Thursday’s book

The best thing about this book is that you will spend an hour on the computer after you read it to find out if it is true. And it is, well mostly.

For the first time in a long time I wanted to take off my shoes and run.

Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong. Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.

Favorite passage:

Whenever an art form loses its fire, when it gets weakened by intellectual inbreeding and first principles fade into stale tradition, a radical fringe eventually appears to blow it up and rebuild from the rubble. Young Gun ultra runners were like Lost Generation writers in the ‘20s, Beat poets in the ‘50s, and rock musicians in the ‘60s: they were poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions. They were body artists, playing with the palette of human endurance.

Three things I want to do from reading this book.

1. Meet the Tarahumara Indians

2. Run a crazy distance on the mountain trails.

3. Completely barefoot.