Born To Run

Have you ever heard of the Tarahumara Indians? Me either. But as I looked at the back of this book a few weeks ago, I was interested. They are a tribe that live in one of the most unlivable regions of the world, the Copper Canyons, and if that isn't enough, they are the best runners on the planet, running hundreds of miles over unsteady rocks, every day, for fun! Christopher McDougall, the author of this weird story, sets off to find their answers based on the single question, Why does my foot hurt? So far, this book has been a very slow read. Although it has been very interesting, it is very dense and skips around a lot, not really getting to the point. A lot of the story has been about Ultramarathon running, or running in races that are longer than 26 miles long. Some of the runs they have talked about are 50 miles long, and others are 100, up and down mountains. Personally, I could not run 100 miles without practically dying, and my views are shared with many people. Less than half of the runners that begin a 100 mile race finish it, and many of the finishers are so tired they collapse. Yet some people in this story are amazing. There are two college kids from out east, that don't train, are as broke as they can be, and still manage to get to races and finish really well. There is another woman, who is a third grade teacher, and runs for fun in Ultramarathons and does really well, breaking lots of records and winning lots of races. She's small, stocky built and does not look like a runner. That's what I really like about this book. The best runners come from the least likely places, aka, anything can happen to anybody, and miracles can come true.