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I received the best advice for running I ever heard: 'You're not going to win, so just relax. If it feels like work, you're running too hard.

Christopher McDougall

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Christopher McDougall
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 24
Author
Journalist
Writer
BORN TO RUN
Hard
Received
Feels
Relax
Going
Advice
Work
Heard
Like
Winning
Running
Best
Ever

More quotes by Christopher McDougall

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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.
Christopher McDougall
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In 'Tarahumara' land, there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, or carbon emissions. They didn't get diabetes, or depressed, or even old: 50-year-olds outran teenagers.
Christopher McDougall
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Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.
Christopher McDougall
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Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.~Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race
Christopher McDougall
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We say the rarajipari is the game of life, ' Angel said. 'You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can't control it. You can only adjust.
Christopher McDougall
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it’s easy to get outside yourself when you’re thinking about someone else.
Christopher McDougall
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Running is the heart of what it means to be human.
Christopher McDougall
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Only recently have we come up with the technology to turn lazing around into a way of life. We've taken our sinewy, durable, hunter-gatherer bodies and plunked them into an artificial world of leisure.
Christopher McDougall
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I have the idea that running shoes are based on a kind of cult idea - that our feet are flawed and we need shoes to correct those flaws. The shoe companies are in the business of selling shoes. But there's no evidence from running shoe manufacturers that they're right. There's no scientific data that running shoes reduce injury.
Christopher McDougall
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-The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other but to be with each other. -The Hopis consider running a form of prayer they offer every step as a sacrifice to a loved one, and in return ask the Great Spirit to match their strength with some of his own.
Christopher McDougall
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When it comes to mentors, you can't beat survival.
Christopher McDougall
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Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
Christopher McDougall
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We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.
Christopher McDougall
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One of the most dangerous and best-kept secrets of the medical profession is the epidemic of anesthesiologists who are addicted to their own drugs.
Christopher McDougall
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We are the biggest sissies in the jungle. Every other animal is stronger than we are - they have fangs, they have claws, they have nimbleness, they have speed. We think Usain Bolt is fast - Usain Bolt can get his ass kicked by a squirrel.
Christopher McDougall
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Endurance, after all, is the only reason we even exist. We think of ourselves as nature's deadliest animals, but the truth is, a naked human is the biggest wimp in the wild. We have no fangs, no claws, no strength, and no speed.
Christopher McDougall
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Running should be free, man.
Christopher McDougall
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The 'Tarahumara' use their legs 'as designed.' By running at a young age with minimal footwear, they naturally develop the best biomechanical use of their legs. Cushioned shoes restrict foot movements and allow for over-striding. Short strides are natural.
Christopher McDougall
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Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.
Christopher McDougall
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Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.
Christopher McDougall