Scott Brinton

The running religion

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The bestseller “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen,” by Christopher McDougall, was published shortly before I took up running again in 2010, after a long hiatus. I had seen several references to it in the running literature, but until I recently read this 287-page masterwork, I didn’t understand all the fuss about it.

While at a New York Press Association conference in Saratoga Springs in April, I was ambling along Broadway when I stumbled across an oversized bookstore full of actual books –– the Northshire Bookstore. “Born to Run” was front and center in the sports section.

I’m happy I bought this book. If you love to run –– or if you hate to run –– read it. Yes, it’s very much a book about running, with lots of race accounts. Moreover, it’s a high-adventure search to understand who we are as a species and how we evolved over the millennia.

McDougall makes a compelling argument that we rose to the top of the animal kingdom because, at the heart of it, we are runners.

We don’t possess brute strength. We are, in fact, among the weakest of species. Not even the strongest of humans is a match for a lowly wolf, let alone a gorilla or a grizzly, despite all the ludicrous folklore. And, in the beginning at least, we didn’t spread across the Earth because of our keen intelligence. The Neanderthals, whom Homo sapiens overran and killed off in Europe and the Middle East 45,000 years ago, had larger brains and were more advanced than us, even though today we view them as big, dumb cave dwellers, McDougall writes.

If you look at yourself in the mirror –– really look –– and compare yourself to other life forms, you might think there isn’t much special about you. You have no razor-sharp claws or teeth. Your eyesight is decent, but not hawk-like. Relatively speaking, we aren’t especially muscular — even bodybuilders.

We are seemingly a sad, sorry, defenseless lot who should have been killed off tens of thousands of years ago. Yet, McDougall notes, we came to dominate the planet. How?

By running. Through natural selection, we were designed not to lift heavy objects or swim to any great depths or fly through the air with the greatest of ease. We were engineered to run –– not fast, like cheetahs, and not gracefully, like gazelles. We were designed to run really, really long distances.

McDougall takes us through the fascinating biomechanics of the human body, part by part, to demonstrate that our entire physical makeup is exquisitely structured to run for miles and miles and miles. Our large Achilles' tendons act as rubber band-like shock absorbers that keep us upright. Staying upright opens and supports our lungs, allowing a steady flow of oxygen into them. The ability to efficiently burn oxygen as a fuel source keeps us going long after other animals have tired out –– or died.

Yes, died. For tens of thousands of years, early humans survived –– and thrived — as “persistence hunters.” For ages, they didn’t possess the tools to kill their prey from a distance. They had no well-crafted spears or bows and arrows. They had only their bare hands, big rocks and pointy sticks. Their prey was always stronger or swifter, though, so it had to be in a weakened state before humans could swoop in (or, more precisely, jog in) for the kill.

How did they weaken the animals? By running them to death. Our ancient ancestors followed in close pursuit behind the creatures they sought to eat until they gave out, either dying on the spot or lying in a near-death state, powerless to fight back.

Humans became master trackers. They were able to decipher markings in the terrain that helped them determine whether an animal was maintaining speed or slowing down. They were geniuses of interpretation.

They were also, scientists believe, the first (and only) creatures to possess the ability to project into the future –– to imagine. To successfully track another animal, you must be able to follow it, yes, but you must also be able to anticipate its movements. Persistence hunting requires a decision –– you must know the precise moment when to strike. Otherwise you could very well could end up as the other creature’s supper. That requires forethought.

Modern society developed because of imagination. Without it, no skyscraper would be possible.

Humans, however, have largely abandoned their running ways, McDougall writes. Once, a long run was 100 or 200 miles. Today it generally means 3.1 or 6.2 or, if you’re really crazy, 26.2.

McDougall takes us to the hardscrabble deserts and mountains of Mexico, where we meet the Tarahumara Indians, who survive as “the running tribe,” largely hidden from modern society. There, he seeks to understand not only the physical origins of how we came to be, but also our spiritual core.

In a sun-scorched land, parched to the bone, he finds a religion, if you will, centered on “ultra-running,” giving meaning to his life –– and our own.

Scott Brinton is the Herald Community Newspapers’ senior editor for enterprise reporting and staff development and an adjunct professor at the Hofstra University Herbert School of Communication. Comments? SBrinton@liherald.com.