Born to Run

My daughter has been heckling me lately about writing a blog post. I've told her the truth - that I've just been busy. Between work, her activities, her brother's never-ending energy level, feeding the family, doing a modicum of house chores and fitting in exercise, I'm sort of tapped out and brain dead by the end of the night. She really likes that I write this blog, and I think she has gotten a lot out of watching me turn my life around in the process of writing it. I recently asked her if she wanted to write a post about perspective of the past two years. She told me she was too busy.

There is one thing though that I want really do want to share. Knowing that I loved reading John Bingham's book, An Accidental Athlete, one of my closest girlfriends put Christophper McDougal's Born to Run in my hands last fall. She knows that I am a reader, and she knows me very, very well. Still, when she handed me the book, I thought that there might be some mistake. Remember? I'm just like the Accidental Athlete?! How could I also be Born to Run?!! The juxtaposition left me wondering and a little scared. I assumed that B2R was for die-hard runners only. People who loved running as kids, teens and adults - who plan vacations around running and the thrill of pushing themselves to the very limit. In other words, NOT me. Granted, I now run occasionally for fun, and some of my runs have felt really fantastic, but plenty of them are still really, really icky. I had to take a class to learn how to run for goodness sake! (Which by the way was EXCELLENT. The instructor Bruce couldn't be a nicer guy, the class size is kept small, and it is FREE. Just another reason to love my local running store MetroRunWalk!) But c'mon. Everyone knows that I am not a natural born runner.


But I smiled and brought the book home. I told my husband that I would read it when I finished the book I was on, which at the time was A Feast for Crows in the Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) series. So he started reading it instead. And then he started talking about it all the time. Ad nauseum. So in my passive aggressive away, I moved on to the next book in my series. He wanted to talk about B2R so much that I finally told him that I'd have no reason to read it. His reaction was very surprising. Typically I would have expected him to be just fine with that and tell me everything, but instead he looked panicked and stopped talking immediately with the exception of, "well... you just have to read it."

They were both right. I needed to read it, and now I'm a book thumper telling everyone I see that they need to read it too. Everyone. That includes you. Maybe even starts with you. Born to Run is so much more than a running book. It is a book about life, relationships, community, food, anthropology, human evolution, and yes, running too. It's well written, entertaining, and thought provoking. If you absolutely know you aren't going to read it, or if you are just so excited you can't wait and need to know more now, watch Christopher McDougal speak at TEDxPennQuarter 2011.

Thanks Jamie.  Reason #982348 you are a good friend.