Born To Run?
And how the past can inform your future.
Part of what got me hooked on running was Christopher MacDougall’s book Born To Run, which I listened to on Audible during those early, fat-footed forays.
The story made me feel like I was doing something not only personally beneficial, but perhaps fundamentally vital to my humanity.
It was like I was unlocking a superpower hidden in plain sight.
(I’m conscious that sounds hyperbolic1, but stick with me).
The book is about McDougall’s journey to find an elusive tribe known as the Tarahumara Indians2 who live in the Copper Canyons of Mexico. These people are known to be supreme endurance runners, covering hundreds of miles for purposes of communication, transportation, hunting and simple pleasure.3
Not only do they cover incredible mileage through challenging terrain, but they do it with minimal foot protection in thin-soled huarache sandals. The book led to a surge of barefoot / minimalist running culture, including the birth of dedicated brands.4
McDougall describes how the Tarahumara live among the canyons, making homes in natural caves or recesses carved from the stone. They subsist on basic staples of corn and beans and are a supremely healthy people, free of most ailments and injuries that plague modern societies.
“In Tarahumara land there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug-addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure or carbon emissions. They didn’t get diabetes, or depressed, or even old.”
- Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
Sounds pretty good, right?
McDougall undoubtedly strays into the realms of the noble savage fallacy in his characterisation of these people, but he wasn’t the first to fall under their spell.
Despite some kickback about romantic depictions of Tarahumara lifestyles there’s one thing both anthropologists and storytellers agree on: the Tarahumara people are supreme endurance athletes who run for both joy and purpose.
In search of these running people and their secrets, McDougall meets a loner who has rejected society and gone to live with the Tarahumara, similarly in pursuit of their mystery and strength. The people call him Caballo Blanco, meaning “White Horse”, and he becomes a central figure in the book, just as intriguing as the Tarahumara themselves.
The climax of the book involves McDougall, Caballo Blanco and a group of elite runners including Scott Jurek pitting themselves against these mysterious and seemingly superhuman natives in a 50 mile race through the Copper Canyons.
It’s compelling to say the least, and being captivated by this story helped the early miles I ran tick by almost unnoticed.
McDougall also touches on the theory that humans are meant to run - hence the title. He poses (as others have) the anthropological theory that early humans were persistence hunters, evolving onto two legs because it allowed us to move further and with greater efficiency. Persistence hunting has been practiced in many parts of the world and involves hunters literally running their prey to death.
We have one distinct advantage over all other animals when it comes to travelling over long distances - we sweat to cool down. Alongside our relative hairlessness, this allows us to keep moving at moderate speeds without having to stop and without panting. And this means we can chase down animals that move much faster than us over short distances, even cheetahs.
Theories of persistence hunting always make me think of another book everyone should read, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Harari writes many things that will make you look at your hands more closely and wonder. It’s no exaggeration to say that this book profoundly altered my view of the world.
To summarise (and do absolutely no justice to) Harari’s astounding arguments (which you really should read for yourself) his idea is that our one advantage over all other creatures is our imagination and our ability to believe in fictions. This allows us to collaborate in large numbers, even with people we don’t know, and hence leads to power.
Think about it.
We didn’t begin on the plains of Africa with any sort of advantage. In fact, we had some significant disadvantages: other animals were far bigger, stronger and faster. They had sharper teeth and claws. They were more aggressive and more efficient hunters. We weren’t even the strongest or most advanced species of human.
Before we were hunters and gatherers we were simple scavengers, picking over carcasses other creatures had finished with, often reduced to breaking the cleaned bones for the marrow inside.
So how did we get from that, to this? That’s the question addressed by Sapiens.
Anthropological theories of persistence hunting would support Harari’s ideas. Collaboration is key to persistence hunts. A man might theoretically chase down an antelope alone, but he’s unlikely to succeed unless he’s part of a group.
So it follows that running is not only natural, but perhaps a key part of our evolutionary superpower. It might be something we’re all meant to do.
Imagine a group of children playing. They don’t walk, or skulk, or lie down and contemplate life, do they?
They run.
My boys like nothing more than chasing each other around at full pelt in pursuit of some stolen toy or imagined prey.
They don’t stroll in the woods, they tear through the trees like little animals.
Because why wouldn’t you?
They were never taught to do this, it’s just in them.
When it comes to my own running I can be a bit of a lone wolf, but there’s joy in running with a pack. There’s an energy that exists in groups of humans with a shared goal or purpose.5
In ultrarunning the prevalent culture is not one of competitiveness but of support, teamwork and collaboration. Non-runners wonder why people put themselves through the physical and mental stress of running extreme distances. The runners often find this difficult to respond to, like the answer is something intangible.
But it’s not hard to trace elements of ultrarunning to our evolutionary past - working together, facing difficulties and dangers, pushing our bodies, exposure to nature, achieving goals, problem solving…
Although McDougall’s clever narrative got me off the blocks, just as it did for thousands of people worldwide, the greater depth of some anthropological studies of the Tarahumara are more instructive.
These people are supreme endurance runners, but the reasons for this are not magic, nor even genetic. Running is ingrained in their culture and identity. It’s part of how they work, how they play and how they celebrate.
Although persistence hunting is likely no longer practiced, the Tarahumara still exercise the skills in other aspects of their lives.
Children herd sheep and goats from as young as 5 years old, trekking vast distances over rocky terrain. The practice of transhumance means that many of these children will walk and run miles every day for their whole lives.
Running games are integral to their communities. Relay teams pursue a wooden ball through the canyons for many miles and hours (often after drinking and dancing all night). Starring in the rarajipari or ariwete is as aspirational to Tarahumara children as playing in the NBA or Premier League might be in other parts of the world.
Community dancing takes place regularly throughout the year and involves feats of endurance with dancers performing non-stop for 24 hours or more.
Above all, anything that involves running also involves socialisation - if they run, they run together.
As a recent study into Tarahumara running culture put it: “The long established Tarahumara footraces are part of an ancient, widespread and diverse tradition of Native American running that is deeply community oriented.”
They’re not that different to us. The things we gain from pushing our bodies over time and distance - increased strength, self-confidence, awareness, a sense of achievement or worth, a feeling of connection, even enlightenment - are likely the same as the Tarahumara. It’s just that we search for some of what we’ve lost by squeezing runs between work, family and social commitments, or paying a small fortune for the privilege of toeing a line with hundreds of others.
Ironically, we’re trying to break away from comfort, fighting to claw back some of the challenge that shaped us.
The Tarahumara don’t need to do this. They don’t need to train or force themselves to run because their lives are still based around movement.
To paraphrase the study cited earlier, Tarahumara don’t run to get fit or healthy, or to fight the effects of age or illness, these are just by-products.
Instead, their ability and desire to run vast distances comes from hard work, determination, active lifestyles, and the social and spiritual benefits they find in feats of endurance. For them, running has been likened to a form of prayer.
But there’s no great Tarahumara secret that allows them to run so well. The trick is just to keep moving.
And within this lies something I think is vital to understand in maintenance of both a rewarding life and a running habit: it’s not always about running, it’s just about doing anything that brings you joy.
Hyperbollocks? (Good name for an email newsletter…)
In their own language they’re known as Raramuri which means “runners on foot” or “those who run fast”.
Their traditional game is called rarajipari (men) and ariwete (women). It involves large relay teams kicking a wooden ball. Games can last up to two days without a break and take place over miles of terrain.
I swallowed this aesthetic whole, but more on my minimalist running adventures and conclusions in a future post, perhaps…
A post about group flow will follow at some point…