Earlier this year I had the opportunity to meet Chris McDougall, author of  Born To Run, at the race expo the day before the St. Luke’s Lehigh Valley Half Marathon. Let me preface this by saying I am not a barefoot runner nor do I ever plan to run barefoot. I am quite happy running with my feet neatly tucked into my running shoes. My biggest fear would be stepping on something sharp and cutting open my tender feet. Another fear is how much it would change how I run. I’m referring to the affects of barefoot running on my muscles and tendons and biomechanics. Couple this with the fact that you don’t even find me walking around my house barefoot. Ever. I actually have house shoes that I use indoors, a somewhat old-fashioned concept but hey, call me old-fashioned. When I walk without shoes my feet hurt. Some would argue that this is precisely why I need to go barefooted more often, I need to strengthen my foot muscles. I’d argue back, why fix what ain’t broken?

Meeting Chris at race expo

I have met plenty of people who have taken to this whole barefoot revolution wholeheartedly. Some had suffered endless years from shin pains which magically disappeared once they bought their VFF’s (Vibram Five Fingers.) Others think that running shoeless makes sense and thought they’d give it a try. Still others like the concept, walk around in their VFF’s but just haven’t summoned up the courage or desire to take them puppies out for an actual run.

I’ll continue on with my shod running. The book did not convert me to the “other side” so to speak. But, that’s okay. There is plenty of room for all of us to run the way we like and who’s to say one way is better than the other. Recently, I found myself running a trail race side by side with a barefoot runner. As we ran together we talked about how he started running barefoot (and when I refer to “barefoot running” here I am actually referring to running in VFF’s) and how it’s changed his running. He claimed that going barefoot cured his shin splints and he was suddenly able to run longer distances. Hmmm … Well, I watched him run, curious as to how he would tackle the decline we were about to run down. He ran it much the same was as I did, perhaps a bit more tenderly than I. By the way, he had never read Chris’s book so not everyone who turns to barefoot running is converted through Born To Run.

I digress. I actually wanted to talk about Born To Run. From the first page I was enthralled. I had a hard time putting the book down. Each time I was called back to reality to tend to some life chores it was with reluctance that I did so. Chris starts off his book with this line:

“For days, I’d been searching Mexico’s Sierra Madre for
the phantom known as Caballo Blanco – the White Horse.”

From page one it’s easy to get wrapped up in Chris’s gift for storytelling, I was literally on the edge of my seat at times, yearning to find out more about what would play out next in his story.

The basic gist of the tale is this – an endurance race between America’s top ultra runner, Scott Jurek, and the Tarahumara, a group of people residing in small villages in Mexico’s Copper Canyon who travel only on foot and are known for being excellent runners. You couldn’t assemble a better cast of characters if you tried. The crew seems almost unreal but rest assured, they are very real. I’ve always felt that the most interesting characters lived on the fringe of society and this book proves this theory. In a quest to search out this mythical running tribe, the Tarahumara, to answer his own questions about running, Chris soon finds himself in the middle of Caballo’s quest to pit the Running People against Scott Jurek. For those of you who have not read this book, I am going to keep you in suspense. Trust me, it is well worth the read.

Chris weaves into this tale a little bit of history, some anthropology and science to support the reasoning behind barefoot running and uses the Tarahumara as a prime example of how well it can work. It is important to point out that Chris, himself, was not a barefoot or minimalist runner at this point, but it was Barefoot Ted who sparked the whole idea which has taken off since this book was published. Barefoot Ted showed up for the epic race wearing his Vibram Five Fingers and caused quite a stir in doing so. While I loved all of the science tangents for the information that they provided, I felt like they broke the continuity of the book. Just when I was getting to a really good part of the story my attention was broken by a science tangent. I don’t think Chris could have written the book any differently or it just wouldn’t have worked. Take out the science and it’s only a story. Keep the information in and he gets his point across. And I did find the scientific information interesting, especially since I have a degree in Anthropology. I am always interested to read the science mumbo jumbo and use it to reach my own conclusions.

As with any good book, I was sad when I read the final page. I wanted the story to keep going but all good tales must come to an end. There are books that sit on my shelf that have been thumbed through once and then set aside, and others that have tattered and ear-marked pages and scruffy covers. This book will become one of the latter.