Born To Run Book Report

The book, Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall starts off by showing McDougall, the main character, trying to find a way for his feet to hurt less. He tries to do everything to make it stop screaming out in pain with every step on the Earth's soil. For example, he tries to take cortisone shots and get shoes that have loads of cushioning. That didn't work so he tried researching. He stumbled upon an ancient tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara tribe. They run barefoot and can log hundreds of miles in one run. As the book goes on McDougall shows how the more cushioning you have on your shoe the more injuries you will get. He explains this through a story line that shows his trip to the Barranca Mountains that includes many other great runners. They go on many trail runs and figure out it helps to run barefoot, which is the main point of this book.

I think this book demonstrates the theme love is not at first sight. Those highlighter yellow new Nike running shoes you just bought are actually not all that special. You may have fallen in love with them, but McDougall's book shows that it is actually better to have shoes with less cushioning because it lets your foot unleash it's natural form without being contained inside a shoe. The book clearly fits into the genre

He uses a lot of facts that are very interesting and surprising. McDougall states, "even Alan Webb says 'human beings are designed to run without shoes" (McDougall 175). McDougall also intertwines a story plot that will get you up until midnight reading in your bed. The author's voice is like a roaring lion spitting out an argument against something mainstream. It displays a loud, booming, godlike voice in my head. That is another thing I enjoyed about this book. I also enjoyed the author's word choice. It was very much at the level that I prefer. It was not too basic but it did not contain incomprehensible words that made my mind