We Are Built to Run

I just finished the book, “Born To Run” by Christopher McDougall, and I am at a loss for words to describe the passion this book was written with and the motivation that pours out of every page; begging it’s reader to reach inside his/her inner spirit and find their historical purpose.  We were built to run…it’s how we evolved,  emerging from walking on four limbs to just two, in order to open up our airways to turbo-charge our lungs in order to chase down our prey.  Our bodies are running machines, using sweat glands to continually cool our system, unlike all other animals which rely on breathing to cool themselves until they can’t release enough overwhelming heat to the point the lay down to recover.  Not humans.  Believe it or not, we are perfectly built endurance machines, relying on distance and persistence to survive which is how we are still here today, and not extinct like our closely related cousins, the Neanderthals, who could hardly run a mile before tiring out, thus vanishing into extinction without the means to survive.  So why do we all dread the thought of running?  Our minds have evolved too, to the point where we try to get the most out of every situation with the least amount of energy exerted.  But if think about it, we run to/from everything in life…when you need to burn off some steam, you run,  when you’re scared you run away, when an emergency arises, you run to assist, to get in better shape we are all told to run…there’s a method to our madness, and it’s the simple fact that we were actually BORN TO RUN.

Back in 2008, I was badly out of shape and was in desperate need of a wake up call before an array of health problems came knocking at my door…such as diabetes, high blood-pressure, and stroke which all run in my family.  I was tipping the scales at about 187 pounds and if I had to roughly estimate, about 25% body fat, which at 5’11’’ tall was not a very good ratio and I had the vital signs to prove it.  My RESTING heart rate was a staggering 78 beats per minute and my blood pressure was high as well, around 145/90.  I had fallen victim to the great American diet of gotta have it now which included every fast food chain I could think of.  I knew I needed to get whipped into shape, and what could be better than Sergeants Course in Quantico, VA.  It was in the dead of the coldest winter I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I was there for 7 weeks from the middle of January to the end of February and I swear the temp never broke the 30 degree mark, often times seeing wind chills of sub zero.  And we ran.  Like there was some kind of emergency we had to get to or the world was going to end!  It didn’t matter how cold it was, we were going for a run every other morning at 6 am.  And these weren’t you’re typical, ‘Hey let’s go for a jog to get your heart rate up a little type of  runs’, they were 5 to 8 mile interval runs of ‘Hurry up and get your ass up that hill’ runs!  Needless to say, the instructors were in the game of shaping Marines for combat ready effectiveness, and they were damn good at it!  The first day of class we were told we had to run a PFT (Physical Fitness Test)….”But, GySgt, it’s snowing outside, how the f**k are we supposed to evaluate our fitness when its 20 degrees outside and the ground is covered in ice??”  You can imagine where that comment was told to go…so off I started, and for those of you who don’t know, the PFT consists of a maximum pull-up effort (20 reps being 100%), a timed 2 minute crunches effort (100 reps being 100%), and a 3 mile run (18 minutes being 100%, which is ludicrous in my opinion as I have only attained this goal one time in my Marine Corps career as a recruit in boot camp when I was 21 years old and ran a 17:40 weighing in at a whopping 145 pounds!).  Upon the culmination of  this specific snow covered PFT, I scored 17 pullups, 100 crunches, and a 26:40 run time, a ghastly performance when you are trying to impress your instructors at an elite military training academy, nonetheless, at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps.  I shrugged off my poor performance, though, and said to myself, “This is why you are here, Barrett, to get into shape and become a better person.”  And I did just that.

Seven weeks later, after pushing myself through run after run after run ( I should point out that at one point early on in the course, I nearly fainted on one of the runs, but kept it to myself as I was embarrassed.  Later that night, on my own, I ventured to the schoolhouse gym and put myself on a treadmill to check my heart rate when I ran to see if that was the culprit for the light-headedness, and sure enough, just 8 minutes into the run, my heart was beating out of my chest at an astonishing 198 beats per minute, so I could tell I was going to have to pace myself on my own and work that much harder) I was reveling in the fruits of my labor.  Here were my scores:  20 pullups, 100 crunches, and a 20:40 3 mile run!!  Better than that, I weighed in at 167 pounds, I am guestimating my body fat % dropped to  around 10 (I didn’t have the means to accurately measure), my resting heart rate was reduced to 47 bpm,  I no longer had high cholesterol, and my blood pressure was an astonishing 116/65. All this because I RAN for 7 short weeks.  No crazy diet plans, no supplements, no borrowed urine for my blood tests, haha, just pure NATURAL, running. These are not minimal changes people!  These were life changing results due to tapping into what my body responded to the most. 

I’m telling you this because I have seen the positive effects of running, and after reading this amazing book,  it has reconfirmed what I truly believe, and that is fitness cures all that ails us.  You don’t stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.  The famous Running People of the Copper Canyons, called the Tarahumara, don’t suffer from all the diseases we suffer from, and neither did our ancestors.  They don’t die of diabetes, or lung cancer or massive heart attacks because their bodies are keeping in tune with what they are supposed to do, and that is to run, which in turn keeps them in shape yielding longer healthier lives.  Please, do yourself a favor and find it in you to make fitness a part of your life, you may be surprised at what your amazingly adaptive body can withstand to.  The Tarahumara are living, breathing proof at what we are built to do, running hundreds of miles a day!  And that's not it, the coolest part of their whole story…they do it in sandals!!  Which brings me to my next point…

You don’t need fancy running shoes to cure your knee/foot/back/shin splints, you need to go back to how your foot was supposed to carry your ass…barefoot!  I’m telling you, I am in the front of the line when it comes to complaining about foot and back pain due to running.  And this book has opened my eyes as to why…we aren’t built to put our foot in a 1 1/2’’ soled Nike running shoe that causes our foot to hit the ground bony heel first, our foot is a magnificently built arch that is one of the most amazingly created biomechanically sound structures the world has ever seen.  It consists of over ¼ of the body’s total bones, and 26 muscles that are there for one reason, to catapult your body as long as you feel like running, be it 13.1 mi, 26.2 mi, 100k, or 100 mi, it will withstand your beating.  Your foot is an amazing sensory organ and the more cushion you put around the natural structure of your foot, the more you confuse it upon impact, thus making each step more unstable than the last.  Simply put, the evolution of the running shoe may be the most destructive force ever to hit the human foot.  Dr. Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University said this, “If running shoes never existed, more people would be running.  Up until 1972 people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and had much lower incidence of knee injuries; that is until Nike invented the modern day running shoe.  A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are actually caused by running with shoes that actually make our feet weaker, cause us to over-pronate, and give us knee problems.  If more people ran, fewer would be dying of degenerative heart disease, sudden cardiac arrest, hypertension, blocked arteries, diabetes, and most other deadly ailments of the Western World.”  So what am I asking of you?  Try taking a page out of Stanford University’s book and do some barefoot training…or listen to Gerard Hartmann, Ph.D., who is the world’s best distance runner’s guide who says, ‘Barefoot running has been one of my training philosophies for years”, and “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past 25 years.” 

Just give it a shot, who knows, you may find your long lost passion hidden deep inside your veins as you unleash on a spontaneous unmeasured run, and release those endorphins that seemed to fuel your ancestors upon each and every run.  Barefoot or not, get out there and find the primal you, and live life to its fullest, and let fitness become a part of your life, so you can take advantage of your precious time on earth.  See you on the trails!