Just finished "Born to Run" (the book) on my flight back from New York last night. The routing took us from JFK through San Francisco, with a driving headwind making the journey almost seven hours. So it was nice to have a book in my hands that didn't bore the living daylights out of me, or read so poorly that I wanted to hurl it against the bulkhead. This happens. Very often it happens with my own writing.

The core of the book is the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, and their legendary distance running prowess. The author goes there to do a story, is smitten by their lifestyle, falls in with an outlaw ultra-runner who's planning an epic race pitting the Tarahumara against the modern world's best ultra racers, and then undertakes to be in the race himself. On the surface, a simple story, but the author writes it well, weaving in bits of running lore and research along the way. The characters were intriguing and the writing was good (there were spots where the writer's magazine journalism background showed itself, with snarky asides and cute sentences better suited to the trendy, go-go pages of Men's Health). The book moved along quite well. One of my habits when I'm traveling is to leave a finished book wherever I am when I turn the last page. This lightens my load and leaves a book for the next guy to come along. Only when something really catches my fancy do I hang on to it. This is one I kept. 

By the way, I should add that I felt somewhat validated to read that elite ultra-runners consider the Stunt Runner to be just that -- a man consumed by running-oriented stunts that cheapen the sport. I've never had my finger on the pulse of the ultra world, so that to find my sentiments mirrored actually felt quite nice. 

Here's what I didn't like about the book -- and this may be the same stuff that many of you did like, but bear with me. This takes us back to the snarky digs. I found it contemptible that someone new to running could so openly attack legends like Bill Bowerman and George Sheehan. He makes Bowerman sound like an addled moron, and Sheehan sound delusional. He makes Joe Vigil out to be a visionary (an observation with which I wholeheartedly agree), but also makes a point to say that Arthur Lydiard was a far better coach than Bowerman. This, while assailing Bowerman for not becoming a runner until he was in his 50's.

Look, that's just dumb, particularly from a newcomer to running. 

You've got to earn your bones in a sport before taking potshots at guys who dedicated their lives to it. And for what? To prove the uber-trendy theory that barefoot running is the best way to go? This not only takes us back to the sound-bite writing of Men's Health and other pithy, self-absorbed lad books, it shows a complete ignorance of running or simple stride mechanics. Watch an elite runner power down up a hill, or round the final corner toward home, and you will understand how beautiful and precise a stride can be. And I've yet to see one not wearing shoes. Running barefoot to optimize your stride and strengthen your feet is nothing new to top runners, but it's just one technique among many that includes stride drills, core strengthening, and lactate threshold sessions that will scorch your lungs but perfect your running economy.

So there's that. 

And of course there's the disparagement of short, fast running events, insinuating that triathlon and ultra-running are somehow more pure because they're longer. As someone who's done ultras, long triathlons, marathons, and events as short as 800 meters, I can tell you there's no suffering like the kind of punishment you put your body through in a fast two-mile track race. 

What we need, actually, is a book that doesn't trumpet the longer-is-better school of self-actualization (though, you will admit that a guy who wrote "Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth" doesn't have much of a leg to stand on there. Let's just say I got that out of my system), but appreciates the beauty of endurance racing in all its guises without being threatened by the others. 

Keep Pushing... Always