Summary Of Christopher Mcdougall's Born To Run

Christopher McDougall’s non-fiction novel, “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” is an inspirational, dramatic tale of the barefoot Running People called the Tarahumara. This tribe of people has managed to preserve their healthy, active way of life separate from modern day culture in the shadowy Copper Canyons of Mexico. They are legends among modern runners for their incredible ability to run for hundreds of miles with grace and joy while being sustained by a minimalistic diet. This is a foreign way of life to many of us living in America where most people only run to fit into skinny jeans and where our super-sized meals are full of animal products. The beautiful sport of running, according

The super-human imagery, while creating a great narrative, places the Tarahumara people on a pedestal that they simply don’t deserve. McDougall certainly takes advantage of his literary license in describing the Tarahumara as, “the greatest ultrarunners on earth.” that no one can beat, “...not a racehorse, not a cheetah, not an Olympic marathoner.” (McDougall 4) This sentence was obviously meant to shock the reader and make us question how that could possibly be true. Later in the book he discusses the Running Man Theory which works to prove that our ancestors would catch their food by endurance running. So in theory, it is true that a trained endurance runner could not beat a racehorse or cheetah in speed but instead with our incredible endurance. However, even if a trained athlete is, in theory, capable of chasing down an animal for a meal, that is such a wild concept that almost no one can relate to. McDougall is making these people seem super-human while simultaneously trying to convince the reader that we are fundamentally similar to them which is extremely contradictory. It is frustrating to read about what could be possible if we were as “super human” as the Tarahumara. McDougall works hard to give the them a god-like aura by contrasting the average person with someone who can, “catch a deer with his bare hands, chasing the bounding animal until it finally dropped dead from exhaustion, ‘it’s hoofs falling off.’” (McDougall 4). McDougall’s book wouldn't be nearly as captivating if you removed the embellishment that seems to decorate the entire book, but it is also to his detriment as he makes the reader feel separated from the world of the Tarahumara through hyperbolistic