snake oil, even when he possibly isn’t

Page 210

it’s as effective as red wine at neutralizing disease-causing free radicals.

Note: Fack off

Page 211

Because a monster salad is loaded with nutrient-rich carbs and low in fat,

Note: This dude sounds stupider by the minute

Page 218

the Neanderthals had us beat any way you keep score. They were stronger, tougher, and probably smarter:

Note: Fuck this guy

Page 219

Within ten thousand years of the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe, the Neanderthals vanished. How it happened, no one knows. The only explanation is that some mysterious X Factor gave us—the weaker, dumber, skinnier creatures—a life-or-death edge over the Ice Age All-Stars. It wasn’t strength. It wasn’t weapons. It wasn’t intelligence.

Note: Yeah this fucker is so sure it wasn’t intelligence based on skull size

Page 240

“Isn’t that amazing?” Bramble agreed. “Name any other field of athletic endeavor where sixty-four-year-olds are competing with nineteen-year-olds. Swimming? Boxing? Not even close. There’s something really weird about us humans; we’re not only really good at endurance running, we’re really good at it for a remarkably long time. We’re a machine built to run—and the machine never wears out.” You don’t stop running because you get old, the Dipsea Demon always said. You get old because you stop running… . “And it’s true for both genders,” Dr. Bramble continued. “Women show the same results as men.” That makes sense, since a curious transformation came over us when we came down from the trees: the more we became human, the more we became equal. Men and women are basically the same size, at least compared with other primates: male gorillas and orangutans weigh twice as much as their better halves; male chimps are a good one-third bigger than females; but between the average human him and the average human her, the difference in bulk is only a slim 15 percent. As we evolved, we shucked our beef and became more sinuous, more cooperative … essentially, more female.

Page 248

Finally, Caballo turned to Scott Jurek. “El Venado,” he said, which even got a reaction out of too-cool Arnulfo. Now, what was the crazy gringo playing at? Why would Caballo call the tall, lean, and supremely confident-looking guy “the Deer”? Was he giving the Tarahumara a foot tap under the table, a little hint how to play their cards on race day? Manuel remembered very well the way Caballo had urged the Tarahumara in Leadville to sit patiently on Ann Trason’s heels and “run her down like a deer.” But would Caballo favor the Tarahumara over his own compatriot? Or maybe it was a setup— maybe Caballo was trying to trick the Tarahumara into holding back while this American built an unbeatable lead… .

Note: Overhype

Page 253

The Tarahumara drew strength from this tradition, I realized, but Scott drew strength from every running tradition. He was an archivist and an innovator, an omnivorous student who gave as much serious thought to the running lore of the Navajo, the Kalahari Bushmen, and the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei as he did to aerobic levels, lactate thresholds, and the optimal recruitment of all three types of muscle-twitch fiber (not two, as most runners believe). Arnulfo wasn’t going up against a fast American. He was about to race the world’s only twenty-first-century Tarahumara.

Note: Getting tired of the buildup

Page 254

slicing away at the tire tread with my big-bladed Victorinox knife.

Note: Product placement

Page 262

Caballo and Manuel started asking the Tarahumara spectators some questions. It didn’t take them long to find out what was going on: the Urique Tarahumara were taking side trails and shaving the course. Rather than fury, Caballo felt a pang of pity. The Urique Tarahumara had lost their old way of running, he realized, and their confidence along with it. They weren’t Running People anymore; they were just guys trying desperately to keep up with the living shadows of their former selves.

Note: I bet it’s because they use modern shoes Kappa

Page 267

while I washed down a ProBar—a chewy raw-food blend of rolled oats, raisins, dates, and brown rice syrup—with the last of my clean water.

Note: Dudes out of control with the product placement

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