2014 Book Goal: 52 (mostly non-fiction)
2014 Books Read: 24 (83% non-fiction)

I just completed the book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall and it is the best book I have ever read on running.  Okay, so I’ve only read one or two books on running in my life… but this one really rocks. Not only did I find the book riveting from beginning to end, the boys listened to the audiobook with me while driving to school, scouts etc. and were enthralled as well.

This book touched on something that has long trouble me.  I used to run all the time.  I spent the majority of my youth running like mad… most of the time in bare feet.  My friends and I would run for hours on end – we weren’t hunting game… we were playing games.  The author (McDougall) begins the book with the same problem.  He wants to be a runner, but is told by doctors and other experts that he needs to take up bicycling or workout in a pool.  He wasn’t satisfied… and I am glad for his persistence.

Born to Run touches on so many great subjects from barefoot running and the disservice that companies like Nike, Adidas, Converse etc. have done in marketing running shoes to the world or ultra marathons and the ancestral advantages that led us to give up our natural inclination to running in favor of the lives of leisure we now live.

I could go on about what I love about this book, but it would take forever. I don’t want to run through the entire book, but I will tell you – it has caused me to change my activity level and actually believe that I may go back to being a runner (despite all the previous back and knee pain this had caused.)  I will leave you with what I feel is probably the best endorsement I could give for a book when both my boys agreed that this would make a really good movie.