Quote

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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Christopher McDougall
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 24
Author
Journalist
Writer
BORN TO RUN
Movement
Designed
Cushioned
Feet
Foot
Striding
Age
Naturally
Footwear
Natural
Legs
Strides
Use
Develop
Restrict
Running
Shoes
Minimal
Young
Allow
Stride
Best
Short
Movements

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When it comes to mentors, you can't beat survival.
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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.
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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.
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The words of the social critic Eric Hoffer were ringing true: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.
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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.
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If you don't think you were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.
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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.
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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.
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Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.
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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.
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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
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He was onto something. Something huge. It wasn't just how to run it was how to live, the essence of who we are as a species and what we're meant to be.
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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.
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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.
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Running should be free, man.
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