Home > Work > Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
81 " Your body needs to be shocked to become resilient. Follow the same daily routine, and your musculoskeletal system quickly figures out how to adapt and go on autopilot. But surprise it with new challenges--leap over a creek, commando-crawl under a log, sprint till your lungs are bursting--and scores of the shorts out of consideration for my eighty-two-year-old neighbor. "
― Christopher McDougall , Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
82 " Running seemed to be the fitness version of drunk driving: you could get away with it for a while, you might even have some fun, but catastrophe was waiting right around the corner. "
83 " The only way to conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it. "
84 " The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined. "
85 " If you don’t have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain’t getting them. "
86 " When he zoomed in, he was startled by what he found: instead of each foot clomping down as it would in a shoe, it behaved like an animal with a mind of its own—stretching, grasping, seeking the ground with splayed toes, gliding in for a landing like a lake-bound swan. "
87 " a meat cleaver of a vocabulary when it comes to describing people. In the Tarahumara tongue, humans come in only two forms: there are Rarámuri, who run from trouble, and chabochis, who cause it. "
88 " There’s something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we’re scared, we run when we’re ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time. "
89 " ... this ninety-five-year-old man came hiking twenty-five miles over the mountain. Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn't. No one ever told him he oughta be off dying somewhere in an old age home. You live up to your own expectations... "
90 " You know what kind of nerves are in your feet? The same ones that network into your genitals. Your feet are like a minnow bucket full of sensory neurons, all of them wriggling around in search of sensation. Stimulate those nerves just a little, and the impulse will rocket through your entire nervous system; that’s why tickling your feet can overload the switchboard and cause your whole body to spasm. "
91 " You could literally halt epidemics in their tracks with this one remedy,” he said. He flashed two fingers up in a peace sign, then slowly rotated them downward till they were scissoring through space. The Running Man. “So simple,” he said. “Just move your legs. Because if you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are. "
92 " There’s something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. "
93 " You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless. "
94 " Runners in shoes that cost more than $95 were more than twice as likely to get hurt as runners in shoes that cost less than $40. "
95 " Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else. "
96 " Wilt Chamberlain, all seven feet one inch and 275 pounds of him, had no problem running a 50-mile ultra when he was sixty years old after his knees had survived a lifetime of basketball. "
97 " And if I really wanted to understand the Raramuri, I should have been there when this ninety-five-year-old man came hiking twenty-five miles over the mountain. Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn't. "
98 " Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way. "
99 " In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. "
100 " an hour in running shoes, I got almost instantly from these Kangoo boots,” Ted says. “My worldview of what I needed was shattered.” Furious and frustrated, he yanked them off his feet. He couldn’t wait to shove the stupid Kangoos back in the box and mail them back to Switzerland with instructions for further shoving. He stalked "