Friday 11 January 2013

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen




by Christopher McDougall

This book was recommended to me by a very good friend of mine, who incidentally smashed his way around his first marathon last year (I’m coming for your time Michael...), and I finally got a copy of my very own for Christmas this year. However I have to admit that initially it did not interest me in the slightest. After all, I am a connoisseur of quality literature: essentially if it isn’t by Cormac McCarthy, or it doesn’t have cowboys in it, I'm really not that interested. And as Canucks have dubious taste in most things, I figured why should books be any different (joke, that was a JOKE before you all start). But like a running pimp, he kept pushing it, and eventually I cracked – flicking through a few pages one night whilst he was yakking on the phone. Fast forward three days and one conversation about how occasionally, just occasionally, I might not always be right; and I'd read the whole thing cover to cover, and thoroughly enjoyed it. McDougall manages to convey what it is that got me into running in the first place: how it nice its feels to bound along a pavement, the pleasure of reaching the top of a hill, and the sheer happy exhaustion only achievable (for me) at the end of a good run. So I guess if you want an insight into why I do what I do, and how it feels, explained in words more eloquently arranged than those hastily typed into this blog, give it a go. But I warn you, there are no cowboys.

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