Are we born to run Christopher McDougall
running you know it’s basically just
right left right left yeah I mean we’ve
been doing it for two million years so
it’s kind of arrogant to assume that
I’ve got something to say that hasn’t
been said and performed better a long
time ago but with the cool thing about
running as I’ve discovered is that
something bizarre happens in this
activity all the time
case in point a couple of months ago if
you saw the New York City Marathon I
guarantee you you saw something that no
one has ever seen before an Ethiopian
woman named derartu tulu turns up at the
starting line she’s 37 years old she
hasn’t won a marathon of any kind in
eight years and a few months previously
she had almost died in childbirth the
Arthur Tolu was ready to hang it up and
retire from the sport but she decided
she’d go for broke and try for one last
big payday in the marquee event the New
York City Marathon except bad news for
dr. to loose some other people had the
same idea including the Olympic gold
medalist and Paula Radcliffe who is a
monster the fastest woman marathon or in
history by far only ten minutes off the
men’s world record Paula Radcliffe is
essentially unbeatable
that’s her competition the gun goes off
and I mean she’s not even an underdog
she’s like under the underdogs but the
under underdog hangs tough and 22 miles
into a 26 mile race there is derartu
tulu up there with the lead pack now
this is what something really bizarre
happens Paula Radcliffe the one person
who is sure to snatch the big paycheck
out of director to lose under underdog
hands somebody grabs her leg and starts
to fall back so we all know what to do
in this situation right you give her a
quick crack in the teeth your elbow
blades for the finish line draw to tulu
ruins the script instead of taking off
she falls back and she grabs Paula
Radcliffe says come on come with us you
can do it so Paula Radcliffe
unfortunately does it she catches up
with the lead pack and is pushing toward
the finish line but in she falls back
again and the second time for arc to
tulu grabs or tries to pull her and
paula radcliffe at that point says I’m
done
go that’s a fantastic story and we all
know how it ends she loses a check but
she goes home was
something bigger and more important
except direct with Hulu ruins the script
again instead of losing she blazes
passively pack in wins wins a New York
City Marathon goes home with a big fat
check it’s a heartwarming story but if
you drill a little bit deeper you’ve got
to sort of wonder about what exactly was
going on there you know when you have
two outliers and one organism it’s not a
coincidence when you have someone who is
more competitive and more compassionate
to anybody else in the race again it’s
not a coincidence you show me creature
with webbed feet and gills somehow
waters involved some with that kind of
heart there’s some kind of connection
there and the answer to it I think can
be found down in the copper canyons of
Mexico where there’s a tribe a reclusive
tribe called the Tarahumara Indians now
the tabla mata are remarkable for three
things number one is they have been
living essentially unchanged for the
past of 400 years when the conquistadors
arrived in North America you had two
choices you can either fight back and
engage or you could take off the mines
and the Aztecs engaged which is why
there are very few mines and Aztecs
doTERRA Mata had a different strategy
they took off and hid in this
labyrinthine networking kind of spider
webbing system of canyons called the
copper canyons and there they’ve
remained since the 1600s essentially the
same same way they’ve always been the
second thing remarkable but about the
Tarahumara is deep in the old age 70 and
80 years old these guys aren’t running
marathons
they’re running mega marathons they’re
not doing 26 miles they’re doing a 100
150 miles at a time and apparently
without injury without problems the last
thing that’s remarkable about the tyro
Mata is all the things that we’re really
talking about today all the things that
we’re trying to come up using all our
technology and brain power to solve
things like heart disease and
cholesterol and cancer and crime and
warfare and violence and clinical
depression all this stuff that thought
about done what you’re talking about
they are free from all of these modern
illness so what’s the connection again
we’re talking about outliers there’s got
to be some kind of cause and effect
there well there are teams of scientists
at Harvard and the University of Utah
that are been
their brains and trying to figure out
what the tamada have known forever
they’re trying to solve those same kind
of mysteries and once again a mystery
wrapped inside of a mystery perhaps the
key to doctor to Lu and the total mata
is wrapped in three other mysteries
which go like this three things if you
have the answer up here and take the
microphone because nobody else knows the
answer and if you know it then you are
smarter than anybody else on planet
earth mystery number one is this two
million years ago the human brain
exploded in size
Australopithecus had a tiny little pea
brain suddenly humans show up you know
Homo erectus big old melon head to have
a brain of that size you need to have a
source of condensed caloric energy in
other words early humans are eating dead
animals no argument that’s a fact
the only problem is the first edged
weapons only appeared about 200,000
years ago so somehow for nearly two
million years we are killing animals
without any weapons now we’re not using
our strength because we are the biggest
sissies in the jungle yeah every other
animal stronger than we are they have
fangs they have claws they have
nimbleness than speed you know we think
Usain Bolt as fast Usain Bolt and get
his ass kicked by a squirrel okay we’re
not fast that that would be an Olympic
event turn a squirrel loose whoever
catches the squirrel you get a gold
medal so no weapons no speed no strength
no fans no claws how we killing these
animals mystery number one mystery
number two women have been the Olympics
for quite some time now but one thing is
remarkable about all women sprinters
they all suck they’re terrible there’s
not a fast woman on the planet and there
never has been the fastest woman to ever
run a mile did it in 415 I could throw a
rock and hit like a high school boy who
can run faster in 415 for some reason
you guys are just really slow but but
you get to the marathon we were just
talking about you guys have only been
allowed to run the marathon for 20 years
because prior to the 1980s medical
science said that if a woman tried to
run 26 miles does anyone know what would
happen if you try to run 26 miles why
you were banned from the marathon before
the 1980s what’s that here uterus would
be torn yes you would have torn
reproductive organs uterus would fall
out literally flat and buddy
now I’ve been to a lot of marathons and
I’ve yet to see any a so so I’m in 20
years that women have been allowed to
run the marathon in that very short
learning curve you guys have been gone
from you know broken organs up to the
fact that you’re only 10 minutes off the
male world record then you go beyond 26
miles into the distance that medical
science also told us will be fatal to
humans when Philippa T’s died when he
ran 26 miles you get the fifty and a
hundred miles and somebody it’s a
different game you can take a runner
like Ann tracing or Nikki Kimball or
Jenn Shelton you put them in a race of
50 or 100 miles against anybody in the
world it’s a coin toss who’s gonna win
I’ll give an example a couple years ago
Emily bear signed up for a race called
the hardrock 100 which tells you all you
need to know about the race they give
you 48 hours to finish this race well
Emily Baer 500 runners she finishes an
eighth place in the top ten even though
she stopped at all the aid stations to
breastfeed her baby during the race and
yet be 492 other people the last mystery
so why is it that women get stronger as
distances get longer okay the third
mystery is this at the University of
Utah they started tracking finishing
times for people running the marathon
and what they found is that if you start
running the marathon the age 19 you will
get progressively faster year by year
until you reach your peak at age 27 and
then after that you succumb to the the
the rigors of time and you get slower
and slower until eventually you’re back
to running the same speed you are at age
19 so about seven years eight years to
reach your peak and then gradually you
fall off your peak until you go back to
the starting point you would think it
might take that maybe eight years to go
back to the same speed maybe ten years
no it’s 45 years 64 year-old men and
women are running as fast as they were
at age 19 now I defy you to come up with
any other physical activity and please
don’t say golf something that actually
is hard wear geriatrics are performing
as well as they did as teenagers so you
have these three mysteries is there one
kind of piece in the puzzle which might
wrap all these things up you gotta be
really careful anytime someone looks
back in prehistory and tries to give you
some sort of global answer because it
being prehistory you know you can say
where the hell you want you
with it but I’ll submit this to you if
you put one piece in the middle of this
jigsaw puzzle suddenly it all starts to
form a coherent picture if you’re
wondering why it is that the town Ramada
don’t fight and don’t die of heart
disease why a poor Ethiopian woman in
dr. tulu can be the most compassion and
yet the most competitive and why we
somehow were able to find food without
weapons perhaps it’s because humans as
much as we like to think of ourselves as
masters of the universe actually evolved
as nothing more than a pack of hunting
dogs
maybe we evolved as a hunting pack
animal because the one advantage we have
in the wilderness it’s not our fangs
another clause in our speed the only
thing we do really really well is is
sweat we’re really good at being sweaty
and smelly better than any other mammal
on earth we can sweat really well but
the advantage of that that it’s a little
bit of a social discomfort is the fact
that when it comes to running under hot
heat for long distances
we’re superb we’re the best on the
planet you take a horse on a hot day and
after about five or six miles that horse
has a choice it’s either gonna breathe
or it’s gonna cool off but it ain’t
doing both we can so what if we evolved
as hunting pack animals what if the only
natural advantage we had in the world
was the fact that we can get together as
a group go out there on an African
savanna pick out an antelope and why was
a packed and run that thing to death
that’s all we could do we could run
really far or on a hot day
well that’s true a couple other things
had to be true as well the key to being
a part of a hunting pack is the word
pack if you go out by yourself and you
try and chase an antelope I guarantee
you there’s gonna be two cadavers out
there in the savanna you need a pack to
pull together you need to have those 64
65 year olds have doing this for a long
time to understand which antelope you’re
actually trying to catch you know the
herd explodes and the gathers back again
those expert trackers are got to be part
of the pack that can’t be 10 miles
behind you need to have the women and
the adolescents there because the two
times in your life you most benefit from
animal protein is when you are a nursing
mother and developing adolescent it
makes no sense to have the antelope over
there dead and people who want to eat it
50 miles away
they gotta be part of the pack you need
to have those 27 year-old studs at the
peak of their powers ready to drop the
kill I need to have those teenagers
there who should learn in the hole
all involved the pack stays together
another thing has to be true about this
pack this pack cannot be really
materialistic you can’t be holding all
your crap around trying to chase the
antelope you can’t be a pissed-off pack
you can’t be bearing grudges like I in
case that guy’s antelope he’s you know
it pissed me off Lemke’s his own
antelope the pack has got to be able to
swallow its ego be cooperative and
pulled together what you end up with in
other words is a culture remarkably
similar to the Tarahumara a tribe that
has remained unchanged since the Stone
Age it’s a really compelling argument
that maybe the third rule Mata are doing
exactly what all of us had done for 2
million years that it’s us in modern
times it sort of gone off the path you
know we look at running as this kind of
alien foreign thing you know this this
punishment you got to do because he ate
pizza the night before but maybe
something different maybe we’re the ones
who have taken this this natural
advantage we had and we spoiled it how
do we spoil it well how do we spoil
anything we try to cash in on it right
we try to can it and package it and make
it better and sell it to people and what
happened was we started creating these
fancy cushioned things which can make
running better called called running
shoes the reason I get personally pissed
off at running shoes because I bought a
million of them and I kept getting hurt
and I think if anybody in here runs and
I’ve had two conversation with power we
talked for 2 minutes backstage and she’s
talking about plantar fasciitis you
talked to a runner I guarantee within 30
seconds the conversation turns to injury
so if humans evolved as runners that’s
our one natural advantage then why are
we so bad at it why do we keep getting
hurt curious thing about running and
running injuries is that the running
injury is new to our time if you read
folklore and mythology any kind of myths
any kind of tall tales running is always
associated with freedom and vitality and
youthfulness and eternal vigor it’s only
in our lifetime that running has become
associated with fear and pain Geronimo
used to say that my only friends are my
legs I only trust my legs that’s because
an Apache triathlon used to be you run
50 miles across the desert engage in
hand-to-hand combat steal a bunch of
horses and slap leather for home ok
Geronimo was never saying oh you know
something my Achilles I’m tapering I got
take this week off or I need a cross
train
I didn’t do yoga I’m not ready you know
humans ran and ran all the time we are
here today we have our digital
technology all of our science comes from
the fact that our ancestors were able to
do something extraordinary every day
which is just rely on their naked feet
and legs to run long distances so how do
we get back to that again
oh I would submit to you the first thing
is get rid of all the packaging all the
sales all the marketing get rid of all
the stink and running shoes stop
focusing on urban marathons which you
know if you do for hours you saw it but
if you three three nine point five nine
you’re awesome because you qualify for
another race we need to get back to that
sense of playfulness and joyfulness and
I would say nakedness that has made the
thought of LaMotta one of the healthiest
and serene cultures in our time so
what’s the benefit so what so you know
you’d burn off the haagen-dazs from the
night before but maybe there’s another
benefit there as well you know without
getting a little too extreme about this
but imagine in a world where everybody
could go out the door and engage in the
kind of exercise that’s gonna make them
more relaxed more serene more healthy
burn off stress where you don’t come
back into your office a raging maniac
anymore we don’t go home with a lot of
stress on top of you again maybe there’s
something between what we are today and
what the turbo model have always been I
don’t say let’s go back to the copper
canyons and live on corn and mice which
is the total models preferred diet but
you know maybe there’s somewhere in
between and if we find that thing you
know maybe there is a big fat Nobel
Prize out there because if somebody
could find a way to restore that natural
ability that we all enjoyed for most of
our existence up until the 1970s or so
the benefits social and physical and and
political and and mental could be
astounding so what I’ve been seeing
today is there is kind of a growing
subculture of barefoot runners people
who have gotten rid of their shoes and
what they have found uniformly is you
get rid of the shoes you get rid of the
stress you get rid of the injuries and
the ailments and what you find is
something that thought about I’ve known
for a very long time that this could be
a whole lot of fun I’ve experienced it
personally myself I was injured all my
life and then in my early forties I got
rid of my shoes and my
have gone away too so hopefully it’s
something we can all benefit from and I
appreciate you guys listening to this
story thanks very much