Born to Run: A Hidden
Tribe, Superathletes,
and the Greatest Race
the World Has Never Seen

I finished reading "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall last week, and even though I enjoyed the book I found it disappointing in technical terms. There's a lot of good talk about running but not enough real explanation of how the Tarahumara style works. Worst tragedy of all, there's no recipe for tesquino, the corn beer that Tarahumara runners stoke themselves with the night before a big race. How can you write about the Tarahumara and not include a recipe for tesquino? Fortunately I've experimented with enough home brew that I can figure it out for myself.

From having sorted through the book for useful bits of info and from having watched as many videos as I could find of genuine Tarahumara runners actually running, I do have a theory which is probably as good as anybody's theory. The same rules of physics apply to these people as to the rest of us, and that means the 40,000 calories people burn on an ultramarathon doesn't come out of thin air. Some runners carry dried corn, and there's a chia-based tonic they drink along the way as well. Just as people there aren't likely to ask for food and water -- because it's impolite -- people aren't likely to not offer something if they see you're in need of it. Several stories in the book deal with that local brand of generosity.

We can assume that people aren't running these long distances without food or water. On races here in the States where impolite Americans didn't offer the Tarahumara food and drink, they didn't take any, and they didn't do all that well in those races. Properly fueled they did just fine on others. But, they're not eating 40,000 calories during a race, and they don't have a lot of body fat to burn. So again the question is, how the heck do they do this?

The Gods Must Be
Crazy -- on DVD

The answer must be in efficiency, not in calories. The Tarahumara run barefoot-style, on the balls of the feet and the toes instead of on the flat of the foot or heels. That puts a more efficient set of leg muscles into operation and reduces impact stress -- something I've noticed from running training distances for several years in a bastard style of Tarahumara form, and something I'm seeing more now that I've actually watched them run. I was doing it all wrong, and even then I saw major improvements. Maybe I'll see another big jump soon.

A couple of things struck me as useful, from descriptions of the runners in the book. They run quietly, people speak of them as gliding, making so little noise that during night finishes observers nearly missed them running past. That's really low impact running, without skids or twists, and something to strive for. I can't do that yet.

Follow up:

The book also mentions that when one of the Tarahumara runners shifted from dirt to pavement, running the last of the course on blacktop, he changed his stance by bending his knees slightly more. Again that's efficiency, and something I've done to climb hills from time to time on a run without thinking about it much. Just seems to work better.

The medical opinion presented in the book is that, sadly, the corn beer isn't the answer. It doesn't take three gallons of corn beer to fully charge up and what isn't absorbed and converted probably just drains away into the sandy soil behind the bar. The docs also theorize that the Tarahumara run so efficiently by using the elasticity of tendons and ligaments instead of muscle strength. That might be a major part of the answer to the question of how they run so far on so little food. They bounce.

There's another old tradition which trains for the same sort of strength, and it comes from Asian internal martial arts, another of my interests. Jing strength isn't the same as muscular strength. Old masters considered it far superior to muscular strength, something that works faster and delivers more impact than muscle movement alone. Jing training involves special exercises designed to create stability and passive power, and then moves on to unusual techniques which release that power explosively. In one type of jing strike, for example, you wind up with a snapping motion in the opposite direction, away from the strike's target, using body motion to compress the body structure against the ground -- using the earth to power the strike was one of the old explanations. This happens quickly, and the elastic rebound powers the punch. Muscle power works in conjunction with the jing force, guiding it and adding to it.

I enjoyed the book "Born to Run" but if you want answers, you'll have to find them on your own. There's a great section on "persistence hunting" which I had heard about before but did not understand until reading this, and it's actually explained much better than any of the other unusual running systems in the book. That information comes from a fellow who spent time with the Bushmen in the Kalahari desert, some of the best distance runners in the world and the subject of my favorite running movie of all time, "The Gods Must Be Crazy -- Part II." If you haven't seen that one, that's just sad.